The French government will "massively" deploy police and military for the new mobilization of Saturday

ParisFrance has experienced a quiet night after days of riots and the chaos experienced during the weekend following the protest over the rising cost of living. Only a few unauthorized demonstrations in Lyon and Rennes, and the occasional scene of looting, have disturbed the calm. The bans on demonstrations and the curfews decreed in different cities have served to return –at least for now– to normality. Large cities such as Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, and Lille will maintain partial curfews for tonight. In the case of the capital, the curfew affects all citizens –including tourists–, the Place de la République, and the Les Halles commercial area, epicenters of the violent acts of recent days. Despite the return of calm, the social crisis is far from being resolved and tension will return to the streets this Saturday in a new day of protest called by the yellow vests movement.

The French government, which is under the spotlight of criticism for not having avoided the weekend's chaos, has promised that next Saturday the police deployment will be "massive". The Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñez, has announced that for the next day of protest the police operation will be much larger and will be joined by elite units of the national police and soldiers from the Sentinelle forces, the French army unit that for years has reinforced the protection of the population against the terrorist threat. It is common to see soldiers patrolling tourist sites. According to Nuñez, on Saturday soldiers will replace the police and gendarmes who are in static posts for internal security tasks –for example, standing guard outside official buildings or around the Élysée– so that they can join the protest operation.

Criticism of the government

Opposition political parties have been criticizing the executive for days for not having anticipated the wave of violence or deployed enough police officers and gendarmes to stop the looting of shops and violent acts in the streets during the weekend's mobilization. According to what the Minister of the Interior has revealed, the police presence deployed last Saturday was 60,000 police officers and gendarmes across the country. It is a figure lower than the 70,000 that were deployed during the World Cup semifinal that France played against Spain and much lower than in other demonstrations, such as the 120,000 that were mobilized during the most violent protests of the yellow vests in 2018. Nuñez has publicly acknowledged that in some cities on Saturday the police "lost control" of the situation.

Three days after the day of chaos and violence, the police arrested this Tuesday one of the alleged perpetrators of the spectacular fire that destroyed part of the Limoges City Hall on Saturday, a historic 19th-century building. He is a 34-year-old man, a Frenchman of Spanish origin, who was on the police's radar for his ties to radical left-wing groups. "He is from the far-left and is likely the mastermind behind this operation," asserted the mayor of Limoges, the conservative Guillaume Guérin (LR).

The national police's anti-terrorism sub-directorate has taken charge of the investigation, but the anti-terrorism prosecutor's office has not yet decided whether it will classify the fire as a terrorist act. In any case, the most conservative members of the government, who accuse (without proof) the radical left-wing party, France Unbowed (LFI), and its followers of being behind the acts of street violence, are pushing for it to be considered a terrorist act. "We think there is a possibility that it is an organized and terrorist act," asserted the Minister of Justice, Gérald Darmanin.

Aid to businesses

While the government prepares the operation for the new day of mobilization, the businesses affected by the looting and destruction – more than 3,000 across the country – are trying to repair the damage as soon as possible to be able to reopen. There is still no estimated figure for the losses in the retail sector, but the executive announced this Tuesday a mechanism so that the damaged shops can request loans of up to 50,000 euros interest-free.

Thousands of businesses were looted or destroyed between Saturday and Sunday. With law enforcement overwhelmed, merchants complain that no one came when they called the police by phone. A police union reported this Tuesday that last Saturday six police vans were mobilized in Amiens to protect the Jean Trogneux chocolate shop, owned by the great-nephew of Brigitte Macron.