*Hundreds Of Police, Firefighters Injured
*Public Buildings, Shops, Others Burnt
*City Mayors Blame President Macron’s Govt
*Regime In Desperate Talks Following ‘Colossal Failure Of The State’
After the recent revolt by some of its former colonies in Africa –Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger –, huge trouble has hit France flush in the face from within the country itself following days and weeks of protests, which have turned uncontrollably violent.
In response, the government was in crisis talks today (Sunday) after one of the most violent days of unrest in years left public buildings burned, hundreds of shops destroyed and looted, and more than 2,000 people arrested in cities across the country.
Politicians on the left and right called for the resignation of the Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñez, after the government appeared to have been caught by surprise by the scale of violence as state buildings were stormed and torched, bus stops smashed, roads barricaded and shops broken into and destroyed.
The Interior Ministry said there had been more than 2,000 arrests and about 600 police, firefighters and paramedics had been hurt.
A 17-year-old boy had his right hand blown off by a crowd-control grenade in the eastern-central city of Saint-Étienne.
President Emmanuel Macron, who is standing down not later than May next year, was preparing to address the nation on Sunday night. He wrote on social media there was “no place for violence” in France.
Police and officials faced challenges of different types yesterday.
First, tens of thousands of peaceful protesters attended calm marches through major cities including the country’s capital Paris, supporting schoolchildren’s demands for more teachers and repairs to decrepit schools.
Those marches, which came after four weeks of street marches and barricades of schools, were attended by parents, teachers and grandparents as well as students and workers protesting over the high cost of living.
The demonstrators carried banners saying the government was not listening to them and calling for more money for public services.
But separately to those peaceful demonstrations, different groups caught police and officials by surprise with moving gatherings, sporadic burning, the barricading of streets and clashes with police in cities including Paris, Bordeaux, Nice and Marseille.
Finally, masked looters took advantage of what French media called the “chaos” on the streets to smash shopfronts and grab goods.
Anarchy In Paris
In Paris, groups of looters, some of whom appeared to be children, were seen running through the night with clothes and shoeboxes after masked adult men smashed shopfronts.
Also in Paris, where police said a record 855 people had been arrested, the burnt-out remains of barricades built using bikes, bins and other materials littered streets on Sunday.
Several streets had smashed shop windows and the remains of torched cars. The capital had experienced “a level of violence that we have never seen before, I believe”, said the Socialist Deputy Mayor, Lamia El Aaraje.
In Limoges…
In Limoges in central France, where the 19th-century town hall was burned down, the Mayor, Guillaume Guérin, said the people who stormed his building “were not demonstrators that defend causes” but “people organised for war”.
He said those who stormed and torched the town hall had told a building caretaker he would be killed, and told elected officials they would “burn”.
He said there had been a failure of the state to deal with the crisis.
“Around 3.30pm our municipal police, although present in number, found themselves no longer able to fight against the violence of rioters because they had run out of ammunition,” Guérin said.
He called this “a colossal failure of the state”.
Situation In Marseille…
In Marseille, where masked groups stormed the city hall and a police station, the Socialist Mayor, Benoît Payan, told BFMTV: “I have no words … I never thought I’d ever live through something like this.
“Hordes of rioters and looters attacked our common [state] buildings … with no real demands, but with the sole aim to wreck the demands of those who had demonstrated legitimately.”
Payan said questions must be asked about policing tactics, as other town hall buildings, for example in Lille, were also targeted.
Situation In Lyon…
Grégory Doucet, the Green Mayor of Lyon, said he had never seen such violence in his city, including the torching of the historic tourist office.
He told Le Monde: “I’m stunned by the violence against public and state property. I saw and heard fear and anger. Shop owners felt abandoned.”
Traders’ unions said more than 1,500 shops and businesses had been ransacked, with the cost running into tens of millions of euros.
“This had nothing to do with the peaceful protesters,” said one shoe-shop owner in Paris. “These were organised groups who were breaking things and looting. We’d never seen anything like it.”
Opposition politicians questioned the government’s policing tactics, saying there had been a lack of state intelligence.
*PHOTO CAPTION: Some buildings set ablaze by rioters.
