Image source, Reuters

The mayor of Paris has called on Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to begin negotiations with organisations representing the education sector to pave the way for a resolution to the country's riots.

Speaking to journalists in front of the capital's city hall a little earlier, Emmanuel Grégoire says a more specific platform of demands needs to be worked on to lay the groundwork for ending the unrest.

He says the riots affecting the country will not be resolved until there is a response to France's current political crisis.

Our Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield has described how rioters in France are exploiting the country's political situation.

Nick Beake
Europe correspondent, in Marseille

We’ve just got to Marseille - France’s second biggest city by population - which saw considerable violence at the weekend.

We have arrived in the middle of an emergency ban on people gathering in public, which kicked in at midday and is due to lapse at 20:00 local time (19:00 BST).

Here in the city centre, in driving rain, the clean up is continuing after the chaos of Saturday.

More than 600 shops were looted in that frenzy, according to business leaders.

The regional Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie (CCI) says this is at least twice the number compared with the last time there were riots in the city, three years ago.

Jean-Luc Chauvin, the president of the Marseille-Province branch of the organisation, says the damage to buildings as well as the destruction and theft of stock has come at what should be the busiest time of the year when businesses make 30% of their turnover in the lead up to Christmas.

He says many shop owners are now in "deep distress" and fear for their survival.

In the aftermath of this weekend's unrest, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has announced some French cities will be given the power to implement partial curfews.

This, he said, is a "more appropriate" measure to take than declaring a state of emergency - which he has not ruled out entirely.

The curfews will be local and targeted and are designed to protect people and businesses, the PM said earlier.

Though, it still remains unclear where these could be implemented or what they will look like in practice.

He added it would be "impossible" to put in place a curfew across the whole of Paris, but localised measures can be taken.

A separate emergency ban on public gatherings has been implemented in Marseille - this began at noon and will remain in place until 20:00 local time (11:00-19:00 BST).

In our next post we will bring you the latest from our Europe correspondent Nick Beake who is in Marseille.

Tracing the origin of earliest calls for Saturday’s protestspublished at 14:53 BST 19 October

14:53 BST 19 October

By Marco Silva

BBC Verify has traced some of the earliest calls for Saturday's protests in France to a little-known TikTok account.

In early September an account called "V2" - which usually posted football content - shared a video of a young man calling for demonstrations over rising fuel prices.

While the video is no longer available on TikTok, we found an archived copy of it online.

About 25 minutes after that post a second video suggested 17 October as the date.

"[People] talk too much… We don’t have a date… 17 October is a Saturday and it’s the holidays, everyone can be there," he said in the post, which has since been watched 5.7 million times.

"V2" has not yet responded to BBC Verify’s requests for comment.

Within days, other accounts were promoting protests on the same date, some using AI-generated images and symbols associated with the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) - a French protest movement that began in 2018.

It remains unclear who was behind these accounts or whether they were working together.

But the calls continued to spread across social media gaining support from more established activists, student groups and trade unions.

By October, websites and channels on the Telegram messaging app were actively sharing protest locations and practical information.

Image source, Getty Images

EU spokesman Markus Lammert says widespread violence including arson, looting and attacks on people and public buildings in France are "unacceptable".

He adds the right to peaceful protest in France must be protected but that it is important not to conflate those who demonstrate peacefully with people who commit violence.

Image source, Reuters

French presidential hopeful Jean-Luc Mélenchon calls for the French PM to "prove his accusation" that "ultra-left radical groups" orchestrated recent disorder in France.

Sébastien Lecornu claimed in an earlier news conference that the groups "want to create chaos in our country up until the presidential elections".

Mélenchon, who is the presidential candidate for left-wing La France Insoumise, adds that if Lecornu cannot prove his accusation then he must "apologise, shut up, and stop stoking disorder".

He adds that he "hasn't heard anyone talking about this, neither in private nor in public".

The protests in France are taking place against a tense political backdrop, with Mélenchon set to take on hard-right Marine Le Pen in next year's presidential elections.

Image source, Getty Images

Sophie Pedder, Paris bureau chief for the Economist, says "a degree of organised violence" is making the unrest in France "difficult to control".

When asked about PM Sébastien Lecornu's repeated remarks that "ultra-left radical groups" are to blame, she the tells BBC Radio 4's World at One programme there are three different types of protesters on the streets of France.

Pedder says these groups are: peaceful protesters, organised hooligans, and looters, but adds that it is "difficult to distinguish who is really behind" the unrest.

Though, she says this "underlying tension" is caused by the upcoming presidential election.

Pedder says that recent polls suggest far-right and far-left candidates are likely to be at the run-off for the next presidential elections, which points to a "potential collapse of the centrist mainstream offering in France".

Pedder adds that France has "big questions" to discuss, including how to fund the welfare state and "find economic growth again".

Unclear what partial curfews will look like in practicepublished at 13:24 BST 19 October

13:24 BST 19 October

Hugh Schofield
Paris Correspondent

The French government is hard-put to formulate a reaction that is commensurate to the terrifying scale of the weekend’s urban unrest.

After a crisis cabinet meeting in Paris, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu made a series of announcements.

He said a state of emergency could be installed if the riots continue and in the meantime localised overnights curfews could be put in place.

Lecornu gave some local mayors powers to put those in place, but it is not quite clear what they'd look like in practice.

It could mean that the area around Place de la République in Paris is off-limits during specific times. I suspect a series of such measures will be announced in the capital and cities like Marseille and Bordeaux.

He said 200 police investigators were now examining online footage taken of themselves by looters, with the aim of bringing them to justice.

And he also repeated his attack on the political far-left, who he blamed for trying to stir up disorder in the run-up to next April’s presidential elections.

