Follow-up: French PM orders localized curfews for Monday night after weekend riots, does not rule out state of emergency

Paris — French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said in Paris on Monday, October 19, that he has instructed prefects to impose localized curfews in cities on Monday evening to prevent more rioting and looting after a weekend of violent protests across France. Reuters and The Associated Press reported that Lecornu spoke after an emergency meeting with top government officials, and that details of the areas to be placed under curfew would be provided later on Monday.

Lecornu told reporters he was "fully resolved to restoring public order," saying the curfews must be local and partial: "It is out of the question to put all of Paris under curfew." He said that if declaring a state of emergency was deemed necessary, "we could do so," but that at this stage partial curfews seemed "more appropriate." He did not say which cities would impose curfews or what form they would take.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who appeared at the same press conference, had offered his resignation on Sunday. President Emmanuel Macron's office said in a statement on Monday that Macron refused the resignation "given the need for continued command of law enforcement in the current context," instructed Nuñez to ensure full transparency about the failures in planning and intelligence-gathering that led to the violence, and asked for new policing tactics on the ground as quickly as possible. Nuñez told France Inter radio that he submitted his resignation because he is "responsible for everything that is happening," and acknowledged that authorities had "lost control" in some major cities on Saturday, when hundreds of businesses were looted, adding that police strategy needs to be adapted in the face of extremely mobile groups.

The curfew instruction followed a weekend in which nationwide protests on Saturday, October 17, against rising living costs and poor conditions in schools turned violent in places, targeting city halls, other public buildings and hundreds of businesses, with at least 2,400 people arrested across the country. On Sunday evening, groups set fires to trash bins, bicycles and other objects and looted businesses in Paris, Lyon and Marseille, among other cities. In Limoges, in central France, flames engulfed the 19th-century city hall, causing its roof to collapse and nearly destroying the building. In Marseille, the prefect had already banned any protest or other gathering from noon to 8 p.m. on Monday.

The mayors of France's biggest cities on Monday demanded answers from the government over what they called a lack of preparation by security forces. Nuñez also told reporters there were no plans to cancel Tuesday evening's Paris Saint-Germain versus Barcelona soccer match. Reuters reported that 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 pressure over a weak economy and surging debt. (GSM, based on reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press)

Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)

Photo: 图：法国总理 Sébastien Lecornu（右一，蓝领带）2025年10月28日在巴黎爱丽舍宫。照片：Thomas Padilla／欧盟委员会音像服务，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY 4.0。Photo: French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu (right, blue tie) at the Élysée Palace in Paris, October 28, 2025. Photo by Thomas Padilla / EC - Audiovisual Service, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

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