People turn out across the country to support local government after arrests on Sunday fell to 49 from 719 on Saturday

Violent protests in France over the police shooting of teenager Nahel M appeared to ease after five nights of unrest as crowds gathered at town halls across the country to show solidarity with local governments targeted in the violence.

Police made 49 arrests nationwide on Sunday, French media reported, citing the interior ministry, down significantly from 719 arrests the day before, and 1,300 on Friday.

Grandmother of Nahel M calls for calm as 45,000 police and gendarmes deployed in fifth night of rioting

• ‘We are seen as less human’: inside Marseille’s districts abandoned by the police

The grandmother of a teenage boy, whose fatal shooting by police sparked five nights of rioting in France, has called for calm as authorities said the scale and intensity of the violence appeared to be waning, despite an arson attempt on a mayor’s home.

Gérald Darmanin, the interior minister, said the police deployment would be unchanged, with 45,000 officers on duty around the country, after protesters again torched cars, looted shops, damaged infrastructure and clashed with police on Saturday night.

The tradition of bashing pots and pans in protest has been revived, with ministers facing a cookware cacophony across the country

The French have turned protesting into an art form. A country synonymous with revolution has given the world the “manure protest”, where tonnes of muck were dumped outside parliament; the “vegetable protest”, with carrots and rotten tomatoes spread on the steps of public buildings; and the “dairy protest”, in which gallons of milk were spilled. Earlier this month, opponents of Emmanuel Macron’s bill to raise the state pension age to 64 dumped gas and electricity meters outside Marseilles city hall.

For the past week, furious French people have revived a much older form of protest: the casserolade, or “pots and pans protest”, after Macron pushed through the unpopular law.