France was in a state of shock on Sunday, as citizens woke to streets littered with shattered glass and images of burned-out government buildings after the country’s largest demonstrations in years devolved into riots and looting.
The unrest on Saturday — which led to some 1,200 arrests — caused widespread damage to several symbols of the state, including a 19th-century city hall in Limoges, a town in central France renowned for its porcelain, that was largely destroyed in a nighttime arson attack.
Rioters attacked city halls from Lille in northern France to Marseille in the south, where masked infiltrators broke into the local government headquarters and tipped over a bust of Marianne, a symbol of the French Republic. Fires also destroyed a tourist office in Lyon.
On Sunday, that violence had given way to a political blame game. Government officials accused the far left of stirring up the unrest, and a left-wing leader blamed the government.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu placed the blame for the chaos squarely on a far-left party, France Unbowed. The leader of that party, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, stands a chance of making the runoff in next year’s presidential election to succeed President Emmanuel Macron. » | Catherine Porter and Ségolène Le Stradic | Reporting from Paris | Sunday, October 18, 2026
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