France will reinforce police with troops and mount a huge security operation for more protests planned on Saturday, the government said on Tuesday, acknowledging failures in its response to last weekend's violence, Reuters reported. "The deployment next Saturday will be massive," Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said, adding that the immediate priority was to restore order after rioting and looting swept Paris, Marseille, Lyon and other cities on October 17.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the military would be deployed alongside police, while the government pledged to overhaul tactics after widespread criticism that city centres had been left vulnerable. A night of relative calm followed targeted curfews imposed in several areas affected by the chaos, which the government said had helped reassert control; the localised curfews, some directed at children and teenagers under 18, were extended to Tuesday night, Reuters reported.
Framing the crisis as a choice "between violence and the Republic," Lecornu blamed the unrest on far-left groups, who in turn have accused the government of underestimating public anger over high living costs and declining public services. More than 2,000 shops and other businesses were directly affected by the weekend's violence, with damage estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros, according to France's Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
France's main student union, UNEF, has called for further protests on Saturday, pledging to maintain pressure over a deteriorating education system, while AFP photographs showed police clearing Paris's Place de la Republique overnight. The turmoil has inflamed tensions ahead of presidential elections next year, with candidates from the far right and hard left performing strongly in polls, and protests in Italy, Albania and Portugal have added to concerns that anger over living standards risks spreading across the continent.