French President Emmanuel Macron postponed a trip to Nigeria and Senegal planned for October 28 to 31, which was not aimed at securing oil and gas deliveries, unlike the highly criticized one made in the Gulf from Monday to Wednesday, his entourage announced on Friday.
“Maintaining the tour in the Middle East was fully assumed by the President of the Republic because it aimed to obtain rapid results to guarantee the security of our energy supplies (...) It was a strategic issue in the context of the global energy crisis”, which allowed “concrete results”, it was underlined.
“To the extent that the travel project in West Africa responded to a diplomatic and cooperation agenda without a direct link to the emergency linked to strategic supplies, he chose to postpone it to a later date” and “informed his partners” of this, the same source added.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez reported on Friday “numerous calls on social networks to commit abuses” but also “looting” during the new day of protest on Saturday, for which 70,000 police and gendarmes will be mobilized in France. “We note that there are many calls from the ultraleft movement and the radical far left,” declared Laurent Nuñez during a press conference Friday at the Ministry of the Interior.
Among the 70,000 members of the security forces deployed, the minister called on “local personnel from the various departments but also personnel from mobile forces”, “elite units such as the RAID, the GIGN or the BRI for the police headquarters” and “around twenty Centaure armored vehicles” for the gendarmerie “and 15 water-throwing devices” for the police, which will be deployed in France.
The minister stressed that the “elite units are not intended to maintain order” but are called upon for “missions where they will supplement and relieve the internal security forces who are authorized to maintain order”.
“Following the events that occurred last weekend in Marseille, Jacques Witkowski, prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône, decided to temporarily ban demonstrations for the day of October 24, declared or undeclared, throughout the department,” announced the prefecture in a press release this Friday. “Nevertheless, this morning, a trade union organization asked to meet the prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône, in order to be able to demonstrate tomorrow, Saturday October 24, in Marseille.”
“At the end of these discussions, because a route has been identified and shared and a security service has been put in place by this union organization, the prefect accepted their request. Their demonstration, which will take place in Marseille, is therefore authorized as an exception. Only this event will be authorized throughout the department.”
A request from the CGT had been submitted for this inter-union demonstration which also brings together the FSU and Solidaires, the general secretary of the CGT departmental union in Bouches-du-Rhône, Marc Pietrosino, told AFP. The prefecture announced Thursday that all demonstrations, declared or undeclared, would be banned on Saturday in Marseille and Bouches-du-Rhône “for obvious reasons of security and availability of internal security forces”.
This ban is being challenged in court by several organizations, including the Human Rights League, the Magistrates' Union, the CGT and the Communist Party, who consider it an attack on freedoms. A hearing will be held at 2 p.m. before the Marseille administrative court. The prefect of Bouches-du-Rhône also returned on Friday morning to his decision to suspend public transport in Marseille, France's second largest city, for 24 hours on Saturday. The measure “did not bring together the necessary consensus for its implementation”, justified the prefecture.
In Bordeaux, while the prefecture is preparing to ban demonstrations in the city center at the request of mayor Thomas Cazenave, the inter-union denounces “a serious attack on the right to demonstrate”. The inter-union exchange with prefect Sophie Brocas on Thursday was particularly heated.
“She told us her wish that we demonstrate over a very large area, far from the city center of Bordeaux and the routes that we have always used to demonstrate. The inter-union considers this unacceptable and denounces an abuse of power,” indicates Stéphane Obé, union representative of the CGT Gironde. The inter-union has already announced that it will take legal action against such an order if it is adopted. She also fears that the latter will only be published this Friday evening, late, to prevent a possible summary appeal. “This would deprive us of our right to justice and this is absolutely not what will calm tensions,” declares Stéphane Obé.
The unions are not committed to respecting this possible ban on demonstrations in the city center on Saturday during the Act II procession against the high cost of living.
Received by the Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, Thursday evening in the company of the mayors of Paris and Marseille, Grégory Doucet spoke out against the ban on demonstrations on Saturday October 24 in Lyon, taken by the prefect of Rhône. “I understand from my exchange with the Prime Minister that the decision to ban demonstrations is still open. The Prime Minister said that in Paris, Lyon and Marseille, it seemed legitimate that demonstrations could be held,” said the Lyon environmentalist elected at the end of the meeting.
“Starting from the principle that demonstrations should be banned does not seem to me to be the right option, to the extent that people are not happy and we must be able to give them the opportunity to say so. We will have to see how the constitutional right to demonstrate can be guaranteed in the best possible conditions. Obviously by ensuring that there is no overflow,” continued Grégory Doucet.
The president of the network of chambers of commerce and industry in France (CCI France) called on traders on Friday to “draw the curtain” and “let the police do their thing” in anticipation of the new demonstrations planned for Saturday.
Alain Di Crescenzo specified on Friday on Europe 1 that at the last count finalized Thursday evening, CCI France had visited 2,241 businesses “vandalized” last Saturday, without excluding that others could have been ransacked “at the margins”, for damage still estimated at “hundreds of millions of euros”.
