'The marches went well' – French government on demonstrations a week after looting and violence

Clashes broke out Saturday in Paris and other French cities amid demonstrations held a week after others that degenerated into street violence and prompted a robust security backlash as President Emmanuel Macron seeks to restore order. Police arrested nearly 1,000 people as officers were confronted with "an extremely elevated level of violence" from black-clad "ultra-left" extremists, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said. Riot police squads fired tear gas at protesters in the capital as well as in Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Toulouse, Montpellier and Nantes. Read moreFrench police deploy in large numbers, major Paris museums close ahead of new protests Two people were "seriously" injured, Nuñez said: one man in Toulouse, who reportedly had fingers blown off, and another person in Clermont-Ferrand. He did not give details of either case. Authorities had deployed 70,000 security forces across the country for the new marches, called to protest the cost of living. The violence came a week after rioting that saw public buildings vandalised, hundreds of shops looted and 2,700 people arrested, casting a pall over a country that goes to the polls in six months to choose a successor t...