France: Who was behind the violence at Saturday's protests?

It is not even midday in this part of central Paris and there have already been incidents of violence, even though the protests were due to start at 2pm. Massed young people are carrying black umbrellas. Violent members of radical far-left groups often use them to hide their identity. They didn't come to demonstrate, but to fight. It is a similar scene elsewhere in the city at one of the main squares, the Place de la République, where there are the same black umbrellas. The authorised protest has not yet begun. Violence escalates later on. This newspaper kiosk is on fire. On the left of the picture, a young, fully masked person challenges the police opposite. A car had been set on fire a few minutes earlier. And there was also looting. Young people ransacked this Monoprix supermarket on the Boulevard de Sébastopol in the centre of Paris. Some are masked, others are not. Further on, this McDonald's restaurant is also attacked. The profiles of the young people rioting appears to vary greatly. Later, this restaurant in another Paris district is on fire. Outside the capital, there was looting in the western city of Rennes. My employee called me saying it's bad, it's kind of like war. So of course I came to see and then I saw what was going on and I'm horrified, disillusioned. In Lyon, this group, right next to the burning tourist office, tries to break through protective gates and tramples on a TV screen. I don't encourage it, but in any case, if it's the only solution to get heard, I would encourage them. The French Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, said today ultra-left groups of orchestrated violence in several French cities, delinquents, have joined in to pillage and destroy. Here, young people, most of them masked, steal sunglasses from an optician shop. The police intervened, arresting only one person. Police officers were mocked by the protesters in Paris. 10,000 law enforcement personnel were deployed across France on Saturday. That wasn't enough, with reinforcements called in during the day.