"You won't make it past Christmas, Emmanuel," read the graffiti on a boarded-up shop near the Champs-Elysees boulevard. A worker clears debris in a bank as a man watches through smashed windows in Paris on Sunday. Credit:AP The scene was played out across France, with demonstrations turning violent in other provincial cities, including in Bordeaux, where protesters destroyed shopfronts, looted the Apple store and set fire to cars. As in previous weeks, a peaceful core of protesters – many of them from provincial towns and cities, and from the suburbs of Paris – was infiltrated by extreme-right, extreme-left and anarchist elements that defied riot police. A municipal worker removes graffiti in Paris as monuments reopened, council workers cleaned debris and shop owners tried to put the city back together on Sunday. Credit:AP

Macron, elected in May 2017, is facing mounting criticism for not speaking in public in more than a week as violence worsened. His office claimed he did not want to add fuel to the fire ahead of Saturday's protests. A damaged cash machine in Paris on Sunday. Credit:AP The upheaval in the Christmas shopping season has dealt a heavy blow to retailing, the tourist industry and the manufacturing sector as road blocks disrupt supply chains. On Saturday, the Eiffel Tower and other monuments and museums closed their doors for security reasons, as did top department stores on what should have been a peak shopping day. Christmas markets and top-flight football matches were cancelled across the country. The protest movement will have "a severe impact" on the French economy, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday as he toured an upmarket central Paris neighbourhood that had seen heavy looting on Saturday night.

"We must expect a new slowdown of economic growth at year-end due to the "yellow vest" protests," Le Maire said. Prior to the protests, economists had been expecting growth to pick up after a weak first half of the year as tax cuts aimed at boosting purchasing power took effect. Russian interference probed Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said French security services had opened a probe into possible Russian involvement in the 'yellow vest' movement. According to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, about 600 Twitter accounts known to promote Kremlin views were focusing on France, boosting their use of the hashtag #giletsjaunes, the French name for the yellow vest protesters.

Loading Russia has been criticised for using social media to influence elections in the US and elsewhere. Attempts to use fake news reports and cyber attacks to undercut the Macron's 2017 presidential campaign failed, but Russian-linked sites have pushed reports of a mutiny among police and of officers' support for the protests. "An investigation is now under way," Le Drian said. "I will not make comments before the investigation has brought conclusions." Le Drian did, however, have words for US President Donald Trump, who has used Twitter posts to incorrectly suggest the French protests were aimed at the Paris climate accord. Le Drian dismissed Trump's comments, and said the US President should not meddle in French politics. He added that Macron had already asked Trump to stay out of French affairs.

He also shot down Trump's claim that protesters in Paris were chanting "We want Trump". "The protesters didn't protest in English!" Le Drian said in an interview with RTL, a French radio channel. "We don't participate in America's domestic politics and we would like that to be reciprocal." 'Everything is broken' In Paris, Gregory Caray, owner of two furniture shops, said he was relieved to see that his shop had not been vandalised, but the protective wooden boards over its windows were plastered with graffiti. Protesters take photos out the window of a cafe near Saint-Lazare train station in Paris on Saturday. Credit:Bloomberg

"You can understand the yellow vests movement, but this is completely unacceptable. It has been three weekends in a row now. Look around you, everything is broken, damaged. All the shops had to close and spend money to shut everything up, and it happens every week," he said. Loading Named after the fluorescent safety vests that French motorists must carry, the "yellow vest" protests erupted on November 17 after a months-long build up on social media. Nearly 300,000 demonstrators nationwide took to the streets on that first weekend to denounce fuel tax rises and high living costs. The government has cancelled a planned rise in taxes on petrol and diesel in a bid to defuse the situation but the protests have morphed into a broader anti-Macron rebellion. "I don't know if Macron's resignation is necessary, but he must completely change course and increase wages and lower taxes," said Bertrand Cruzatier as he watched cleaners scrub out anti-Macron graffiti at Place de la Republique in the capital.

In the centre of the square, a banner hanging from the bronze statue of Marianne, symbol of the French republic, read: "Give back the money". Macron's last major address to the nation was on November 27, when he said he would not allow "thugs" to force him to change policy. "The President of the Republic will ... make important announcements," government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said on LCI television on Sunday. He gave no other details about the timing, content or format of Macron's next public address. "However, not all the problems of the 'yellow vest' protesters will be solved by waving a magic wand," he said. Yellow vest protesters demand lower taxes, higher minimum wages and better pension benefits. But, mindful of France's deficit and not wanting to flout EU rules, Macron has scant wriggle room for more concessions.