Fresh curfews were imposed across the city centres of Paris and Lyon on Tuesday after the first quiet night since some of France’s most destructive rioting in years. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said a “massive” security operation was planned for new protests on Saturday.
Paris police said the curfew in two designated zones, around Place de la République and the Les Halles shopping district, had restored “public peace” overnight and would remain in place “for as long as necessary”. The zones leave out other areas hit on Saturday, including the Champs-Élysées, the area around the Saint-Lazare train station and parts of the Rue de Turbigo in central Paris, where protesters set up barricades and lit fires.
In Lyon, authorities renewed a city-centre curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and said no disturbances had been recorded overnight. Marseille imposed a curfew for unaccompanied minors starting Tuesday night. Lecornu said the targeted curfews “helped keep last night calm”.
Student unions and groups from the Yellow Vest movement, whose protests over fuel prices shook France in 2018 and 2019, have called for another day of protests on Saturday. Soldiers from Sentinelle, the anti-terrorism operation that has patrolled French cities since the 2015 Islamic State group attacks, will take over guarding sensitive sites so more police officers and gendarmes can handle crowd control, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told lawmakers. Lecornu told the National Assembly that the police deployment for next Saturday would be massive, without giving figures.
Police on Tuesday arrested a suspect in the arson attack that charred the historic city hall in Limoges, in central France, Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said. The person was being held in police custody and may not have acted alone. French media reported that the suspect was close to radical environmentalist movements and was on a watchlist of people considered potential threats to national security. Darmanin declined to comment on the suspect’s profile, but said far-left groups appeared to have organised to attack symbols of the state throughout France.
Footage of the 143-year-old building in flames, with its bell tower collapsing, spread widely online over the weekend. US Vice-President JD Vance shared it on X, blaming the unrest on immigration and writing, “I pray that France, a beautiful country of amazing people, will stop this madness before more of its landmarks burn.” President Donald Trump, who also relayed the video, said migrants had “taken over France”. French officials have instead blamed the violence on far-left groups and opportunistic looters.
At least 2,400 people were arrested after rioters in cities across France on Saturday clashed with police, set cars on fire and stormed public buildings during nationwide protests against rising living costs and poor conditions in schools. On Sunday evening, small groups set fire to trash bins, bicycles and other objects and looted businesses in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and other cities.
In Paris on Monday night, a police helicopter circled over Place de la République, a central point in the weekend clashes, sweeping the square with a searchlight to check that the curfew was being respected. Early Tuesday morning, workers used a crane to remove a giant fluorescent yellow vest draped over the statue at the centre of the square, then used pressure washers to blast graffiti off the monument.
Louise Belanger, a volunteer who came to help with the clean-up, said she still could not comprehend the level of violence. “Normally when you are 20, you should be optimistic, you should be starting to build something ... . If you are only anger and violence, what are you going to do? This is sad for everybody in society,” she said.
Speaking in Lille, northern France, Darmanin said 149 people had been jailed nationwide as of Tuesday at noon. Of the roughly 2,400 people arrested since Saturday, more than 800 have been sent before prosecutors, according to the justice ministry, and most were either put on trial immediately or ordered to appear at a later hearing. In Paris alone, about 300 people have been sent before prosecutors following the October 17 protests, the city prosecutor’s office said.
Darmanin said he had asked prosecutors to appeal any sentence they considered too lenient, arguing that the French justice system will be “extremely firm”. He said that people with no criminal record ending up in prison for property crimes is extremely rare. In Lille, three men aged 20 to 25, with no criminal record, were each sentenced to 10 months in prison and jailed immediately for looting a video game store in the city’s old town.
The National Assembly is launching an inquiry into the October 17 violence and the authorities’ policing strategy, speaker Yaël Braun-Pivet said, with findings expected “by the end of the year”.
Protests continued on Tuesday on a smaller scale. Some 400 people, mostly high school and university students, marched in Rennes, and about 750 marched in Lyon under pouring rain.