WorldPosted at: Oct 19 2026 8:22PM


France considering partial curfew in various cities post violent protests

Paris, Oct 19 (UNI) France is considering partial curfews in several cities after violent weekend protests overwhelmed police in some areas, prompting Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to promise tougher measures to restore public order.
Speaking after an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday, Lecornu said he had asked regional authorities to consider "local and partial" curfews where necessary. He ruled out imposing a blanket curfew across entire cities such as Paris, adding that a state of emergency remained an option but that targeted restrictions were currently "more appropriate".
The announcement followed an admission by Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez that police had "lost control" in some cities during Saturday's demonstrations. Nuñez acknowledged that authorities had failed to anticipate the scale of the unrest and that officers in some areas were outnumbered by rioters and looters.
Intelligence assessments had forecast around 200,000 demonstrators nationwide. More than 500,000 ultimately took part, with violent groups disrupting otherwise peaceful protests and triggering one of France's most serious episodes of unrest in recent years.
Nuñez said he had offered his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron because he felt "responsible for everything that happened". Macron rejected it, instead ordering the minister to establish what went wrong with security planning and intelligence and to introduce "new operational methods" for police on the ground.
The scale of the damage was substantial. Public buildings, including a town hall, were attacked and set ablaze, while around 2,000 shops were reportedly ransacked or looted. Nearly 2,400 people were arrested, around 70% of them adults, and almost 1,000 police officers and gendarmes were injured.
Although 60,000 police and other security personnel had been deployed across the country, Nuñez admitted the numbers had not been enough to contain organised groups of violent rioters in major cities, including Paris, Marseille and Lyon.
"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. He also warned against overlooking the responsibility of "rioters, looters and ultra-left militants".
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin pointed to the same intelligence failures, saying they had left the state vulnerable. "There's no good policing without good intelligence," he said, adding that many of those arrested had previous police records and that around 80% were facing prosecution.
Macron's office said on Monday that Nuñez had been tasked with ensuring transparency over the failures and swiftly introducing new methods to help security forces confront rioters.
The unrest did not end on Saturday. Further looting was reported on Sunday, when Paris Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire said around 30 shops had been targeted in the capital and another 350 people arrested overnight.
"Maintaining public order is the responsibility of the state. It is the state that was at fault this weekend," Grégoire said. He warned that the protest movement was spreading without a clear political route towards a constructive resolution.
Marseille Mayor Benoît Payan said the unrest had undermined not only democracy but "the very foundations of the Republic". Describing the situation as "almost insurrectional", he accused the government of engaging in "petty political manoeuvring".
On Monday, protesters blocked the entrances to the Louvre Museum in support of the nationwide student movement and to denounce what they called "police repression". The demonstration prevented the museum from opening as scheduled. A leaflet displayed outside declared: "We are proud to announce that we are blocking the world's largest museum."
In a televised address on Sunday, Macron condemned what he called "unbridled" violence and said local authorities could ban certain demonstrations in the coming days. He stopped short of declaring a state of emergency or introducing a broader curfew.
The latest unrest follows weeks of demonstrations by high school students, some marked by violent clashes with police. Students, teachers, parents, trade unions and workers have rallied around concerns over the rising cost of living, adding to political pressure ahead of a presidential election expected in about six months.
Similar cost-of-living concerns also prompted demonstrations in Italy, Belgium and Albania over the weekend.
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