Macron Vows Punishment and Demands Answers After Riots Sweep France

President Emmanuel Macron promised Sunday, Oct. 18, to punish the rioters who looted shops and attacked town halls across France during protests over the cost of living, and he demanded clear answers from his government. "Those who destroyed must pay. Those who looted must repay," he said.

"I expect clear answers, and full transparency will be provided," Macron said in a televised address from the Élysée Palace at 8 p.m. Paris time. He said he had made that demand of the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, and had asked the government to "draw all the lessons in terms of intelligence and anticipation."

The Interior Ministry said 550,000 people marched in cities across France on Saturday, Oct. 17. On the margins of those marches, it said, rioters went after town halls, prefectures and many shops, which were "attacked, ransacked, looted, some even set on fire."

On Sunday, Nuñez put the arrests at more than 2,000 and the injured at more than 600 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters, an injury toll he called provisional.

In Paris, looting resumed on Sunday night. The police prefecture said "scattered groups of young opportunistic delinquents" were trying to loot shops, and that 50 arrests in the previous two hours had brought the total to 92.

Macron named some of the worst damage. "Why burn the town hall of Limoges, the tourist office in Lyon, invade the town hall in Marseille or attack the prefect's residence in Bordeaux?" he asked. "Nothing justifies it, nothing explains it, nothing excuses it."

Guillaume Guérin, the mayor of Limoges, said Sunday that police had been overwhelmed when rioters reached his town hall, which was set on fire on Saturday. "The national police lacked resources," he told reporters in front of the ruins.

Nuñez blamed "several thousand individuals of the ultra-left" who he said began attacking public buildings and police at midday, and in Marseille from the morning. They were later joined, he said, by delinquents who looted shops in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Rennes, Strasbourg, Grenoble, Nice, Limoges and other cities. "The material damage is considerable," he said.

In his address, Macron drew a line between the rioters and the marchers, whom he said had "legitimate demands" about living costs and fuel prices. He tied the fuel prices to the conflict in the Persian Gulf, "in which France has not taken part," and said he would travel to Gulf states on Monday morning to secure the country's supplies. He also said young people in high schools and universities had been voicing "a deep anxiety" for weeks.

He set out what he called a clear method. Prefects will work with mayors to protect towns, public buildings and shops, "including by going as far as banning certain gatherings when necessary." The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, is to chair a crisis unit on Monday to speed aid to shopkeepers, and to meet political parties, unions, employers, students and teachers in the coming days. Macron called on every party and union to condemn the violence and appeal for calm. "Listening and dialogue mean neither weakness nor impunity," he said.

Lecornu had said on Saturday that "ultra-left groups organized the violence in several French cities" and that "no one will impose their political agenda through violence."

The opposition turned on the interior minister. Marine Tondelier, the leader of the Ecologists, wrote that Nuñez was "manifestly overwhelmed" and that "there is no other outcome to this Oct. 17 than his resignation." Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of France Unbowed, wrote that Nuñez and the police chiefs had shown "total incompetence."

Nuñez said he would take questions on public radio on Monday morning.