France rocked by nationwide clashes, blazes and looting

France woke up Sunday to devastated streets after clashes between police and protesters, mass looting and fires erupted nationwide as marches against rising costs of living degenerated into "extreme" violence.

The widespread unrest followed weeks of student protests and comes just six months ahead of elections to replace President Emmanuel Macron.

Whole streets in Paris "have been devastated", the city's mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said as groups of masked young men torched parked cars and ransacked shops.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, who had condemned the "extreme intensity" of the violence, said 1,200 people had been arrested and 150 police officers hurt.

It was "a miracle the toll isn't higher", he said.

The violence began on the sidelines of marches in the capital and other cities over the cost of living that the interior ministry said were attended by 550,000 people.

The CGT union, which took part, said 800,000 people participated.

Police used tear gas and water cannon against protesters who threw projectiles and aimed fireworks.

A 17-year-old boy had his right hand blown off by a crowd-control grenade in the southern city of Saint-Etienne.

- Looting -

During and after those demonstrations, gangs of youths roamed city streets, sporadically confronting police, while setting fires and attacking shuttered stores to break in and empty their shelves.

Scores of shops -- supermarkets, pharmacies, luxury boutiques, clothing retailers, opticians, cosmetic vendors and consumer electronics stores -- were looted in Paris, Marseille, Nice, Nantes, Bordeaux, Limoges, Lille, Toulouse and Strasbourg.

AFP reporters in Paris saw groups of half a dozen young men attacking the shops in an organised way. Wearing masks and gloves, they first disconnected security cameras before smashing windows to get in.

The looting added to a day of destruction and vandalism, with town halls in several cities targeted.

The town hall in the city of Limoges -- more than 140 years old -- was largely destroyed by a blaze set by masked protesters who broke in, according to the region's top official. Two others were broken into and vandalised in Marseille and Lille.

A police compound in Bordeaux was also vandalised, while in Lyon protesters set ablaze a tourist office.

The violence has drawn global headlines -- in the United States, Vice President JD Vance blamed immigration for the unrest.

"Western liberals imported the third world into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion. They ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility," he said on X.

President Macron said that "those who carried out vandalism, attacked administrative offices or businesses, or carried out looting -- even in our town halls, will be prosecuted and punished".

Opposition politicians vying to replace Macron in presidential elections in April and May have seized on the chaos.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen condemned "the rioters" and claimed that the party of her far-left rival for the presidency, Jean-Luc Melenchon, had "legitimised the violence".

She vowed to protect the French "from the violence of the extreme left".

Melenchon, who had prominently supported the demonstrations and the student protests preceding them, urged demonstrators to stay away from any looting, describing it as "contrary to our methods".

- 'Revolution' -

France's Yellow Vest movement, which staged street protests eight years ago against Macron's government over planned fuel tax hikes, had called for Saturday's "yellow and youth" demonstrations.

The principal grievance was the cost of living, pushed up in part by the war in the Middle East that has helped send inflation soaring in Europe as elsewhere.

"We're sick of slaving away for poverty wages while our rents keep going up," teacher Regine Monfroid told AFP in the eastern city of Strasbourg.

But there were other issues.

In Paris, tens of thousands marched across the east and north of the city in one major march, some shouting "Everyone hates the police" and "Macron, resign".

High school student Kamil Alahyan, 18, said he was protesting "for so many reasons -- the elections coming up in 2027, politicians who lie, the ultra-rich who've been taking more and more wealth over the past 10 years".

Several protesters sought to draw parallels with the French Revolution of 1789.

"It's the Revolution -- we're taking the Bastille!" some shouted in Marseille as they forced their way into the mayor's offices.

In the western city of La Rochelle, marchers streamed behind a placard reading: "Revolution or death."

And in the southern city of Montpellier, a giant blue sign reading "The people will win" was unfurled above a central square.

"The government is trembling and it's right to tremble because when the French people are angry, they never let up," Ryad Rani, the head of the LSU high school student representative body, told journalists in Paris.