Macron separates protesters from rioters

The president used his Sunday evening address to draw a line between the crowds who marched and those who wrecked. He said the protests included people with 'legitimate demands', but set them apart from 'those who destroyed, smashed, and looted'. He blamed 'factious groups from the ultra-left, joined by numerous delinquents' for the violence that swept French cities over the weekend.

What the rioting left behind

The damage stretched well beyond the capital. Rioters burned makeshift barricades of bicycles in Paris, destroyed the steeple of Limoges' town hall and set fire to Lyon's tourism office.

The arrests were on a scale rarely seen: about 855 people were detained in Paris alone, and a total of 2,400 across France.

• Limoges' town hall was set alight on Saturday afternoon and its spire collapsed that evening.
• Protesters broke into the city hall in Marseille.
• A masked group smashed street furniture and torched cars and bus stops, while a third group looted shops.

Cleaners began removing debris from Parisian streets in the early hours of Sunday, clearing glass from broken shop windows, smashed bus shelters and burned-out cars. The smell of teargas still lingered at Place de la République Métro station.

Paolo Stuppia, a sociologist at Sciences Po in Paris, described parts of the capital after the riots as resembling a wasteland.

The destruction filled the Monday front pages. La Tribune Dimanche ran 'LE CHAOS', while Le Parisien Dimanche chose 'SCENES D'INSURRECTION'.

Police response under fire

The police handling of the Paris protests drew sharp criticism. Officers blocked a demonstration route between Place de la République and Place de la Concorde on Saturday, citing 'serious risks of public disorder', leaving large sections of the capital short of officers to prevent looting.

Marine Tondelier, the French Green leader, said: "entire cities were left to the mercy of rioters, while peaceful protesters were subjected to violence." She has called for the resignation of Laurent Nuñez, chief of staff of the Paris police, describing his performance over the weekend as 'an absolute disaster'.

French lawyers said several teenagers suffered 'war-like' injuries from police, among them a 14-year-old with a fractured jaw and a 15-year-old whose hand was blown off in an explosion involving a police stun grenade.

Pierre Bataille, a sociologist at Grenoble Alpes university, charted that more people were arrested during two weeks of the student protests than Gilets Jaunes members in an entire year.

Political reactions from across the spectrum

Marine Le Pen gave her own address on X before Macron's and has described the riots as a 'threat to democracy'.

On the left, Tondelier's account of the weekend accused the authorities of abandoning whole cities. Guillaume Guérin, mayor of Limoges and a member of Les Républicains, described the weekend as a 'colossal failure of the state'.

Grégory Doucet, mayor of Lyon, told Le Monde there need to be 'concrete, political answers' to 'the social unrest shaking our country'.

The Guardian's own front page on Monday read 'Macron condemns unbridled violence of huge French riots'.

By Sunday, protests had also taken place in Spain, Portugal and Italy, while the clean-up in Paris continued into the morning.