After fifteen days of mobilization around the high schools, the damage is, in places, considerable. The Pays de la Loire region thus estimates the cost of the renovation work at the Nelson-Mandela high school in Nantes at at least 2 million euros. For his part, LR president of the regional council, Fabrice Pannekoucke estimated "between 25 and 30 million euros" in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the bill for damage in his region, Friday October 2 on franceinfo.
For his part, the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin, asked prosecutors, Friday on RTL, to incur "the civil liability of parents" in the event of damage caused by their children. And this, in order to make them “pay for the repairs”. “Parents must have their responsibility as parents. What are 15-16 year old kids doing attacking bus shelters or their head of school?” he asked. To reinforce the responsibility of young people involved in this damage, the government has decided to bring forward the examination in Parliament of the so-called "killer pays" bill, which must be included on the agenda in the Senate in October. Franceinfo returns to this measure in three questions.
What does the current law say?
Article 1240 of the Civil Code stipulates that a parent is financially responsible for damage caused by their minor child, with exceptions, namely when the children have been "entrusted to a third party by an administrative or judicial decision". For a long time, the Civil Code imposed a “condition of cohabitation” to activate the civil liability of parents. In the event of separation in particular, only the parent with whom the child usually resided had to compensate the victims.
But the law pushed by Gabriel Attal when he was in office at Matignon and passed in 2025, after the riots of summer 2023, put an end to this condition: since last year, "the responsibility of a parent can be engaged even if he does not live with his child", as soon as he exercises parental authority. If a minor is summoned before a judge, the summons of the responsible parents is automatic.
How does the law apply?
In theory, parents' civil liability insurance should be able to cover compensation claimed by the State, which is not insured against damage caused by urban movements. However, "in general, insurance excludes from the contract damage that would be committed during riots or popular movements. The parents must have previously negotiated it and added it to the contract", explains John-Christopher Rolland, doctor in public law, to France 2.
If the parents have not negotiated this clause, they must, in the event of a conviction, pay the compensation or reparations out of their own pocket. The 2025 law even strengthened the targeting of solvent parents, since it allows insurers to turn against them, by demanding from them a “remaining liability capped” at 7,500 euros, as part of the compensation for the damage for which the child was convicted, reports Public Senate.
However, identifying and arresting thugs always proves extremely complicated during riots. “The difficulty is that these people have a fairly well-established form of technique (...) they mix with the crowd as soon as there is a risk of being arrested by the police,” recalled the general secretary of the Union of Police Commissioners on franceinfo in 2018, at the time of the yellow vest movement. In fact, the young people arrested in the riots are not necessarily the rioters themselves, but rather individuals who participated in the riots.
How does the government intend to toughen the law?
The government now wishes to strengthen the legislative arsenal to broaden the responsibility of participants in urban violence movements. He has therefore decided to bring forward the examination in Parliament of a so-called "break-payer" bill, the Prime Minister's entourage informed franceinfo on Saturday, confirming information from Le Parisien.
The text, which initially aimed to provide a response to the violence committed after PSG's second title in the Champions League in May, will be included on the Senate agenda in October with a principle of "joint responsibility". “From now on, any person participating in a group with the aim of committing violence or damage, or having remained in a violent gathering during which damage is committed, may be held civilly liable for damage,” underlines the bill, made up of five articles.
This provision concerns adults. Concretely, the mere fact of participating in a violent gathering causing damage may incur liability on the part of the participant, requiring him or her to contribute civilly to the repairs, up to 10,000 euros. People who remain after the summons to disperse while violence or damage is committed could also be involved.
For minors, the text provides that the government proposes to recover their debt to the State by transforming "all or part of it into a restorative obligation of general interest" with, for example, "unpaid work carried out for the benefit of an association or a public community", specifies the site vie-publique.fr. The executive also wishes to allow, in certain cases, the seizure of family allowances and housing assistance, in the event of non-payment of damages to which a person is definitively sentenced. “This could involve the conviction of the recipient or the child for whom he or she is jointly responsible for the damage he or she causes,” illustrates vie-publique.fr.
This, "with respect for what remains to be lived", wrote Sébastien Lecornu on X in a post on September 16, at the time of the presentation of the text to the Council of Ministers. “When we break, we must pay the consequences,” he summarized in this publication, recalling the famous formula “you break, you repair” by Gabriel Attal.
The Council of State, however, expressed reservations on the bill. He considers in particular that an individual cannot be held responsible for acts that he did not commit himself.
