France riots: Le Pen 'trying to use these events to push her popularity,' expert says

The Prime Minister of France has given the police prefects across the country a green light to impose curfews on areas judged to be troubled zones. The Nord-Département around Lille is to be put on curfew this Monday and Tuesday. Then Paris followed, Les Halles, République, out of bounds from 11pm until 6am Tuesday. The protests began in mid-September by school students over poor conditions in their schools and teacher shortages. It's now been taken over by a wave of criminal destruction and opportunism. All this in the wake of the protests that fell into a spiral of riot and looting. The extent of the violence this weekend and the authorities' inability to enforce order blatantly exposed. President Emmanuel Macron has refused the resignation of the Interior Minister, Laurent Nunes. And this Monday, he was alongside the Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, as the plan for targeted curfews was announced. Paris, Marseille, Lyon, the major conurbations have all seen riot and looting. This Monday morning, protests continued in a less violent way. A group of far-left demonstrators blocking the entrance to the Louvre Museum. And another day of action is being scheduled for next Saturday. So for France this represents another civil crisis six months ahead of the presidential election. A broad image is showing the damage done to the Limoges Town Hall in central France. Served as a cue for far-right anti-migrant politicians to blame Islamists. No proof, just their agenda. Charlotte Lamb takes up the story. In Limoges, the full extent of the damage comes to light after its historic town hall was set ablaze in some of the worst public order in modern French history. In Paris, graffiti still covers some shop fronts as the cleanup and rebuild continue. And in Bordeaux, this jeweler prepares to reopen her store. At first, I was shocked for my staff because I know they were very scared and traumatized by this situation. After that, I'd say I felt disgust. Business owners across the country are waiting to see what action follows. One response came Monday when France's interior minister offered to resign after admitting police lost control of protests in some cities. I offered my resignation to the president because I am responsible for everything that's happened. I've been a civil servant. I have a sense of the public interest. and given the damage that's been done, it was only right that I should offer to resign. But President Emmanuel Macron refused. The Élysée says he instead ordered the minister to take all necessary steps to ensure transparency over the failures in planning and intelligence that led to the violence. The justice minister told French media that security services were well equipped to handle terrorists and organized crime, but less prepared for groups of rioters. Tonight we all feel anger and shame the president addressed the nation Sunday night saying those involved would face justice before October 17 recent student-led protests had already become a political sticking point figures on the far right accused the left of fueling insurrection which France's left denied supporting the public's right to protest Marine Le Pen the far right presidential candidate said late Sunday that political forces had exploited widespread anger over the cost of living. With an election six months away, the pressure on the government is only growing. Charlotte Lamb there. Let's bring in David Lees, reader in French Studies at the University of Warwick, for more on this situation. David, great to have you with us as always. Fair to say, I think, that what has been happening right now in France, very much a massive political cadeau for Marine Le Pen. Very much so, Mark. Yeah, I think we've obviously spoken before about the likelihood of Le Pen and indeed her party generally capitalizing on these kinds of events we've seen this historically of course in the build-ups of the 2017 and the 2022 presidential election so there's nothing really new there but i think what's especially interesting is obviously the widespread nature of this violence the fact it's extended from Paris of course its origins through to the rest of France you you're mentioning then in the report Limoges of course and also elsewhere Marseille you know and Nice and so on It's a very widespread sense of disorder. And as you say, it's natural, of course, for any party which seeks to emphasise law and order and to inevitably identify threats from outside of France or indeed from immigrants as being behind this kind of disorder to try and capitalise on this. And as you were saying in the report before, there's clearly no proof that any of this violence has been carried out explicitly by immigrants as such. But, of course, Le Pen is looking to capitalise on that and trying to use these events as a vehicle for pushing her popularity ahead of the elections next year. And of course, this is in contrast, as you were saying, to Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his party, the La France Insoumise, France and Bao Party, which has looked to try to take a side of the protesters in many ways, as early as the early part of this month and indeed in September, trying to identify with the protesters rather than against them. Indeed, politicians cherry picking what's going on for their own agendas. It's kind of, I suppose, the stock-in-trade of all politicians. Let's be cynical about it completely. Do you think the promises that Le Pen is making of a harsh crackdown, of expulsion of migrant offenders, make of that what you will? Mass policing is something else she's talking about. Do you think that will cut the mustard with the voters? Well, I mean, we talked previously about the parallels between these events and past events. And of course, any protest in France is likened to the May and June 1968 events where the police were inevitably quite brutal in their oppression of student and worker protesters. And at that time, many people on the right in France were very reassured by that violence and particularly liked the idea that the state had some kind of grip over proceedings. So I can see that certainly in terms of Le Pen's own supporters, this will play very well. It may even play to some people on the sort of floating centre right who may be interested in going a bit further to the right with Le Pen in 2027. I think for others, they'll be looking, of course, at the scenes of the process, not just the images you're showing on the screen now with the destruction of shops and so on, but also the images of police brutality and really questioning whether that's the kind of response they want to see. We shouldn't really lose sight of the fact that these protests had a very legitimate aim in the first place, which was educational reform, the need to try to improve France's educational outcomes. And so for some in France, of course, particularly on the centre and perhaps on the centre-left, Le Pen's words aren't necessarily going to sway them, but there will be some people who are on the more moderate right, perhaps, who are thinking that maybe this is the kind of response that they need. And inevitably, both Sébastien Le Corneau and Emmanuel Macron don't seem to necessarily have the responses required to deal with this situation at the moment. Do you feel that the curfews that have been declared, surely that's got to go some way towards at least keeping some people in their quarters, let's put it that way. Inevitably, any kind of curfew will limit the opportunity, as you say, the sort of civil unrest in the in the evenings uh we're looking ahead as you said before mark two to saturday now saturday if it's similar to what happened this last weekend could well bring you know further widespread disruption destruction of property and so on which inevitably will capitalized on by by the far right as you were saying i i think it's it's probably the least that Le Corneau can do at the moment to try to deal with this situation but of course he also needs to address the fundamental reason as i say for the protests in the first place and that means real meaningful educational reform, a real attempt to try and address some of those structural inequalities that exist in the French education system. But that would, of course, need money, and it's really hard to see where that's going to come from. France's debt now stands at about 115% of GDP. The deficit's about 5.2% of GDP. Very difficult to see how Macron and Alain Leconnu can try and spend their way out of this crisis. So beyond the curfews, it's actually quite difficult to see how they can actually, you know, deal with that fundamental problem around educational reform. Dr David Lees, thank you very much indeed for joining us. Reader in French Studies at the University of Warwick. And as we heard, a man who knows a thing or two about how France ticks. Dr Lees, always a pleasure to have you with us and see you again soon, I hope.