PARIS, Oct 19 – French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has ordered regional authorities to introduce limited, targeted curfews in areas at risk of further unrest after a weekend of rioting and looting damaged thousands of businesses, public buildings and other properties across France. The government is under growing pressure to restore order following nationwide protests against rising living costs and deteriorating conditions in schools.
Lecornu announced the measures after an emergency meeting with senior government officials on Monday, saying prefects, the state’s regional representatives, had been instructed to identify locations where restrictions could help prevent further violence. He said the curfews would be narrowly targeted rather than imposed across entire cities, with details of the affected areas expected later in the day.
The decision follows widespread disturbances on Saturday and Sunday, when groups of demonstrators and suspected looters clashed with police, set fires and ransacked commercial premises in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and other urban centres. Authorities estimated on Monday that at least 3,000 businesses had been damaged or looted during the violence.
Speaking after the emergency meeting, Lecornu defended the work of police officers who confronted violent crowds and described the absence of fatalities on Saturday as remarkable given the scale of the destruction.
“On Saturday, despite scenes of severe violence and extensive property damage, no one was killed, and that is a miracle,” Lecornu said.
His remarks came as the government sought to contain the immediate security crisis while addressing questions about why authorities had failed to prevent the violence from spreading across several major cities.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered to resign on Sunday, accepting responsibility for the security failures that allowed the unrest to escalate. President Emmanuel Macron, however, rejected the resignation, according to a statement from the president’s office issued on Monday.
Macron said Nuñez needed to remain in his position to ensure continuity in the command of law enforcement during the crisis. The president also instructed the interior minister to take the necessary steps to establish full transparency regarding shortcomings in security planning and intelligence gathering before the weekend’s disturbances.
The president further called for new policing tactics to be introduced as quickly as possible, indicating that the government expects security forces to adapt their response to groups that move rapidly between locations and overwhelm local authorities.
Nuñez acknowledged the seriousness of the situation in an interview with France Inter radio, saying he had submitted his resignation because he considered himself responsible for what had happened. He stressed that preventing a repeat of the violence was now the central challenge facing the authorities.
“We obviously need to be better at anticipating the kind of mobilization that is unfolding,” Nuñez said.
He blamed the destruction on groups of troublemakers, looters and what he described as far-left activists. He also argued that police tactics needed to be adjusted to confront highly mobile groups that could move quickly through city streets, target businesses and public institutions, and disperse before officers could respond effectively.
The minister conceded that authorities had lost control in parts of several major cities during Saturday’s unrest, when hundreds of businesses were targeted.
“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,” Nuñez said.
His admission highlighted the difficulties confronting French police as they attempt to protect commercial districts, public infrastructure and government offices during large-scale demonstrations.
Authorities reported that groups numbering in the hundreds had sought confrontations with police and attacked public buildings, including municipal halls and other government facilities. The scale of the damage raised concerns among business owners and local officials about the ability of security forces to protect communities when protests turn violent.
At least 2,400 people were arrested nationwide in connection with the disturbances, according to the figures provided by authorities. Despite the arrests, fires and looting continued in some locations on Sunday evening, prompting renewed calls for stronger preventive measures.
In Marseille, the regional prefect imposed a ban on protests and other public gatherings from noon until 8 p.m. on Monday. The restriction was intended to reduce the risk of further confrontations as authorities worked to restore order in the southern port city.
The targeted curfew plan announced by Lecornu represents a broader effort to give regional officials additional tools to contain unrest without imposing blanket restrictions on residents in areas where violence has not occurred. The government has yet to specify which neighbourhoods or cities will be subject to the new measures.
The destruction was particularly severe in Limoges, a city in central France, where flames engulfed the 19th-century city hall. The fire caused the building’s roof to collapse and left the historic municipal structure close to being destroyed.
In Paris, cleanup crews and firefighters worked on Monday to remove broken glass, debris and other remnants of the weekend’s violence. The damage was visible in commercial areas where shopfronts had been smashed and businesses had been looted.
For some retailers, the events exposed the risks of operating in areas where police were unable to intervene quickly enough to stop groups of looters.
Ouri Zagoury, who owns a video game shop near Place de la République in Paris, said he had closed his business on Saturday afternoon after the situation deteriorated. He later watched surveillance footage showing people forcing their way into the premises.
Zagoury said large numbers of people entered and left the shop while the looting was taking place. Although he contacted police for assistance, he said officers advised him not to intervene and told him they would arrive, but they never came.
“There were so many people coming in and out,” Zagoury said, describing the incident as another indication of the problems faced by businesses during the unrest.
His account added to growing frustration among shopkeepers who suffered losses and questioned whether sufficient protection had been available during the disturbances. The government now faces pressure to demonstrate that its revised security measures can prevent further damage and reassure businesses that their premises will be protected during future demonstrations.
The political fallout has also intensified, with opposition figures accusing Macron’s administration of failing in its basic responsibility to maintain public order.
Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally, criticised the government over its handling of the violence and argued that the events demonstrated a wider failure of leadership.
“The government has failed, the head of state has failed in his essential duty of protecting the French people,” Bardella told reporters at his party’s headquarters.
Bardella urged French citizens to respond through the ballot box, arguing that political participation was the appropriate way to express dissatisfaction with the government beyond taking part in street protests.
“I call on the people of France now, beyond their right to protest, to use their voting power,” he said.
The National Rally leader is campaigning alongside Marine Le Pen, the party’s prominent figure whose polling position has suggested she could be a leading contender in next spring’s presidential election. The unrest has therefore created an additional political challenge for Macron’s government, as opposition parties seek to turn public concerns over security and the cost of living into electoral support.
The protests that preceded the violence were driven by anger over rising living costs and poor conditions in schools, issues that have contributed to wider dissatisfaction among sections of the French public. However, the scale of the looting and attacks on public property has shifted attention toward security failures and the government’s ability to manage demonstrations.
Authorities must now balance the protection of public safety with the right to peaceful assembly, while distinguishing between demonstrators exercising their legal rights and individuals engaged in violence or theft.
The proposed localized curfews are intended to address immediate security concerns, but their effectiveness will depend on how precisely officials identify areas at risk and how quickly police can respond when disturbances develop. The government’s review of intelligence gathering and operational planning is also expected to play a central role in determining how future protests are managed.
With thousands of businesses affected, public buildings damaged and thousands of arrests already made, the coming days will test the government’s ability to restore confidence among residents, shopkeepers and local authorities.
Macron’s decision to keep Nuñez in office signals that the administration wants continuity in the security response while demanding a clearer assessment of the failures that preceded the violence. Lecornu’s curfew instructions, meanwhile, place regional officials at the centre of efforts to prevent another wave of rioting.
For the government, the immediate priority is to prevent further destruction and restore order. The longer-term challenge will be to explain how the violence was allowed to spread, strengthen the response to rapidly moving groups of offenders and address the underlying public grievances that helped bring demonstrators into the streets in the first place.