France considers partial curfews after violent protests damage thousands of shops

PARIS: French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on Monday that he had asked some local authorities to impose partial curfews following violent protests across the country over the weekend.

The demonstrations, driven by demands for lower living costs, higher wages and pensions, and fairer economic policies, drew conflicting attendance estimates. Organisers put the nationwide turnout at around 800,000, while police estimated that up to 200,000 people took part, Reuters reported.

The violence left nearly 1,000 members of the security forces injured and caused extensive damage to businesses in Paris and other major cities, according to AFP.

More than 2,000 shops were affected by the weekend’s violence, with damage running into “hundreds of millions of euros”, Alain Di Crescenzo, president of France’s chamber of commerce, said.

The French government has said that businesses severely affected by the violence would be compensated and that those responsible would have to cover the cost of the damage.

The weekend proved challenging for French police, who struggled to contain the violence. Injuries were also reported among protesters, including one demonstrator whose hand was blown off by a police crowd-control grenade.

On Monday, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered to resign, saying he felt responsible for the violence. However, President Emmanuel Macron rejected the offer and ordered a review of security and intelligence failures.

“Given the damage that has been caused, it was only right that I should hand in my resignation,” Nuñez said.

The presidency said in a statement that Macron had rejected the resignation, citing “the necessity for continued leadership of law enforcement”.

Instead, Macron ordered Nuñez to “take all necessary steps to ensure transparency over the failures in planning and intelligence that led to the violence”.

Saturday’s demonstrations descended into some of the worst violence to hit France in years, with town halls and shops looted and set ablaze.

“On Saturday, in some major cities, you couldn’t look shopkeepers in the eye after hundreds of shops had been looted and tell them we hadn’t lost control,” Nuñez said.

Nuñez acknowledged a “lack of anticipation” in deploying security forces on Saturday, saying their numbers were insufficient to deal with the large crowds and rioters and looters operating on the fringes of the demonstrations.

He estimated that around 60,000 law enforcement personnel had been deployed across the country that day.

Macron also called on Nuñez to introduce new operational methods to help security forces tackle rioting and looting, the presidency’s statement said.

Looting continued on Sunday, with Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire saying on Monday that around 30 shops had been targeted in the capital the previous day. He described the scenes as “unbearable”.

Nuñez said around 350 people had been arrested in Paris on Sunday and overnight.

More than 2,330 people were taken into police custody over the weekend, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Monday and around 70 per cent of them were adults.