By SYLVIE CORBET, Associated Press and agencies | Posted by TOE

France’s interior minister offered his resignation over the weekend’s rioting and looting in several major cities, but President Emmanuel Macron asked him to stay to respond to police needs in an emergency situation, Macron’s office said Monday.

The protests have spread throughout Europe, also taking place in Belgium, Albania, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy.

The violence that rocked France this weekend as cost-of-living protests degenerated into looting and burning nationwide is raising alert levels across Europe, where elections will be held in at least half a dozen countries next year.

Macron refused Laurent Nuñez’s resignation “given the need for continued command of law enforcement in the current context,” according to the statement.

He instructed Nuñez “to take all necessary steps to ensure full transparency about the failures in planning and intelligence-gathering that led to the violence,” Macron’s office said.

Macron also asked for the introduction of “new policing tactics on the ground as quickly as possible” to put an end to violent events.

On Sunday evening, groups of people set fires to trash bins, bicycles and other objects in the streets and looted businesses in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and other cities, a day after major violence erupted Saturday during nationwide protests against rising living costs and poor conditions in schools. At least 2,400 people were arrested across the country.

“I submitted my resignation because I am responsible for everything that is happening,” Nuñez said, speaking Monday on France Inter radio.

“Now, the real issue is ensuring that this doesn’t happen again. … We obviously need to be better at anticipating the kind of mobilization that is unfolding,” he said.

Nuñez blamed violence on “hordes of troublemakers and looters” and “far-left activists” and acknowledged that police strategy needs to be adapted “in the face of extremely mobile groups.” Authorities said groups of hundreds of people sought confrontations with police and targeted public buildings, including city halls and other public offices.

Nuñez acknowledged that authorities had “lost control” in some major cities on Saturday, with hundreds of businesses looted.

“You can’t look shopkeepers in the eye when hundreds of businesses have been looted and say we haven’t lost control in some of these major cities. Obviously,” Nuñez said.

Flames engulfed the 19th-century City Hall in Limoges, in central France, causing its roof to collapse and nearly destroying the building.

In Marseille, the prefect banned any protest or other gathering from noon to 8 p.m. Monday.

– Europe –

With costs of living rising across Europe, smaller demonstrations have broken out in other countries.

During the weekend, clashes broke out on the sidelines of a cost-of-living demonstration in Milan, with Mayor Giuseppe Sala warning: “I’m very worried because it’s a new phenomenon, which also originates from an international scenario and therefore feeds itself.”

In Spain, hundreds of tents have occupied Madrid’s central Puerta del Sol square since September, when the eviction of an 87-year-old woman from her lifelong flat sparked nationwide protests in a country with soaring housing costs.

Dozens of tents have also sprung up in Portugal’s main cities of Lisbon and Porto, with protesters demanding action over rising costs of housing.

In Belgium, students demonstrated against the state of their education system. In Lisbon, Portugal, tens of thousands of people marched on Saturday to protest rising costs of living and the country’s housing crisis.

In Italy, Milan also saw two consecutive nights of unrest this weekend with protesters throwing stones and looting supermarkets, and police responding with tear gas and water cannons.

Meanwhile in Albania, students have been taking to the streets for months, protesting perceived government corruption. Demonstrations in the capital Tirana turned violent this weekend, with one person photographed throwing a Molotov cocktail at riot police.