Violence of October 17: Gabriel Attal pleads for the use of armed forces “temporarily”

Barely two days after the rampages which crossed all of France, on the sidelines of the demonstrations against “the high cost of living”, the candidates are coming up with their solution. Bruno Retailleau, Les Républicains (LR) candidate, calls for “a state of emergency to be declared”. Without ruling out this option, Gabriel Attal, for his part, pleaded on RTL for “the use of the armed forces”.

“There is an emergency, it is to restore order,” he argued. The Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, reported this Monday, on France 2, 2,331 people in police custody over the weekend. In Marseille, according to the Bouches-du-Rhône police headquarters, nearly 30,000 looters took over the city, causing, among other things, the damage to the Town Hall. For the former prime minister, “all of our country’s law enforcement agencies must be focused on protecting French people and property.” “And if it is necessary temporarily to resort to armed forces, it must be done,” he defends.

“It was not adapted to the situation”

Recognizing that the military “are not there to maintain order”, the former minister pleads for them to keep “public buildings static”, so that the police “are sent to the field”. Only the police and the gendarmerie are responsible for ensuring public order. During Act XIX of the “yellow vests” in March 2019, the government mobilized the soldiers of the Sentinel system, usually responsible for the fight against terrorism, to protect official buildings. A decision that caused a lot of ink to flow. The thirty-year-old also admitted “bankruptcy” in anticipation of the events of Saturday where 550,000 people marched according to the Ministry of the Interior.

Guest of LCI, government spokesperson Maud Bregeon, dismissed the hypothesis. “It can be done when necessary, but let’s remember that the army’s missions are not law enforcement missions. We are on two different missions,” she assured. And to continue: “It was not adapted to the situation as we know it.”