Images of 'rioting Pink Panther' are AI-generatedpublished at 12:57 BST 19 October

12:57 BST 19 October

By Charlotte Green

Images appearing to show the Pink Panther rioting in France have gathered millions of views across social media platforms over the last week.

While we have verified real footage of protesters dressed in Superman and Captain America costumes these pictures of the Pink Panther were made using artificial intelligence (AI).

We can say this because we uploaded them to a detector which searches for the invisible SynthID watermark that is embedded in some AI-generated images and tells us which tools created them.

All of these Pink Panther images were made using Google’s AI tools.

We also did a reverse image search to find the earliest version of the pictures posted online and found they first emerged from an Instagram account advertising AI art.

It also features AI pictures of other fictional characters rioting including Homer Simpson and the Teletubbies.

Madeleine Lake
Live reporter

Image source, Eliza Lumani

Eliza Lumani has just spent the weekend in Paris for her honeymoon, which has always been a dream of hers. She says she had "absolutely no idea" that protests would be taking place.

The 28-year-old, originally from Sweden, tells me that she came across peaceful protesters when exploring the city, with some telling her that they are protesting for "better school and living conditions".

Later on, things escalated. She saw fires, and was scared by tear gas, and particularly the "loud boom" sounds from canisters being thrown by police.

Image source, Eliza Lumani

"I was never really afraid of the protesters themselves. I never felt like they were there to physically hurt anyone. What was actually scary was the tear gas, which made it difficult to breathe," Eliza explains.

She says seeing the protests has given her a new perspective on the city.

"I’ve always seen it as a beautiful and romantic city, but seeing people, especially the younger generation from all backgrounds standing up for what they believe in showed me a different side of Paris."

Image source, Getty Images

Here's what we heard from French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu:

• Around 80% of people arrested for rioting and violence during a weekend of protests in France face criminal charges
• Local mayors now have the power to introduce partial curfews, aimed at protecting people and businesses. He did not specify which cities were given these powers
• Any necessary repairs to damaged properties will be funded by those responsible, with a law to be put in place to make this possible
• A partial unemployment fund is also being set up to support those who cannot work because their businesses are out of action
• The prime minister blamed "ultra-left radical groups" for the instability, with Lecornu accusing them of working to destabilise the country ahead of next year's presidential elections

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

The PM is now asked whether he has confidence in Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who is stood next to him after offering to resign on Sunday evening.

Lecornu answers that he trusts Nuñez. If this wasn't the case, he wouldn't "be beside me right now", the PM says.

"We all need to be firm and strong together," he concludes.

For Lecornu, ultra-left radical groups are to blame for the instability witnessed over the weekend.

"There's a movement led by very ultra-left radical groups that really want to destabilise, that want to create chaos in our country up until the presidential elections."

Given this, he says there will also be increased security around political meetings and gatherings, to ensure "democracy can exercise itself in the next few weeks and months".

"We will not be dictated and ruled by the breakers, by the thieves, by the thugs."

We can bring you more from Lecornu, who says he is giving local mayors the power to implement curfews "where they need".

He says the government will also set aside money to help affected areas recover from the damage, adding that this funding will come from those behind the violence.

"There will be a law that will be put in place to find ways of making sure that those who have damaged properties will have to pay," Lecornu says.

Lecornu also announces a partial unemployment fund for those who cannot work as a result of the riots and looting.

He adds that the government is speaking to insurers to ensure people are able to access funds as quickly as possible.

Image source, Getty Images

Lecornu says that the justice minister will speak later to provide more details about how the government is working to prevent further violence.

He says an important operation is beginning today in Paris involving 200 investigators, who will analyse footage of violence from over the weekend.

The prime minister has also given local mayors the power to introduce partial curfews in some parts of the country, which he says is designed to protect people and businesses.

Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu says local mayors are questioning how police forces organised themselves in response to rioting and looting, in order to explain how the disorder was allowed to unfold.

"The French people want to know how the disorder came about, how it all unfolded, and how this violence came about in our country", he says, adding that there had been more disorder in Paris and Marseille last night.

Lecornu says around 80% of people arrested as part of rioting and looting over the weekend face criminal charges.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is speaking now after holding a crisis cabinet meeting about the weekend of riots and looting.

Follow along by watching live at the top of this page. We'll also bring you the key lines right here.

Rioters exploit political paralysis in Francepublished at 11:12 BST 19 October

11:12 BST 19 October

Hugh Schofield
Paris Correspondent

Image source, KAI

A meeting has been taking place between Sébastien Lecornu and various ministers where they are likely to have discussed various aspects of this weekend's protests.

Some of it is going to be about insurance and bailing out the thousands of shopkeepers - many of which have lost all they had.

Small mobile phone shops which were looted in Paris are often little one-person enterprises - they’ve lost everything.

It’s a big deal, there’s a lot of money that will have to be mobilised by the state to bail them out.

There’s also the security aspect of all of this. What went wrong, should there be a change of tactics, or is it simply a case of the police just don’t have the numbers to cope with what has happened?

But the general political reaction is one of powerlessness and the sense we are at the end of a regime - President Macron is on his way out, there are presidential elections next year.

There is a lack of power at the centre, which the rioters are rushing into.

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu will shortly make a televised statement addressing violent protests over the weekend.

We'll bring you the latest lines here - you will also be able to watch live at the top of this page.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

More than 2,000 businesses were directly impacted by the weekend's violence, the head of France's Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI) says.

Alain Di Crescenzo has told broadcaster RTL that damage from the riots is estimated at "hundreds of millions of euros".

On Saturday, the CCI called the violence "unacceptable" and said it was in the process of setting up support for affected businesses.