France has had its share of riots in recent years but the scenes of urban warfare that erupted on Saturday were unprecedented. The Socialist mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Gregoire, said entire streets ‘have been devasted’. His shocked deputy, Lamia El Aaraje, said the capital suffered ‘a level of violence that I believe we had never seen before’.

In Limoges, the city hall was burned to the ground and those in Lille and Marseille were badly damaged. A tourist office in the heart of Lyon was razed and in Agen the branch office of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally was ransacked.

As Sébastien Lecornu said, the violence was perpetrated by two groups: far-left extremists and what he termed ‘criminals’.

As Sébastien Lecornu said, the violence was perpetrated by two groups: far-left extremists and what he termed ‘criminals’.

In Nice, Toulouse, Rennes and Bordeaux police fought running battles with thugs. Journalists were targeted in Brest and in Paris masked protestors besieged a conservative television station.

But it was Paris that bore the brunt of the anarchy on a day that left 150 police officers and gendarmes injured, some of them seriously. Cars were set alight, as were newspaper kiosks and restaurants. Nearly 900 people were arrested. Police attempted to........

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