The French government is set to announce a series of “strong measures” to assuage protests which have rocked France in recent weeks, President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday.
Speaking in the southern city of Marseille, Macron warned that fresh demonstrations planned for this coming Saturday were “risky” and said that protest routes would remain outside city centers in order to protect public order.
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French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez told broadcaster BFM that he was expecting further disturbances on October 31.
“Halloween evening is traditionally always a bit lively,” he said. “We expect it to be complicated again.”
Prior to Macron’s arrival in Marseille, the Elysee Palace said the president intended to “pay tribute to and thank the internal security forces that helped restore republican order” in France’s second-largest city where protesters briefly stormed the city hall on October 17.
He acknowledged that French authorities had “not anticipated at all” the scale of demonstrations which descended into widespread violence in looting in several major cities, leading to suggestions the state had lost control of the streets.
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The French president also highlighted the role of social media in the protests, saying the online networks were “damaging our democracies” by “bringing young and not-so-young people to places where criminal acts, attacks and looting were taking place.”
He described social media as “tools for mobilizing the worst impulses.”
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While Macron admitted that French security forces underestimated the extent to which “extreme left forces” would meet up “so early in the day” on October 17, Interior Minister Nunez highlighted the phenomenon of organized far-right mobs confronting left-wing activists in several cities.
“We knew there had been calls from numerous identity-based and nationalist movements to come out to defend businesses,” he told BFM.
“In a number of cities, such as Nice and Montpellier, these groups arrived in organized formations, mainly to target the ultra-left movement.”
A presidential aide said Macron wanted to demonstrate that “the state is present, standing firm and fulfilling its mission to protect.”
The president said that curfews enabled relative order to be maintained during last Saturday’s protests (October 24), when authorities also deployed 70,000 police officers across the country, making 1,435 arrests.
“The state prevailed this weekend. The state was strong,” government spokeswoman Maud Bregeon told RTL radio.
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Nevertheless, President Macron also said he had instructed his government, led by Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, to “respond to the legitimate demands that lie at the root of this social movement.”
He said the government will soon announce several “concrete and huge” measures aimed at addressing student concerns over education and university admissions, following a nationwide consultation with high school and university student representatives.
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“There are demands that must be heard and answered,” confirmed government spokeswoman Bregeon.
“But to answer them, there is a prerequisite: a return to calm. We cannot have a functioning social dialogue in a climate of violence such as the one we experienced a week ago.”
Edited by: Alex Berry
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