They left zones undefended. A wrong forecast that plunged France

French intelligence services did not predict the scale of Saturday's protests. According to a note from the National Directorate of Territorial Intelligence (DNRT) of October 16, between 60,000 and 100,000 demonstrators were expected outside Paris. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez raised this number to 200,000. However, the reality exceeded all expectations - "according to the Ministry of the Interior, 550,000 people took to the streets, almost three times more than expected," emphasizes Le Monde.

The intelligence service also warned against the possibility of "explosive", spontaneous and "offensive" actions, especially in the afternoon. However, even these warnings did not prepare the services for the scale and intensity of the riots that engulfed the largest French cities.

Too few policemen on the streets

On Saturday, 60,000 officers were sent to the streets of French cities. This is 20,000 fewer than a year earlier, when the country was preparing for the protests of the "Let's Block Everything" movement. At that time, the number of mobilized policemen was 80,000. This time, in the face of a much larger number of demonstrators, the security forces proved insufficient.

An additional problem was the fatigue of officers who were employed for a long time to secure the protests of high school students. During a period of calm, significant forces can be mobilized, but when it lasts for a long time, when forces are engaged almost every day, fatigue sets in and you need to know how to manage them in the long term - notes a source in the security forces quoted by the daily.

As a result, as "Le Monde" emphasizes, the police force on October 17 was too small when confronted with "an unprecedented number of people inclined to violent action." The police and gendarmerie had to "leave some zones undefended." The most dramatic events took place in Lyon, where officers failed to repel the crowd in the central Place Bellecour, and "the scenario was repeated throughout the city" because there were too many participants in the confrontations and there were too many places where they took place.

Three groups of rioters

According to Le Monde's report, police, anti-riot units and mobile gendarmerie forces dealt with three types of participants in the rallies: "classic demonstrators, highly organized activists, supporters of direct and permanent violence, and then - with vandals and thieves taking advantage of the opportunity."

In Lyon, almost 200 stores were looted by 1:30 a.m. between Saturday and Sunday. In Bordeaux, police officers reported that they had never experienced such intense stone-pelting in their entire careers. “The level of violence was unprecedented,” emphasizes Le Monde.

In Marseille, the first attack on a mobile operator's store took place in the morning, and a few minutes later there was an attempt to set fire to a nearby municipal police station. Recordings of these events were broadcast live on social media, which - as Rudy Manna, a representative of the UNSA police trade union, emphasizes - caused a "snowball effect". More thieves began to arrive in the city center, taking advantage of the opportunity.