The office of the French Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, announced this afternoon the first curfews for the nights of Monday and Tuesday in the north of the country, in Lille, Douai, Wattignies and Denain. The same measure will affect some areas of Paris from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m.: in the Place de la République and in the streets surrounding Les Halles.
Hours earlier, Lecornu was in favor of declaring a state of emergency in France "if necessary", after the explosion of acts of violence and looting in the demonstrations on October 17. "At the moment, temporary and localized curfews seem to me to be the most appropriate response to the situation," declared Lecornu, after giving carte blanche to the prefects at the end of the meeting of the inter-ministerial emergency cell.
Since Monday, Marseille has been the first city to ban demonstrations between 12 and 8 p.m. and to impose police controls in city centers to prevent looting and acts of violence. Other cities could follow the example, including Paris, where the "yellow vests" have once again called for another demonstration next Saturday.
Lecornu took advantage of his brief intervention before the press to accuse "the far-right movement of organizing profound disorder in the country until the presidential elections" in April and May 2027. "There is a whole nebula of organizations that can be activated even to question the calendar and even the celebration of the electoral event," he warned.
Emmanuel Macron rejected, for his part, the resignation of the Minister of the Interior, Laurent Nuñez, who assumed "full responsibility" for the chaos to contain the explosion of violence after the demonstrations on October 17 that have resulted in 2,300 arrests, more than 2,000 looted businesses and almost a thousand police officers injured throughout France.
The French president, criticized from right to left for his lukewarm message to the nation and the lack of concrete measures, decided to keep Nuñez in his position due to the need for "continuous command of the security forces in the current context," as specified by the Elysee Palace in a statement.
Macron, who today begins a three-day tour of the Middle East, has asked Nuñez to immediately deploy "new modes of action against the troublemakers." The French president acknowledged "the deficiencies of anticipation and information" that contributed to the overwhelm of law enforcement during Saturday's riots in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Nantes, Bordeaux, Limoges and other cities.
"I submitted my resignation because I am responsible for everything that happened," Laurent Nuñez himself admitted on Monday in statements to France Inter. "The question now is how to ensure this does not happen again."
Looting
"Hundreds of businesses were looted with the intervention of numerous rioters," Nuñez added. "Our forecasts regarding participation in the demonstrations (estimated at 550,000 people) were two and a half times lower than reality."
"The device was disproportionate to the volume of participants," acknowledged the Minister of the Interior. "But also the number of rioters, looters and extreme left militants that caused the situations to degenerate."
Nuñez, who was scheduled to visit Marseille on Monday, admitted "the loss of control of the police in some cities" and took responsibility for "the lack of foresight regarding the available forces."
In Paris, meanwhile, Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire denounced up to 30 lootings that occurred on Sunday night, especially in the Les Halles area, hours after new clashes with the police in the Place de la République that resulted in the firing of tear gas and almost a hundred arrests. Grégoire and other mayors have called for citizen support rallies in front of town halls for Monday at noon after the fire that devastated the Limoges town hall.
The Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, convened a new inter-ministerial emergency cell early in the morning, while the Minister of Justice Gerald Darmanin also admitted his share of responsibility for the incidents and the failure of the Intelligence services.
Darmanin reported that 2,331 people are under judicial disposition after the acts of violence on Saturday and Sunday. "Unlike what has happened until now, 70% of those detained are of legal age, so they are not high school students," he said. "Many of them are known to the police and judicial services."
