Paris Extends Curfew as Marseille and Lyon Ban Protests After Weekend Riots

Paris will keep a partial curfew in place until Monday, and on Saturday the Louvre, the Orsay and the Picasso museum will stay shut. Marseille and Lyon have gone further, imposing a total ban on protests this weekend. These measures follow a weekend of disorder that France is still absorbing.

On 17 October, around 550,000 people took part in demonstrations over rising fuel prices and the cost of living, which had escalated after weeks of student protests. The marches were backed by unions, gilets jaunes and student groups and took place in several major cities, Paris included. They were largely peaceful, but riots, looting and destruction overshadowed them. In Lyon, demonstrators set the tourism office on fire. In Limoges, the clock tower and parts of the roof of the ornate city hall burned and then collapsed on Saturday. A man in his 30s was detained on suspicion of the attempted murder of police officers who were inside the city hall when the fire began, and a second suspect, aged 66, was arrested on Thursday. In Paris, the Place de la République was vandalised as groups of rioters took over parts of the city.

Marseille saw some of the worst violence, with damage to more than 500 businesses. Public transport there will be suspended on Saturday to try to prevent a repeat. The Rhône prefecture, which covers Marseille, said a curfew already in force for minors will be extended to the whole population overnight on Saturday 24 October, from 23:00 to 05:00. Similar announcements have come from Nice, Toulon, the centre of Rouen and Grenoble.

In Paris, the prefecture said movement will be prohibited from 23:00 to 06:00 in the Place de la République, where protesters gathered last weekend, and in the Les Halles shopping area. It said the order came from Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu. Partial curfews restricting young people or gatherings have operated this week in cities including Marseille, Bordeaux, Nice, Lyon and Lille, along with other northern towns.

The courts are already working through the aftermath. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said 217 people have been jailed after fast-track trials, a number expected to rise. He said 2,700 people were arrested nationwide and more than 1,000 have appeared in court. According to Le Figaro, he added that half of those detained had no prior criminal record.

On Thursday President Emmanuel Macron met intelligence services and ministers to prepare for the next national day of protest on Saturday. Where protests are not banned outright, only authorised union demonstrations will be allowed. "The general recommendation is that there should be no demonstrations," he said, adding that unions would be offered alternative routes by prefects, while non-union protests would be banned wherever possible. He condemned what he called political and even seditious acts by far-left groups aiming to bring down the Republic. Paris authorities have said several marches proposed by the gilets jaunes, who were behind many of last weekend's protests, have been banned.

The government was accused of being caught off guard by the scale of the unrest. Interior Minister Jean-Didier Berger said police deployments would rise 20% compared with last weekend. Lecornu had promised a massive deployment, though some officers have told French media they are not trained to handle large crowds.

The unrest comes as Macron enters the final months of his presidency, with elections scheduled for 18 April and 1 May next year. Saturday will test whether the bans, curfews and added police can hold the line, and whether the movement behind the protests accepts the restrictions.