France reports 1,800 arrests after violence alongside cost-of-living protests; Limoges town hall damaged

French authorities reported at least 1,800 arrests after violence and looting alongside nationwide demonstrations on October 17. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez gave the updated figure on Sunday, as cities assessed damage from a day of protests over living costs and conditions in schools.

In Limoges, fire badly damaged the 19th-century town hall and brought down its roof. The blaze was under control on October 18, the Associated Press reported. Haute-Vienne prefect Maurice Barate told LCI television that the fire had been deliberately set.

The violence was distinct from the peaceful marches that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets. AFP reported that Paris’s main procession, estimated at 110,000 people, passed without a major incident, according to the police prefecture. Nationally, authorities counted 550,000 participants; organisers estimated 800,000.

Nuñez said more than 500 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters had been injured. Paris police reported 855 arrests.

Public buildings were attacked in several cities, and a tourist information office in Lyon was set on fire. The demonstrations followed weeks of school protests, with organisers seeking to bring student demands together with wider anger about rising costs, AFP reported.

President Emmanuel Macron was scheduled to meet the prime minister and relevant ministers at 5.30 pm local time on Sunday, before a national address at 8 pm. Le Monde reported that a separate interministerial crisis meeting had been moved to Monday morning. Investigations and assessments of the damage were continuing.