France is preparing for a possible second wave of unrest after weekend demonstrations spiralled into looting, vandalism and violent clashes with police.
President Emmanuel Macron has faced fierce criticism from opponents, who accused him of appearing “pathetic” and losing his grip on the country. The backlash intensified as he continued a three-day Gulf tour, even as overnight curfews brought only a brief pause in the disorder.
A website used to coordinate the protests has called for another day of action on Saturday, describing the demonstrations as a “legitimate revolt” against the French government and major multinational companies.
The call for renewed protests prompted ministers to promise a larger security response. Officials acknowledged that public order had broken down, while Macron described the violence as unprecedented.
Authorities had forecast around 200,000 protesters for Saturday, but more than 500,000 people ultimately took part. At least 3,000 businesses were ransacked and nearly 1,000 police officers were injured during the unrest.
Ministers said far-left activists were joined by young people intent on looting shops, turning the protests into one of France’s most serious outbreaks of violence in years. At least 2,400 people were arrested.
Town halls were stormed and damaged in several cities, while the 19th-century neo-Renaissance municipal building in Limoges was engulfed in flames. Residents watched in shock as part of its roof collapsed.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, facing pressure from both the political left and right, offered to step down. Macron, however, rejected his resignation and instructed him to remain in office.
A man throws a plastic traffic cone through a burning barricade during clashes at demonstrations over the cost of living and rising fuel prices in Paris on October 17
A fire burns as riot police stand guard during civil unrest in Paris on October 18, the day after nationwide protests over the cost of living and rising fuel prices
Speaking to state broadcaster France Inter, Nuñez conceded that police had been overwhelmed by rioters. Mayors in Paris, Lyon and Marseille also said that “entire sections” of their cities had effectively been left without protection.
“There was an imbalance between the deployment and the number of demonstrators, but also the hoodlums, looters and far-left activists who caused the marches to degenerate,” Nuñez said.
He added: “On Saturday, in some major cities, after hundreds of shops had been looted, you could not look shopkeepers in the eye and tell them that we had not lost control.”
Some 10,000 officers were deployed during the weekend, and Nuñez confirmed that police numbers would be increased ahead of the next planned demonstrations.
The Élysée Palace said Macron rejected Nuñez’s offer to resign because he did not want to reshuffle the government during what has become one of the most serious crises of his presidency.
As the disorder continued, Macron called for a new strategy governing public order, aimed at containing the violence and restoring control.
Addressing the nation on Sunday, the president vowed to take action against looters while saying the government would hear the “legitimate” grievances of protesters who remained peaceful.
Jordan Bardella, leader of the hard-right National Rally, rejected the speech and branded Macron’s response “pathetic.”
Macron left France during the turmoil for a three-day diplomatic tour of Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar, where he hoped to strengthen the country’s energy security.
Although the president was seeking measures to bring down petrol prices, commentators said his decision to travel abroad made him appear disconnected from the crisis unfolding at home.
Macron said the tour was necessary because the protest movement ‘has its source in the conflict in the Gulf, in which France is not taking part, and from which we are subjected to the consequences’.
The chaos follows weeks of demonstrations by sixth-formers and university students over what they say are overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and dilapidated school buildings.
At the weekend, a second movement joined forces with the Gen Z demonstrators, this one initiated by calls to reinvigorate the ‘yellow vest’ protests that emerged over fuel duties and broader economic grievances in 2018.
The website 17octobregiletjaune.net, which was responsible for advertising marches across the country, is now advertising similar actions on October 24.
The organisers state that the movement is the successor to the ‘great tipping moments of history’ such as the French Revolution, the suffragettes and the resistance to the Nazi occupation of France during World War Two.
Opponents argue the yellow vests are a front for the radical Left France Unbowed party, who they accuse of using violence to subvert democracy.
Sébastien Lecornu, the Prime Minister of France, said the party aimed to ‘orchestrate deep unrest across the country’ in the hopes of undermining next year’s presidential election.
But Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the movement’s presidential candidate, denied the claims, instead accusing the government of fanning the flames of disorder via police brutality and a failure to meet the protesters’ demands.
Paris police issued an overnight curfew on Monday in two areas of the French capital, to protect ‘people and property from the violence and looting’.
The curfew prohibited anyone from entering or remaining on the Place de la République, where rioting took place Saturday, and the shopping neighbourhood of Les Halles, which has been subject to looting.
