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A city hall building burns during protests against high living costs in Limoges, central France, on the 17th (local time). / AFP Yonhap

Massive demonstrations sweeping across France escalated into extreme violence, including arson and looting, resulting in thousands of casualties and detentions.

As urban functions were paralyzed and immense human and property losses were incurred, controversy surrounding authorities' response and crowd control intensity has widened.

According to AFP on the 18th (local time), approximately 2,400 people were arrested following clashes across major French cities over the weekend. Roughly 1,000 police officers and riot personnel were injured during crowd suppression, with seven confirmed to have sustained severe injuries.

Looting and arson continued across Paris, while in Lyon in the southeast, a tourist information office was burned and successive attempts were made to loot luxury boutiques. Destruction of public facilities followed in Limoges, where the 140-year-old city hall was destroyed by fire.

As the situation escalated, French President Emmanuel Macron stated in an address to the nation, "A clear distinction must be made between protesters with legitimate demands and the far-left factions and criminals who destroyed the cities," adding, "We will respond sternly to violence without compromise." However, rather than imposing sweeping controls such as declaring a state of emergency or a nighttime curfew, he moved to stabilize the situation by having local authorities selectively disallow only certain rallies at their discretion.

Voices demanding the dismissal of Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez to hold him accountable for the unrest are growing, led by the opposition. President Macron instructed Minister Nuñez to draw lessons from intelligence gathering and advance preparedness failures and present clear measures and explanations.

The response of police authorities has also been put to the test.

With severe human injuries occurring during crowd control operations, controversy over excessive force is also intensifying. According to prosecutors, a 17-year-old boy in Saint-Étienne in southern France had his hand severed by a crowd-control flash-bang grenade, and a 17-year-old girl in Mulhouse was blinded in one eye.

Police authorities explained that these were unavoidable defensive measures taken in response to protesters' violence, such as Molotov cocktails and stone-throwing, but criticism has shown no signs of abating.

                                                                                                           Lee Jeong-eun