France ordered partial curfews in several cities on Monday night after nationwide protests over the cost of living and the state of its schools spilled into the worst street violence the country has seen in years.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said he had asked regional prefects to impose “partial” and “localised” curfews to protect businesses, Al Jazeera reported.
“It is out of the question to put all of Paris under curfew,” he said, while insisting he was “fully resolved to restoring public order.” A state of emergency could be declared if necessary, he added, though partial curfews seemed “more appropriate” at this stage.
Where the curfews apply
- Paris — a curfew covering Place de la République and the streets around the Les Halles shopping district, from 11 p.m. Monday to 6 a.m. Tuesday. Gatherings and demonstrations were banned across the city from 8 p.m.
- Lyon, Nice and Coulaines — similar curfews for Monday night, some applying only to minors.
- Lille and three neighbouring communes — curfews for both Monday and Tuesday nights.
Hiru News reported at 11.42 p.m. Colombo time that buildings had been set alight and businesses looted in cities including Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Hiru’s headline describes the curfew as imposed; its own text says a limited curfew was due to be implemented, which matches the prefect-by-prefect rollout the other accounts describe.
Macron keeps Nunez on
President Emmanuel Macron declined an offer from Interior Minister Laurent Nunez to resign, the Élysée said on Monday morning — a detail the Daily Mirror carried from Reuters at 1.43 p.m. Colombo time.
Macron said Nunez should stay to keep the chain of command intact within the police and security forces, and asked him to develop new methods for dealing with looters as quickly as possible. The president also asked Nunez to “take all necessary steps to ensure transparency over the failures in planning and intelligence that led to the violence.”
Nunez, in turn, conceded that police had lost control.
“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,” he said, acknowledging a “lack of anticipation” in how security forces were deployed and saying their numbers were not enough for the crowds of rioters and looters operating at the edges of the demonstrations. He put the day’s deployment at 60,000 law enforcement personnel.
The mayors of France’s largest cities have demanded answers from the government over what they called a lack of preparation.
The arrest figures do not reconcile
Three official numbers are in circulation, and they do not add up cleanly:
- The Interior Ministry said more than 2,300 people were arrested and almost 1,000 police and gendarmes injured in Saturday’s protests alone.
- Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said more than 2,330 people were taken into police custody across the whole weekend, 70% of them adults.
- Nunez said about 350 people were arrested in Paris on Sunday and overnight.
Saturday’s arrests plus Sunday’s Paris arrests already exceed Darmanin’s weekend total. The likeliest explanation is that the two ministries are counting different things — arrests at the scene against formal police custody — but no source says so, and the discrepancy is recorded here rather than resolved.
Hiru put the figure at “more than 2,400 arrested across France,” attributing it to foreign media without naming an outlet. That number sits above both official figures and may be a later running total; it could not be matched to a named source.
Injuries were also reported among protesters. One demonstrator’s hand was blown off by a police crowd-control grenade.
What set it off
More than half a million people took part in Saturday’s protests, which brought together students demanding better conditions in French schools and residents angry about the cost of living and failing public services. Looting, arson and property damage followed in many cities, with masked rioters attacking town halls, police stations and other government buildings.
Al Jazeera reports the violent weekend demonstrations were led by the “yellow vest” movement, which staged weeks of populist protests over fuel prices between 2018 and 2020. The unrest followed weeks of protests by high school students against overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and underinvestment — described as the biggest youth-led protest movement in France in recent memory.
Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said about 30 shops were targeted in the capital on Sunday, calling the scenes “unbearable.”
The unrest comes roughly six months before France’s next presidential election, with pressure building over a weak economy and rising national debt. The yellow vest movement has called for a fresh round of protests on Saturday.
A note on sourcing
Hiru’s earlier filing credits GB News for Lecornu’s remarks and frames the curfew power as being handed to local mayors. Al Jazeera’s account — bylined to its own staff with AFP and Reuters — is more precise: the orders are issued by prefects, who are central government appointees, in consultation with mayors and local chambers of commerce. This article follows the prefect account.
Sources: Al Jazeera, 19 October, Daily Mirror / Reuters, 19 October, Hiru News — curfew request (Sinhala), Hiru News — curfews and arrests (Sinhala).
