France

France is counting the cost of a devastating weekend of protests that saw 1,800 people arrested, a 19th-century town hall burned down and hundreds of shops looted. The violence, which erupted during cost-of-living demonstrations by the 'Yellow Vest' movement, has left President Emmanuel Macron facing a major political crisis months before he leaves office.

A large observational study of nearly 90,000 French adults has found that people with the highest intake of a sugar naturally present in red meat face a 63% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes, researchers reported at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Milan. The findings lend support to the idea that chronic inflammation, rather than body weight alone, helps explain the long-standing link between red meat and diabetes.

Violence broke out across France on Saturday during the latest day of demonstrations against conditions in schools and the cost of living. At least 1,200 people were arrested, shopfronts were smashed, and stores were looted, leaving Parisians waking up to damage and cleanup efforts. The French government described the events as an 'escalation in violence.'

Housing and cost-of-living anger that has driven weeks of unrest in Spain and France crossed borders this weekend, with masked rioters clashing with police in Milan, a tent camp springing up in Lisbon and demonstrators in Albania facing rubber bullets for the first time.

France awoke to scenes of widespread damage on Sunday after a day of protests across the country descended into the worst rioting in years. Police arrested around 1,800 people on Saturday as an estimated 550,000 demonstrators took to the streets. While the majority of marches were peaceful, fires, looting, and attacks on public buildings in Paris, Marseille, Limoges and other cities have left the country in a state of shock. The clean-up is underway across the capital, with Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire declaring that whole streets have been devastated.

An unknown cybercriminal group hacked thousands of remote-controlled refrigeration systems across hundreds of French grocery stores late Sunday night, spiking temperatures, spoiling food and sparking small fires. The attack is the latest example of a rising trend in which digital intrusions target physical infrastructure rather than data, using real-world consequences to maximise leverage over victims.

Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets across at least four European countries on Saturday in separate, uncoordinated demonstrations against soaring living costs, with France seeing its most turbulent day of protests in decades and clashes in Brussels, Lisbon, Milan and Bologna.