Second hand lost to a police grenade

The most serious injury of the day came in Saint-Etienne, where a male demonstrator had his hand blown off by a police crowd-control grenade, a police source told AFP. It was the second such maiming in barely two weeks: on October 5, a 15-year-old lost his hand to a police stun grenade during a protest in Lens.

The injuries have fed a hardened mood on the street. Hostility towards the police sharpened during weeks of student protests that preceded Saturday's marches, when several teens were maimed and thousands were arrested.

Clashes, looted stores and fires across the country

Violence ran through the day on the sidelines of the nationwide demonstrations. Police responded with tear gas and water cannon to masked protesters throwing projectiles and aiming fireworks; several parked cars were torched in Paris and more than 130 people were arrested.

Looters broke into dozens of stores and stripped them bare, AFP journalists saw. Among the targets:

• •a Hermes boutique and many other stores in Marseille
• •an Apple store in Lille
• •several shops in Nice
• •a mobile phone outlet in Paris

In Lyon, protesters set a city-centre tourist office ablaze, while town halls in Marseille and Lille were smashed into and vandalised.

500,000 marchers, by the CGT union's count

The CGT union put the number of demonstrators across the country at 500,000; authorities did not immediately give their own figure. The marches had been called by France's Yellow Vest movement as 'yellow and youth' demonstrations, eight years after its street protests against planned fuel tax hikes under Macron's government.

The principal grievance was the cost of living, pushed up in part by the war in the Middle East, which has helped send inflation soaring in Europe and elsewhere. The unrest follows weeks of student protests and comes six months before elections to replace President Emmanuel Macron.

What protesters and politicians said

Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said 'the overwhelming majority of demonstrators' wanted to 'march calmly' but 'acts of vandalism' were tarnishing their protest.

Among those caught in the Paris gassing was Jules Petrichor, a 47-year-old demonstrator. He told reporters:

On X, far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who has sided with the police, wrote: 'Looting, pillaging, attacking police -- rioters have once again sullied the October 17 demonstrations over the cost of living.' She claimed the demands had been 'hijacked by the far left'. Her far-left rival Jean-Luc Melenchon insisted early Saturday that 'everything is passing off peacefully', accusing television news of 'flooding us with images of violence in dozens of cities'.

In Paris itself, tens of thousands marched across the east and north of the city, some shouting 'Everyone hates the police' and 'Macron, resign'.

Authorities had not immediately given their own estimate of the crowd size, with elections to replace President Emmanuel Macron six months away.