French President Emmanuel Macron rejected Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez’s offer to resign on Monday, ordering him to stay at the helm of the police while investigators dissect how cost-of-living marches on Saturday spiraled into looting, arson and attacks on town halls across the country.
Nuñez told reporters he could not tell shopkeepers that authorities had not “lost control” after hundreds of stores were ransacked. Macron’s office said the minister must remain to preserve the chain of command and must deliver “transparency over the failures in planning and intelligence” that preceded the violence.
What the government is saying now
The weekend combined two protest currents: high school students demanding better classrooms and staffing, and broader anger over prices and fraying public services. Organizers and police estimated more than half a million people marched on Saturday. Alongside peaceful crowds, masked groups smashed storefronts, set fires and targeted municipal buildings from Lyon to Limoges, where the spire of the historic town hall collapsed.
Macron, in a televised address on Sunday, said those who destroyed property would pay and those who looted would reimburse victims. He backed law enforcement and said Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu would chair a crisis unit on Monday to speed aid to damaged businesses. Retail groups have warned compensation claims could run into the hundreds of millions of euros.
Security deployment and Sunday fallout
Nuñez said about 60,000 police and gendarmes were on duty Saturday but acknowledged a “lack of anticipation” as rioters outnumbered detachments in several cities. The interior ministry reported almost 1,000 security personnel injured, alongside protester casualties that included a demonstrator whose hand was severed by a crowd-control grenade, according to officials cited by French media.
Looting did not end with nightfall. Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said roughly 30 shops in the capital were hit on Sunday, calling the scenes “unbearable.” Nuñez said 350 people were arrested in Paris overnight into Monday. Nationwide custody totals topped 2,330, with Darmanin saying about 70 percent of those detained were adults.
What happens next
Macron asked Nuñez to roll out new tactics aimed specifically at looters while keeping elected officials and merchants in the loop. Opposition leaders have demanded the minister’s removal, and Marine Le Pen warned of a threat to democracy, framing the unrest as evidence of an exhausted executive.
School unions said they would continue lawful demonstrations for smaller class sizes, distancing themselves from Saturday’s arson. For Macron, the immediate test is whether Monday’s crisis measures calm streets without further eroding trust among peaceful protesters who say their grievances over living costs were drowned out by violence they did not endorse.