France riots dwell updates: Protesters conflict with police in central Paris as Macron pleads ‘for unity’ 

Masked rioters could be seen stealing from supermarket Franprix in Paris this evening as clashes erupted at Place de la Republique, with the shutters smashed in and debris scattered around the entrance of the store.

At least five shops are said to have been looted, with 108 arrests made today in Paris – 66 of those being from this evening.

Looters reportedly forced their way into a BHV Marais department store in central Paris on Sunday night.

Stools were tipped over and the glass entrance to the outlet was entirely shattered amid the violent disorder.

Looters were filmed smashing their way into designer stores to steal luxury items during a weekend of ‘unrestrained violence’.

It comes despite initial claims activists were protesting against France’s crumbling education system.

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Local media has reported around 10 hooligans breaking into a Darty, a French retail chain that sells electronics and appliances, in Paris.

They were seen carrying out microwaves and other small appliances.

Elsewhere in the city, young rioters were also spotted stealing from supermarket Franprix with bottles reportedly seen being whisked away under their arms.

Sophie Binet, trade union CGT’s Secretary General, said: ‘The problem with Macron’s speech this evening is that he makes no concrete announcements to respond to the mobilisation of young people, the high cost of living, the decline of public services, and the increase in layoffs.’

The Gilets Jaunes group, who took part in the demostrations yesterday, have said Macron’s speech ‘reinforced our belief, because his empty speech perfectly illustrates the disconnect of our leaders and their refusal to listen’.

The group added that Macron said some of their members could meet with the French President in 2020 to address their concerns, however have claimed this did not happen.

He ‘did not keep this promise, like many others’, the group said.

French politicians have been reacting to President Macron’s national address in the last hour.

Bruno Retailleau, the president of the Republicans, said Macron appeared ‘completely overwhelmed, incapable of opposing the force of the state to the chaos threatening the Republic’.

He said he needed to ‘take responsibility and declare a state of emergency to protect the French people’.

Yannick Jadot, Paris Senator, hit out at a ‘terrible demonstration of Emmanuel Macron’s impotence’.

‘Our country [is] like a drunken ship taking on water from all sides, without a rudder or a captain’, he said.

Sophie Vénétitay, head of the leading secondary school teachers’ union, SNES-FSU, said: ‘On the education front, there’s still a complete void. It’s been almost a month since high school students started their mobilization, with our support, and Emmanuel Macron didn’t put forward anything concrete this (Sunday) evening.’

Edouard Philippe, the former prime minister and mayor of Le Havre, similarly criticised Macron for not announcing any concrete measures in response to the riots and would have preferred initiatives that would ‘restore order and re-establishing the authority of the State’.

‘Our country needs to be led’, he said. However, he did acknowledge his willingness to restore dialogue. to address the violence.

Nearly 2,400 people were arrested in France during a day of protests against the high cost of living that turned violent, with almost 1,000 police officers and gendarmes injured, the interior ministry said Sunday.

It said 2,397 arrests were made on Saturday, with 997 police officers and gendarmes sustaining injuries. Seven of them were badly wounded, it added.

Marine Le Pen, the hard-Right national Rally (RN) leader, shared a pre-recorded message this evening which saw her claiming France’s democracy was at risk and blaming President Macron as well as the far-left for fuelling the unrest.

She said: ‘We are living through a profound crisis of trust and authority that poses a threat to democracy.

‘This observation must alert us: our country is caught in a vice, or even taken hostage, between violence and powerlessness.

‘We have a Macronist power that is out of breath, exhausted, disoriented, which now seems incapable of doing anything other than commenting on its own impotence, its own downfall, I would even say.

‘We have a government that deplores events without managing to prevent, control or even manage them. A minority and disqualified power, whose sole concern is less to govern France than to cling to the last remnants of its waning power.

‘France cannot, must not, and will never get used to such scenes. Today, I call on all French people for calm, dignity, and republican restraint.

‘We have a government that deplores events without managing to prevent, control or even manage them. A minority and disqualified power, whose sole concern is less to govern France than to cling to the last remnants of its waning power.’

Earlier today Ms Le Pen said ‘legitimate social grievances’ had ‘once again been held hostage by the far-Left and the rhetoric of Jean-Luc Melenchon’s MPs – who, by legitimising violence and framing public order as oppression and disorder as a right, are seeking to plunge the country into chaos’.