France could declare state of emergency over unrest

PARIS: French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Monday that a state of emergency could be imposed 'if needed', while adding that curfews were a better solution to the crisis over violent protests. With six months to go before France elects a successor to President Emmanuel Macron, the country was rocked over the weekend by some of its worst street violence in years. The unrest came after weeks of student demonstrations demanding better conditions in schools.
'I am absolutely determined to restore order,' Lecornu said after a crisis meeting, adding he did not rule out imposing a state of emergency. 'If needed, I will do it,' he said. 'As things stand, however, the issue of curfews, and the implementation of those curfews, seems better suited to the situation we may be facing.'
The prime minister called for localised curfews on Monday, as protesters blocked the entrance to the Louvre in Paris and authorities scrambled to stem public discontent that over the weekend saw mass cost-of-living demonstrations spill over into some of the worst street violence in recent years. He huddled with ministers in a crisis meeting after the interior minister said the police 'had lost control' during the weekend's unrest.
With the Yellow Vests movement, which organised the weekend's rallies, calling for a new round of protests next Saturday, Lecornu called for regional authorities to impose 'partial' and 'localised' curfews to protect businesses after hundreds of shops were damaged and looted.
Other European countries, where anger over rising prices has also led to protests, were keeping a nervous eye on the developments, with smaller clashes breaking out in Milan and Belgium over the weekend and protests simmering in Spain and Portugal. Some half a million people turned out across France on Saturday to denounce the surging cost of living, a culmination of four weeks of protests that began with high school students demanding better conditions at their schools.
What started as peaceful demonstrations morphed into violence in some places, as masked groups on the sidelines of the protests attacked law enforcement, broke into town halls and other public buildings, setting many of them ablaze, looted shops, and set fire to cars, bicycles and scooters on the streets.
Interior Minister Laurent Nunez offered to resign on Monday after more than 2,500 people were arrested and nearly 1,000 members of the security forces injured. Protesters were also hurt, with one demonstrator's hand blown off by a police crowd-control grenade. '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,' Nunez said. French President Emmanuel Macron refused Nunez's resignation, even as he acknowledged security and intelligence failures in the government response, despite the deployment of some 60,000 law enforcement personnel across the country on Saturday.
In an address to the nation on Sunday, Macron slammed the 'unbridled' violence and said local authorities would be able to ban some rallies, but stopped short of imposing more drastic measures. City authorities in Marseille said on Monday they had banned public gatherings from noon to 08:00 pm.
The European Union slammed the weekend violence as 'unacceptable' but warned that the right to peaceful protest 'must be protected' in France.
Germany condemned the violence and updated its travel advice for France, saying 'further demonstrations and, in some cases, further outbreaks of violence in the coming days cannot be ruled out'. The United Kingdom said the right to protest 'can never excuse violence'. — AFP