French President Emmanuel Macron has refused Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez’s offer to resign after what started as student protests over teacher shortages, deteriorating school facilities and inadequate resources broadened into Saturday’s nationwide cost-of-living protests, that has now escalated into widespread rioting and looting.
Addressing the nation Sunday evening, Macron vowed to ensure prosecution and further support for stores and businesses affected by the event.
“No room for violence in our Republic. Those who have broken, attacked the prefectures as well as businesses, looted even our town halls, will be prosecuted and punished,” Macron said on X Saturday.
“Peaceful protesters,” Macron added, “have legitimate demands and should not be mixed with violent groups.”
The unrest comes about six months before France’s 2027 presidential election, a period in which cost-of-living pressures and public order are already prominent issues.
Macron cannot stand again, but how the government handles both the security failures and the economic discontent is being watched as a political liability.
Nuñez’s resignation, now rejected, has been instructed by the French leader to ensure full transparency about the failures of anticipation and intelligence that led to the violence and to put new methods of action in place on the ground as quickly as possible for forces confronting rioters and looters.
Most of the announced marches were peaceful at first, despite the different concerns that brought people out. In early September, a viral TikTok video called for demonstrations against high fuel prices and the rising cost of living, while high-school students had already begun protesting poor school conditions, teacher shortages and a lack of resources.
Some teachers and public-sector workers had already taken part in strikes at the beginning.
As the protests grew, they brought together former Yellow Vest protesters, students, unions including the CGT, climate activists and other groups, each with their own concerns.
As of Sunday, demonstrations had spread to cities across France and escalated from the afternoon onward. Attacks began earlier Saturday on shops and public buildings, including stores that were looted.
As of the latest estimate Sunday, the Interior Ministry put the number of demonstrators nationwide at about 550,000, including 110,000 in Paris, while organizers claimed up to 800,000.
Those figures describe the scale of the mobilization itself. Separately, the authorities’ consolidated tally of the unrest recorded 2,397 arrests nationwide and 997 police officers and gendarmes injured, seven of whom were seriously injured.
Both figures were higher than the preliminary counts reported on Saturday evening.
The local government office in Bouches-du-Rhône, the department that includes Marseille, estimated that more than 30,000 people were involved in looting at the riots’ peak, including about 8,000 it described as rioters, a figure that measures participation rather than arrests.
Separately, about 99 people were taken into police custody in connection with the riots in the department, and another 118 members of the security forces were injured, three of whom were hospitalized.
It was in that context that Nuñez, who is interior minister in charge and directs the police, gendarmerie and domestic intelligence, offered his resignation on Sunday, Oct. 18. The Élysée said Monday that the offer came as calls for him to step down were coming from both the left and the right over whether authorities had anticipated and prepared for the unrest.
The decision combines two elements that explain why it has become politically significant. The presidency on Sunday evening publicly acknowledged failures of anticipation and intelligence, an unusually direct admission from the Élysée after major disorder that concedes the state was not prepared for the scale and character of what happened.
crisis extends beyond policing. In Limoges, the prefecture said the 19th-century town hall was heavily burned, with the interior of its historic front section almost entirely destroyed and the roof and belfry collapsed.
In Paris, authorities recorded 855 arrests on Saturday, described by officials as a record for a single day in the capital, while in Lyon the tourist office was set on fire. The Federation of Commerce and Distribution estimated that about 1,500 businesses were directly affected nationwide, with losses potentially reaching several hundred million euros.
The Élysée Palace said the government is organizing crisis meetings and aid for damaged businesses, measures aimed at the immediate economic fallout, alongside firm judicial follow-up for those involved in violence and support for mayors, shopkeepers and police.
It also plans further talks with unions, students and local officials, an effort aimed at the underlying grievances that brought people onto the streets.
Nuñez is scheduled to travel to Marseille on Monday, to the city where the prefecture reported the largest scale of looting, as he begins the work Macron has assigned him.
