France’s Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is holding a crisis cabinet meeting on Monday to assess a weekend of violence and looting across the country, in what were some of the worst scenes of public disorder in modern French history.

On Saturday over half a million mainly peaceful protesters demonstrated against rising living costs and dwindling access to decent public services, including a good state education. But the protests turned nasty after groups of black-clad, masked activists and vandals appeared.

An estimated 1,500 shops and businesses were looted and destroyed. Riot police fired tear gas and turned water cannon on crowds. They were seen hitting people with batons in several places. France’s interior ministry said about 1,000 police officers were injured on Saturday, seven of them seriously.

There had been rumours in France that President Emmanuel Macron may introduce a temporary curfew in parts of the country, or even impose a state of emergency to help calm the febrile atmosphere. In the end, he used a televised address to the nation on Sunday to call for national unity and to try to assure the French public that the perpetrators of the violence would be punished.

Macron’s speech has been roundly criticised on social media forums and by political opponents for lacking concrete detail.