PARIS — French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said Monday he had asked regional authorities to impose “local and partial” curfews in some cities, after the government conceded that police had “lost control” in several places during a weekend of rioting and looting, The Guardian reported.
Speaking after an emergency cabinet meeting, Lecornu said he was “fully resolved to restore public order” and that there was “no question” of a full curfew on entire cities such as Paris. A state of emergency could be declared if deemed necessary, he said, but partial curfews seemed “more appropriate” for now. He did not say which cities would be affected.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said he had offered his resignation because he felt “responsible for everything that happened.” President Emmanuel Macron refused it, instead asking him to “take all necessary steps to ensure transparency over the failures in planning and intelligence that led to the violence” and to roll out new methods for dealing with looters, as Al Jazeera reported.
Nuñez acknowledged a “lack of anticipation.” Intelligence had pointed to about 200,000 demonstrators nationwide; more than 500,000 turned out. “You couldn’t look shopkeepers in the eye after hundreds of shops had been looted and say we hadn’t lost control,” he told French radio. About 60,000 police and other security forces had been deployed.
Nearly 2,400 people were arrested, about 70% of them adults, and almost 1,000 police officers and gendarmes were injured, authorities said. Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said about 30 shops were targeted in the capital on Sunday, with a further 350 arrests overnight. On Monday, protesters blocked the entrances to the Louvre, which could not open as scheduled.
Markets were rattled. France’s 10-year government bond yield rose 10 basis points to 4.89%, widening the gap with German borrowing costs, and the CAC 40 index fell 1.2% in morning trading, The Guardian reported.
Sources: The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Guardian (markets)
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