France protests turn violent: Fires, looting and 1,200 arrests; Macron vows action

BREAKING: France protests turn violent with fires, looting and 1,200 arrests, as Macron vows action over the country's worst unrest in years.

Twelve hundred arrests. That's where France stands tonight, and the number has more than quadrupled since we last covered this.

What started as street demonstrations has turned into the country's worst unrest in years. Fires burning, shops looted, and you can see it here, riot police advancing through smoke on a Paris street. This is what several French cities look like right now.

President Macron has vowed action, and he's a leader with very little room left to give. France has been through pension protests, farmer blockades and political paralysis in recent years, but twelve hundred arrests in one wave of unrest puts this in a different category. The question hanging over the Élysée tonight is whether a crackdown calms the streets or feeds them.

For now, the hardest fact is the simplest one. Twelve hundred people in custody, and the fires are not out yet.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.