“Not at all reassured” in the run-up to Saturday’s demonstrations, Alain Di Crescenzo, who “expects to see thugs”, launched an appeal for calm. While some traders told him of their “desire to fight back after the damage and looting last weekend”, he invited those whose premises are located near the demonstration routes to “draw the curtain on Saturday” and above all to “let the police do their thing”.
“The freedom to demonstrate is the foundation of a democracy,” declared Sophie Binet, general secretary of the CGT, this Friday morning on franceinfo, in reaction to Emmanuel Macron’s desire to limit demonstrations after the violence last weekend. Denouncing a “big problem in the strategy of maintaining order”, the trade unionist called on the government to respond to social demands to ease tensions. “For us, the main meeting is November 5,” she announced, calling for “generalization of the strike.”
On purchasing power, Sophie Binet strongly criticized large companies and their managers, whom she considers responsible for the stagnation of remuneration. While Marylise Léon, general secretary of the CFDT, is calling for an increase of 100 euros net in the minimum wage, the CGT is demanding a 10% increase in salaries, their indexation to inflation and a freezing of the prices of basic necessities. Sophie Binet is due to meet Labor Minister Jean-Pierre Farandou this Friday evening to discuss these demands.
The union leader also denounced a “2027 recession budget”, criticizing in particular the freezing of retirement pensions, family allowances and student grants. She calls for the elimination of this “white year” and defends new tax revenues, in particular the Zucman tax, which according to her would bring in an additional 20 billion euros. Finally, after last weekend's damage, condemned by the CGT, she asked that employees of affected businesses be able to benefit from partial unemployment compensation at 100% of their salary, compared to 60% currently.
The MEP of La France Insoumise (LFI), Manon Aubry, went yesterday to the meeting organized by the Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, on maintaining order and securing the presidential campaign. “Social demands are not urgent,” the head of government said, according to her, arousing her ire on Franceinfo. The elected official sees in the latest measures announced by the executive, an “authoritarian slope”.
She denounces bans on demonstrations and “a mess” of curfews. And “intelligence services exploited by power” according to her. “It’s extremely serious,” continues the person close to Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Several bans on demonstrations have been decided, notably in Marseille, a city particularly targeted last weekend. “By banning demonstrations, there will be wild demonstrations. It will be harder to control. One wonders if the government is not looking for chaos,” she snaps.
The PS mayor of Paris Emmanuel Grégoire brought together around 400 Parisians on Thursday to try to reassure traders and local residents shocked by the looting last weekend, of whom he said he shared the feeling of having been “abandoned” by the police.
“We are used to demonstrations, but here we were very, very afraid for our businesses, and our lives,” testified a merchant from the 11th arrondissement, one of the epicenters of the looting on Saturday and Sunday. On Magenta Boulevard, along the route of the demonstration on Saturday against the “high cost of living”, a demonstrator claimed to have seen “inactive police officers who let the chaos happen”.
“I live on the ground floor on the route of Saturday’s demonstration (between Bastille and Nation, editor’s note), what do I do?” asked Renaud, a resident of the same district in eastern Paris. On Sunday, he saw the front door of his building “smashed” by a group of thugs trying to access the roofs. “The police told us to hunt them down on our own,” he said.
“Saturday, you close your windows,” Emmanuel Grégoire replied in front of an assembly of around 400 people in the lounges of the town hall. Confiding that these “home intrusions” were what “freaked us out the most”.
“The question of response time is fundamental. I asked for guarantees in this sense from the police prefect, and from the government,” said the mayor, received in the afternoon by Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu alongside the mayors of Marseille and Lyon, Benoît Payan and Grégory Doucet.
“Everyone understands that we cannot put police officers in front of all businesses. But for us to have to wait 15-20 minutes for an intervention is not acceptable,” said Emmanuel Grégoire. “One of the big problems we had on Saturday was that faced with the threat of a certain number of groups approaching from the Élysée, they withdrew all the cops from the east of Paris to put them all in the west. The East has been abandoned de facto,” he said, worrying about an “under-availability” of the police for Saturday.
During this consensual exchange, the socialist councilor assured that he would “ask questions” to the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the violence of October 17. Particularly on the “absurd trap” at Place de la République before the start of the demonstration on Saturday.
“It’s not true” that the violence is caused “by young people of color from the suburbs, there are people of all profiles,” he said, to applause.
The town hall called on the population “to be extremely vigilant” on Saturday, recommending residents and traders to bring in trash cans, bicycles, terraces and outdoor furniture. Some 450 businesses were damaged this weekend in the capital, including 228 looted.
Former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin condemned on Thursday the “logic” of the “scapegoat” used according to him by the government on the subject of the violence of October 17, accusing the executive of paving the way to the Élysée for Marine Le Pen by amalgamating La France insoumise and “the ultra-left”.
