Paris (France) (AFP) - France was reeling on Sunday from widespread damage caused by violent protests the day before that saw 1,800 people arrested, a historic town hall torched and widespread looting.

“It’s like we had a war,” a 78-year-old resident in central Paris, Mehmet Ozeden, told AFP amid burnt street barricades from the protests.

The convulsion raised the stakes for President Emmanuel Macron, who is in his final months in power before elections to replace him in six months’ time. It followed weeks of student protests that had also turned violent at times.

Macron, who Saturday vowed that anyone who had engaged in vandalism or looting would be prosecuted and punished, was to address the nation Sunday evening at 1800 GMT, his office said, after meeting key ministers.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said 1,800 people were arrested over the protests and looting, with investigations under way “to identify the perpetrators of these acts so they can be brought to justice”.

Torched cars, smashed shopfronts and burnt debris scarred numerous streets in Paris, where officials said 557 people were in custody – around a third of them minors – after a “record” number of 855 arrests Saturday.

The capital experienced “a level of violence that we have never, I believe, seen before”, said Paris deputy mayor Lamia El Aaraje.

US President Donald Trump waded into the debate Sunday afternoon, blaming immigration for the unrest and urging France to tighten its migration rules.

“France is burning! The immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Close your Borders and take control, before it is too late!”

Trump’s post comes after similar comments made by Vice President JD Vance on Saturday.

Hundreds of shops were looted in Paris and other cities, including Marseille, Bordeaux, Nice and Strasbourg, on the margins of protests over the cost of living.

One person died during the main march in Paris, but officials said the case was health-related and not linked to the protest violence.

Around 1,500 businesses were damaged, causing losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros, according to the Retail and Trade Federation.

One Paris resident, Anita Gras, out for a jog, said she saw young men loot a sports shoe retailer.

“It’s appalling, terrifying – groups of young people came here yesterday (Saturday), looting, smashing everything, with total impunity,” said another resident, 57-year-old Cecile Rogue, surveying a pile of charred bicycles.

- ‘Wild horde’ -

The city of Limoges lost its 19th-century town hall to a fire. The local prefect, Maurice Barate, told news channel LCI it had been deliberately set by “a wild horde” and was only brought under control early Sunday.

The mayor of Lyon, Gregory Doucet, said “the chaos that reigned in the city for several hours was abominable”.

One Lyon trader, Jean-Christian, slammed those behind the violence.

“They were really animals. We saw them looting, men high on adrenaline.”

A tourist office in the city centre was set ablaze during the protests amid multiple clashes and looting.

Sunday saw residents in several of the affected cities come out to help municipal workers clean up the debris from the rioting.

Police briefly used tear gas Sunday afternoon on the Place de la Republique – site of much of Saturday’s violence in Paris – to disperse an unauthorised crowd that had gathered.

Political recriminations have followed, with the government and far-right leader Marine Le Pen blaming ultra-left groups, while far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon accused authorities of inflaming tensions.

Paris’s Socialist deputy mayor El Aaraje accused Le Pen’s party of “acting like a pyromaniac firefighter”, using the protests to further her presidential ambitions.

The president of the French parliament, Macron ally Yael Braun-Pivet, said she would be proposing a commission of enquiry on the violence and measures to maintain law and order.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu was to chair a crisis meeting of ministers at 0800 GMT on Monday, his office said. They were to look at the insurance and help for impacted shops as well as the prosecution of perpetrators of the violence.

- Half a million demonstrators -

In Paris, startled tourists were seen Saturday running with suitcases along streets filled with tear gas and protesters.

A Danish tourist, Soren Petersen, said it was “sad” to see damage to Paris buildings. “It is not a protest, it’s far beyond a normal protest,” he told AFP.

Around 500 police, firefighters and paramedics were hurt in the protests, the interior minister said.

The violence took place on the sidelines of nationwide protests that the interior ministry said were attended by 550,000 people. The CGT union said 800,000 people participated.

A 17-year-old boy had his right hand blown off by a crowd-control grenade in the southern city of Saint-Etienne.

Analyst Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia Group think tank said on X that most of the demonstrations Saturday were peaceful, and “the violence came from a fringe of the ultra left” with looting “by opportunistic gangs from the poor suburbs”.

France’s Yellow Vest movement, which staged street protests eight years ago against Macron’s government over planned fuel-tax hikes, had called Saturday’s “yellow and youth” demonstrations.

The principal grievance was the cost of living, pushed up in part by the war in the Middle East, which has helped send inflation soaring in Europe as elsewhere.

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