French PM calls for partial curfews in cities to curb rioting and looting

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - PARIS — French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Monday he had asked local authorities to ​impose partial curfews in some regions after weekend protests across the nation deteriorated into large-scale riots and looting.

“These are specific acts of delinquency, of looting, and it is out of the question that this continues,” Lecornu told reporters after a crisis meeting with members of his cabinet.

Lecornu said he was "fully resolved to restoring public order" and 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 say which cities ​would impose partial curfews nor what form they would ​take, although he excluded imposing a full curfew on the whole of Paris.

"These curfews must be local and partial. ​It is out of the question to put ​all of Paris under curfew."

The instructions come as Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered his resignation on Sunday, but President Emmanuel Macron asked him to stay to respond to police needs in an emergency situation.

“I submitted my resignation because I am responsible for everything that is happening,” Nuñez said, speaking on France Inter radio.

“Now, the real issue is ensuring that this doesn’t happen again. … We obviously need to be better at anticipating the kind of mobilization that is unfolding,” he said.

Macron rejected Nuñez's resignation “given the need for continued command of law enforcement in the current context,” Macron's office said in a statement on Monday.

He instructed Nuñez “to take all necessary steps to ensure full transparency about the failures in planning and intelligence-gathering that led to the violence,” the statement said.

Macron also asked for the introduction of “new policing tactics on the ground as quickly as possible” to put an end to violent events.

Nunez told reporters ‌during ⁠the same press conference with Lecornu that there were no plans to cancel Tuesday evening's Paris Saint-Germain versus Barcelona soccer match.

The mayors of France's biggest cities on ​Monday demanded answers ​from the ⁠government to what they called a lack of preparation by security forces as ​the country licked its wounds from ​a weekend ⁠of rioting and looting.

The protests followed weeks of student demonstrations with occasional bouts of street violence, rocking ⁠the ​country six months ahead of ​its next presidential election and increasing pressures over a weak economy ​and surging debt.

On Sunday evening, groups of people set fires to trash bins, bicycles and other objects in the streets and looted businesses in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and other cities, a day after major violence erupted Saturday during nationwide protests against rising living costs and poor conditions in schools. At least 2,400 people were arrested across the country.

Nuñez blamed violence on “hordes of troublemakers and looters” and “far-left activists” and acknowledged that police strategy needs to be adapted “in the face of extremely mobile groups.” Authorities said groups of hundreds of people sought confrontations with police and targeted public buildings, including city halls and other public offices.

Nuñez acknowledged that authorities had “lost control” in some major cities on Saturday, with hundreds of businesses looted.

“You can’t look shopkeepers in the eye when hundreds of businesses have been looted and say we haven’t lost control in some of these major cities. Obviously,” Nuñez said.