More than 1,800 people were arrested in France on Saturday after protesters supporting high school students clashed with police, with some demonstrations later spiralling out of control as buildings were set ablaze and shops looted.
Tens of thousands of people were estimated to have taken part in protests that spread through viral calls on social media and brought together diverse groups including students, farmers, trade unionists, climate activists and people angry about fuel prices and the cost of living.
While many protested peacefully in street marches in scores of cities, violent fringe groups targeted public buildings, luxury boutiques and supermarkets and attacked police vehicles and officers.
Late on Saturday, prime minister Sébastien Lecornu said 1,200 people had been arrested and 150 police hurt. On Sunday interior minister Laurent Nuñez announced that the number of arrests had gone up to 1,800.
Nuñez said the official demonstration had been hijacked by casseurs – “opportunistic delinquents who had seen a chance to pillage and loot … we will find them and deal with them firmly”.
He said the government was not planning to declare a state of emergency but added: “I very strongly condemn the violence we have seen.”
In the city of Limoges, the town hall was “largely lost” to a fire set by masked protesters, the top regional official told the AFP news agency.
“The roof has collapsed on to lower floors, except the west wing, and two-thirds of the exterior has already disappeared,” local prefect Maurice Barate said, adding that the extensive damage to the 143-year-old building was a “catastrophe for heritage”.
Smoke rises from a bar on the sidelines of a demonstration in Paris on Saturday. Photograph: Getty Images
Protesters burned down the Lyons tourism office, torched cars and built burning barricades on the streets of Paris and broke down the door of Marseilles city hall to storm the building, spraying graffiti and damaging furniture.
Mayor of Marseilles Benoit Payan said the situation was “out of control” and called for national authorities to intervene.
“There are young people who are 16, 17 years old. What’s going to happen this afternoon? They’re going to get tear gas grenades in the face because there are troublemakers in the middle of the marches,” Payan told journalists.
“We can’t lump protesters with legitimate demands together with these vandals – they’re morons, imbeciles, thugs … I want them in prison, I want them brought to justice.”
Some protesters could be seen wearing the yellow reflective jackets that became the symbol of the gilets jaunes movement that ground France to a halt in 2018 with demonstrations initially triggered by fuel costs. “Macron is the vandal,” read one sign.
In some parts of Paris, young people could be seen marching peacefully and chanting the student protest slogan “we’re young, determined and revolutionary”.
Protesters throw projectiles during a demonstration in Paris on Saturday. Photograph: Getty Images
Elsewhere in the city centre, protesters, dressed in black with their faces covered, torched parked cars and burned piles of electronic bicycles on the street, their batteries exploding and sending thick dark smoke rising in plumes over the city.
Police attempted to gain control using tear gas and baton charges, and by the afternoon there had been 272 arrests across the country.
French Republican Security Corps clash with protesters during a demonstration in Paris’ Place de la Republique. Photograph: Getty Images
Hard-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon blamed authorities in Paris for the disorder, saying they had been tear-gassing the demonstrators’ gathering point on Place de la République “relentlessly”.
The far-right National Rally blamed “Mélenchon’s far left” for the “disorder”.
“Working France, which is taking the full brunt of inflation and the cost of living crisis, is not in the streets today,” close Marine Le Pen ally Jordan Bardella wrote on social media.
“The real mobilisation of the French for purchasing power, for lowering taxes on fuel, for work that pays decently, will be the vote for Marine Le Pen in the presidential election.”
Before student protests gathered force in September, viral posts on social media had already called for a revival of the yellow vests movement and for demonstrations across France on October 17th.
The protesters came together after a week in which universities shut down and college students joined high schoolers in mass protests in major cities.
[ France’s school protests: What lies behind the angerOpens in new window ]
French president Emmanuel Macron appealed for “calm” and said police forces were facing “difficult times” and “extreme violence”, in a press conference on the eve of the protests in Brussels, where he was attending a meeting of EU leaders.
“There is a constitutional right to demonstrate … there is a responsibility that comes with it,” Macron said. “The problem is when they are disorganised and there are elements there solely to vandalise and cause chaos, and that‘s unacceptable.” – Additional reporting: Guardian