France's interior minister has admitted that police "lost control" in several cities during violent weekend protests, as the prime minister announced partial curfews could be imposed and President Emmanuel Macron demanded a full security review.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said on Monday there had been a "lack of anticipation" in preparations for the protests and acknowledged that police numbers had sometimes been inadequate to deal with rioters and looters on the fringes of the demonstrations.
"You couldn't look shopkeepers in the eye after hundreds of shops had been looted and say we hadn't lost control," Nuñez told French radio, adding that the responsibility of "rioters, looters and ultra-left militants" should not be glossed over.
Nuñez said he had tendered his resignation to Macron because he felt "responsible for everything that happened." Macron refused it, demanding instead that Nuñez "take all necessary steps to ensure transparency over planning and intelligence failures."
Macron's office said in a statement that Nuñez had also been tasked with "promptly implementing new operational methods for security forces to use on the ground in combating rioters."
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said after an emergency cabinet meeting on Monday he was "fully resolved to restore public order" and had called for "local and partial" curfews where needed. He said there was "no question" of imposing a full curfew on entire cities such as Paris.
Lecornu told reporters that if declaring a state of emergency was deemed necessary "we could do so", but added that at this stage partial curfews seemed "more appropriate." He did not specify which cities would be affected or what form the curfews would take.
Intelligence had suggested there would be 200,000 demonstrators across the country. In the event, more than 500,000 took to the streets, and peaceful protests were hijacked, morphing into one of France's most violent days of unrest in recent years.
Nuñez said 60,000 police and other security forces had been deployed nationwide, but acknowledged it had not been enough to control determined, organised groups of violent rioters in major cities including Paris, Marseille and Lyon.
Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin also said intelligence failings had left the state vulnerable. "There's no good policing without good intelligence," he said, adding that many of those arrested had police records and that "about 80%" were being prosecuted.
Public buildings including a town hall were attacked and set ablaze. An estimated 2,000 shops were ransacked and looted, authorities said. Nearly 2,400 people — 70% of them adults — were arrested, and almost 1,000 police and gendarmes were injured.
Rioting and looting continued on Sunday. The mayor of Paris, Emmanuel Grégoire, said around 30 shops had been targeted in the capital the previous day, with a further 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. "We have a social movement that is spreading, and no political prospect for a constructive way out. So the protests will continue."
Marseille's mayor, Benoît Payan, described the situation as "almost insurrectional" and said the government's stance amounted to "petty political manoeuvring." He said not just democracy but "the very foundations of the Republic" had been undermined.
On Monday, protesters blocked entrances to the Louvre Museum in Paris in support of the nationwide high school student protest movement and to denounce "police repression." The museum was unable to open as scheduled.
The protests follow weeks of demonstrations by high school students that have been marred by sometimes violent clashes with police, shaking the country six months before a presidential election and amid mounting economic pressures.