The curfew was in effect from 11pm Monday until 6am Tuesday. In addition, gatherings and demonstrations were banned from 8pm.
Earlier Monday, Lecornu had called for ‘very limited’ and ‘localised’ curfews.
In northern France, local authorities imposed a curfew for children and teenagers under age 18 in several cities, including Lille, starting from Monday and for the next two days from 8pm to 6am.
Nice, on the French Riviera, also imposed an overnight curfew for minors from 9pm.
Lecornu defended police handling of the unrest, saying that ‘despite scenes of severe violence and extensive property damage, no one was killed, and that is a miracle’.
A woman rides a bicycle past a burning barricade near the Tuileries Garden with the Eiffel tower in the background, amid clashes during a day of demonstrations, October 17
A protester throws a bicycle onto a burning car, October 17
Masked protesters stand next to burning bicycles, October 17
A fire burning and destroying the city hall in Limoges, central France on October 17, after a group of individuals forced entry into the building
Mass protests in France are often tainted by violence on the fringes of otherwise peaceful marches, leading to clashes with police.
Saturday’s unrest recalled the riots that followed the fatal police shooting of a teenager in 2023, when authorities imposed local curfews, and violence during the yellow vest movement that began in 2018.
The prime minister’s instructions come after Nuñez offered his resignation Sunday, but Macron refused it ‘given the need for continued command of law enforcement in the current context’.
He instructed Nuñez ‘to take all necessary steps to ensure full transparency about the failures in planning and intelligence-gathering that led to the violence,’ a statement from his office said.
Macron also asked for the introduction of ‘new policing tactics on the ground as quickly as possible’ to put an end to the violence.
On Sunday evening, groups set fire to rubbish bins, bicycles and other objects in the streets and looted businesses in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and other cities.
That followed the violence during nationwide protests on Saturday against rising living costs and poor conditions in schools.
In Marseille, the prefect banned any protest or other gatherings from noon to 8pm on Monday.
‘I submitted my resignation because I am responsible for everything that is happening,’ Nuñez said on France Inter radio. ‘Now the real issue is ensuring that this doesn’t happen again.
‘We obviously need to be better at anticipating the kind of mobilisation that is unfolding,’ he added.
Nuñez blamed the violence on ‘hordes of troublemakers and looters’ and said that police strategy needs to be adapted ‘in the face of extremely mobile groups’.
Authorities said that groups of hundreds of people sought confrontations with police and targeted public buildings.
On Monday, cleanup crews and firefighters cleared shattered glass and other debris from the streets of Paris.
Ouri Zagoury, owner of a video game shop near Paris’ Place de la République, said that he closed the store Saturday afternoon, but then saw looters forcing their way in on surveillance cameras.
‘There were so many people coming in and out. And even though I called the police, they said not to intervene, that they would come, but they never did, which is another problem,’ Zagoury said.
Bardella pointed to the government’s failure to prevent violence.
‘The government has failed, the head of state has failed in his essential duty of protecting the French people,’ he told reporters at the party’s headquarters.
‘I call on the people of France now, beyond their right to protest, to use their voting power,’ Bardella said.
He is campaigning alongside hard-Right leader Marine Le Pen, whose polling numbers have suggested for months that she’s the frontrunner in next spring’s presidential election.
A protester wrapped in a French national flag stands in front of Lyon’s tourism office set on fire during a demonstration to protest against the “high cost of living”, in Lyon, southeastern France, on October 17
CCTV footage shows looters clearing out a French shop amid the riots, October 17
Protesters in front of burning barricades in the Strasbourg Saint Denis area of Paris, October 17
CCTV footage shows a masked group breaking into a jewellery shop in Lyon, October 17
A video shows a woman guarding her shoe shop with a stick from looters
France’s worst bout of civil unrest in years has plunged Macron’s final months in office deeper into turmoil, exposing the powerlessness of a leader struggling to contain social anger with little money to spend, scant political capital and an increasingly fragile grip on public order.
The rioting that swept across France on Saturday, leaving a trail of looted shops, torched buildings and defaced public institutions, presents Macron with perhaps the most explosive challenge of his twilight presidency: a country demanding more from a state that can no longer afford to give much.
Macron came to power almost a decade ago promising to upend France’s sclerotic political class, turbocharge economic reforms and restore authority through a more assertive presidency.
