France Erupts as Cost-of-Living Protests Turn Into Riots, Looting and a Burning Town Hall

Hundreds of thousands marched across France against the cost of living. By nightfall: looted shops, torched town halls, 1,200 arrests and a political crisis six months before the presidential election.

One of France's most turbulent days of protest in decades began with families and students marching against the cost of living. It ended with tear gas on the Champs-Élysées, an Apple store stripped bare in Lille, a 140-year-old town hall in flames in Limoges, and an arrest toll that officials revised upward through the night.

The interior ministry estimated about 550,000 people joined rallies across the country, while the CGT union put the turnout at 800,000. The marches were overwhelmingly peaceful — students, families with children, and yellow-vest veterans who had answered a call for "yellow and youth" demonstrations eight years after their own movement shook the country. The violence came from masked groups moving on the margins, targeting symbols of public authority and wealth.

By evening the interior ministry counted roughly 400 arrests nationwide. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu later said 1,200 people had been arrested and 150 police officers injured. "It's a miracle the toll wasn't higher," he said while visiting officers in central Paris.

The human cost ran both ways. In the southern city of Saint-Etienne, a protester's hand was blown off by what a police source told AFP was a crowd-control grenade. It followed a similar maiming on October 5, when a 15-year-old lost a hand to a police stun grenade during a protest in Lens. Demonstrators' hostility toward police had sharpened over weeks of student protests in which teenagers were maimed and thousands arrested, France 24 reported.

Public buildings were the night's main targets. A fire largely destroyed the more than 140-year-old town hall in Limoges. Protesters broke into and vandalised town halls in Marseille and Lille, attacked a police compound in Bordeaux and set fire to a tourist office in Lyon. In Marseille, some shouted "It's the Revolution — we're taking the Bastille!" as they forced their way into the mayor's offices.

Dozens of shops were looted in Paris, Marseille, Nice, Nantes, Bordeaux, Limoges, Lille, Toulouse and Strasbourg, according to AFP. An Apple store in Lille was stripped; a Hermès boutique in Marseille was among the shops hit. Paris mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said "entire streets have been devastated" in the capital region. More than 300 people tried to push up the Champs-Élysées before police blocked them with tear gas, chanting "Macron, resign" and "Everyone hates the police."

The grievances were economic and generational. Inflation, pushed up in part by the war in the Middle East, has squeezed household budgets across Europe. Weeks of student protests over declining conditions in schools and other public services have widened into a broader revolt against a government seen as out of touch. "For years we've had climate, economy and equality problems but the government is not doing anything about it," said Agnes, a 50-year-old actor who gave only her first name. Anae, a 24-year-old student, said she was protesting because she did not have a "sustainable future."

The politics are already shifting. President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X that there was "no room for violence in our Republic" and that those who looted town halls and businesses would be "prosecuted and punished." Lecornu blamed "ultraleft groups" for orchestrating violence in several cities. Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said rioters had "once again sullied" the demonstrations and claimed the protesters' demands had been "hijacked by the far left." Jean-Luc Mélenchon, her far-left rival, insisted early in the day that "everything is passing off peacefully" and accused television news of flooding viewers with images of violence.

"The government is trembling and it's right to tremble because when the French people are angry, they never let up," Ryad Rani, head of the LSU high school student union, told journalists in Paris.

France was not alone. In Brussels, police fired tear gas and water cannon at protesters after weeks of student demonstrations against university registration fees; Liège also deployed water cannon. Tens of thousands marched in Lisbon against low wages and a housing crisis, where house prices have more than doubled since 2017. In Milan and Bologna, cost-of-living rallies were accompanied by stone-throwing and clashes. The demonstrations were separate and uncoordinated, but they shared grievances: underfunded education, rising living costs and, for students, uncertain prospects after graduation.

"France is the epicentre of this movement … and there are signs now that this is spreading beyond France," Alberto Alemanno, a professor of EU law and policy at HEC Paris, told Al Jazeera. He said early-stage mobilisation was visible in Greece, Germany and Austria, with more expected in the coming week.

What happens next depends on whether the student-led movement can hold its breadth — and whether the violence hardens public opinion against it. With a presidential election six months away, the parties seeking to succeed Macron are already positioning themselves around the unrest. The government, meanwhile, faces harder questions about police tactics after two young demonstrators lost hands to crowd-control grenades in less than two weeks.

Sources: France 24 | Al Jazeera | Euronews