[Anchor]
Large-scale protests in France are escalating into severe riots. Triggered by high inflation and poor educational environments, the demonstrations have led to arson and looting, with the exact scale of the damage remaining unknown.
Reporting from Paris, correspondent Kwon Yeongin has the details.
[Reporter]
Looting and arson continued across various parts of the city.
Public bicycles were set on fire to build barricades, and looted goods from stores were shared as if showing them off.
Rallies protesting high inflation and worsening financial conditions were held in major French cities over the past two days, coinciding with student demonstrations demanding improvements to poor educational environments.
On Saturday alone, an estimated 550,000 people according to police, and 800,000 according to organizers, participated in the protests.
Fierce clashes broke out everywhere, resulting in 2,400 arrests at the scenes over the two-day period.
French authorities stated that around 1,000 police officers, firefighters, and others were injured, with some in critical condition.
[Françoise Poutry / French Citizen: This cannot go on. No more. I don't want a country like this. Now, the country I live in feels unfamiliar to me.]
An estimated 1,500 stores have been looted, but the exact scale of the damage has yet to be figured out.
While cleanup operations are underway in some of the wrecked stores, heavily damaged locations remain abandoned as they are.
[Farida / French Citizen: If every protest ends with store windows broken and shops ruined, that is not right. This situation cannot continue. Absolutely not.]
Through an emergency national address, President Macron stated that compensation plans would be devised for affected merchants and that he would dialogue with protest participants, but vowed a stern response to illegal acts such as looting.
[Video Editing: Lee Seung-jin]
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