France Eases Protests After Overnight Curfews in Major Cities

Overnight curfews have brought some calm to France following days of violent demonstrations, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Tuesday. Authorities imposed nighttime restrictions in Paris, Bordeaux, Nice and Lyon after protests over living costs escalated into rioting, looting and clashes with police, while officials reported more than 2,500 arrests nationwide.

Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said Monday that 2,513 people had been taken into custody and 67 had been imprisoned. He added that dozens of judicial investigations remained underway as authorities continued examining incidents connected to the unrest.

The government deployed approximately 60,000 police officers and other security personnel across the country, according to Nunez. Despite the extensive deployment, authorities struggled to contain riots in Paris, Marseille and Lyon, where businesses and public property were targeted.

Lecornu credited the localized restrictions with helping restore order and thanked the security forces responsible for enforcing them.

"Targeted curfews have contributed to the calm of this night," Lecornu wrote in a post to X on Tuesday morning. "I thank the police officers and gendarmes who ensured their enforcement, as well as the prefects for their mobilization."

The prime minister said local authorities would determine whether additional restrictions were necessary, with decisions coordinated between prefects and mayors according to conditions in each area.

"Tonight, new curfews will be decided where the situation requires it. These decisions will be made on the ground, by the prefects, in coordination with the mayors," Lecornu added.

Nunez acknowledged the scale of the damage, particularly to commercial properties, as the government faced questions about its ability to maintain public order.

"You couldn't look shopkeepers in the eye after hundreds of shops had been looted and say we hadn't lost control," Nunez told French radio on Monday, blaming "rioters, looters and ultra-left militants" for the unrest.

The latest demonstrations began in September as a student-led campaign seeking education reforms. In recent weeks, the movement expanded to include broader demands for government action on rising living costs, drawing participants beyond its original student base.

The weekend violence included attacks on government buildings. In Limoges, a historic town hall was set ablaze on Saturday, prompting Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin to confirm that counterterrorism authorities were assessing the incident.

Darmanin emphasized the seriousness of the damage and compared its significance to the destruction caused by the 2019 fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.

"The fire at Limoges town hall affects us just as much as that of Notre-Dame," Darmanin wrote in a post to X on Sunday. "We are taking the situation very seriously."

The minister said the national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office was monitoring the investigation and would decide whether to assume responsibility for the case.

"The national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office has positioned itself as an observer. It is carefully assessing the situation and will determine in the coming hours whether it takes charge of this case," Darmanin wrote.

The unrest comes ahead of France's presidential election in April 2027, when President Emmanuel Macron's two terms in office will end. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally Party, and Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of the left-wing France Unbowed party, are among the prominent potential candidates identified in the report.

Protests over education and living costs have also spread elsewhere in Europe, with demonstrations reported over the weekend in Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Albania. In Milan, luxury shops closed early and boarded up their storefronts amid concerns about further unrest, while demonstrators in Lisbon established a tent camp in Rossio Square to demand action on rising rents and property prices.