Instead, with just six months left in office, he finds himself effectively a lame-duck head of state presiding over a country mired in political paralysis, facing acute financial pressures and grappling with unrest that has exposed the limits of state authority.
Unlike during the yellow vest uprising of 2018-2019, when Macron sought to defuse public anger with billions of euros in concessions, France’s strained public finances and fractured parliament leave him with precious few levers to pull.
Even former allies are now openly scathing, tracing the country’s current impasse to Macron’s decision to call a snap parliamentary election in 2024 that weakened his authority.
‘The end of this term is a slow agony,’ said Loïc Kervran, a former lawmaker from Macron’s camp, on X.
‘The president paralysed the country with his absurd decision to dissolve parliament in 2024.
‘Arguably the worst decision in the history of the Fifth Republic,’ he added.
The turmoil may benefit Le Pen, who is already the frontrunner in the 2027 presidential race and stands to gain from both the anger over declining living standards and the fears over law and order unleashed by the weekend’s violence.
‘Le Pen no longer needs to spend any money to campaign,’ Jean-Baptiste Moreau, another former Macron lawmaker, told Reuters.
‘It’s not just a clear path ahead of her — it’s a six-lane highway.’
Le Pen delivered her own message to the nation in a video statement on Sunday, portraying Macron’s administration as a crumbling power and casting herself as the figure capable of restoring order.
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and French President Emmanuel Macron attend a signing ceremony for bilateral defence agreements at Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, October 20
When Macron later addressed the country, he offered little concrete action, stopping short of declaring a state of emergency.
As he spoke, looting was continuing for a second consecutive night, including in affluent Paris districts.
Opponents and one-time allies alike were underwhelmed.
His former prime minister, Edouard Philippe, now preparing his own presidential run, was unsparing in his criticism.
‘Mr President, I listened to you last night,’ he wrote on X. ‘I would have preferred, like millions of French people, decisions and initiatives to restore order.’
‘Our country needs to be commanded,’ he added.
But even Philippe is struggling to shake off his past association with Macron, and most recent polls show far-Left firebrand Mélenchon edging ahead of him in the race to qualify for the second-round runoff vote.
That outcome would all but guarantee a Le Pen victory, according to opinion polls.
Macron’s office on Monday announced that he had refused his interior minister’s resignation and ordered a review into apparent failures in intelligence gathering and police preparedness — deepening the impression of a government struggling to regain control.
Investors also took fright.
Market analysts say the violence adds another layer of political risk at a time when France is already under scrutiny over its swelling debt burden and struggle to reduce one of the euro zone’s largest budget deficits.
The president now finds himself trapped between bond markets demanding spending restraint and protesters demanding the opposite.
Despite calls from opponents to remain in France, Macron arrived in Kuwait on Monday on a Gulf tour he says will help secure fuel supplies and ease some of the economic pressures that have helped swell the ranks of the protesters.
The trip carries risks, reinforcing perceptions of a president disconnected from the public mood.
Images of Macron attending a Céline Dion concert with his wife Brigitte on Friday evening, hours before the unrest erupted, prompted ridicule on social media and became an easy symbol for critics seeking to portray him as detached from events.
In a sign of the depth of disenchantment in parts of his political camp, some former allies have begun openly discussing whether he should leave office before the end of his term.
Moreau, who spoke to Macron on Sunday, said he urged him to prepare an orderly early departure to break the current political deadlock and avoid another six months of drift.
‘He doesn’t want to give up, that’s not his character. But that’s what he should do for the country,’ he said.
The upheaval has provoked jitters among investors. France’s blue-chip CAC 40 index fell 1.1 per cent, while the pan-European STOXX 600 index slipped 0.9 per cent to 639.1 points.
Triggered by rising prices and worsening public services, the protests have soured investor sentiment towards a country already grappling with weak growth and rising debt.
The turmoil in the euro zone’s second-largest economy, which adds to political uncertainty ahead of the presidential election in 2027, has also been partly responsible for keeping the STOXX 600 index stuck within a narrow range over the past month.
‘There is clearly political risk and that is going to mean you get near-term volatility,’ said Kiran Ganesh, a multi-asset strategist at UBS Global Wealth Management.
French lenders BNP Paribas, Societe Generale and Credit Agricole fell between 2.5 per cent and 3.4 per cent. Retailer Carrefour declined 2.2 per cent and shopping mall operator Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield dropped 2 per cent.
