France Act III: Another Weekend of Riots

This risks becoming a subversive ritual, a regular weekend fixture… Are Paris and France’s other major cities doomed to face riots, looting and violent attacks on riot police every Saturday?

Are they condemned to be left at the mercy, every weekend for the foreseeable future, of the notorious black blocs, those gangs of black-clad vandals who seem to have made it their “strategic,” even “ideological,” goal to systematically turn the end of every peaceful demonstration into riots and pitched battles with police, culminating in looting and serious damage to thousands of businesses?

These questions were on everyone’s lips across France on Saturday evening after the third weekend of demonstrations called by, among others, the CGT and other trade unions, university student groups and high school student organizations. Far-left activists also played an active role, against a backdrop of social discontent driven mainly by the high cost of living and poor learning conditions in many high schools.

This widespread protest movement is all the more worrying for the French public because it comes just ahead of the Christmas and New Year holiday season, which traditionally accounts for no less than 40 percent of retailers’ sales…

Molotov cocktails thrown at police

As on the previous Saturday, a major security operation was put in place on October 31 to oversee the demonstrations in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Bordeaux, Nice and Toulouse, among other cities. Late that evening, the Interior Ministry estimated that nearly 320,000 people had demonstrated across France, including 70,000 in Paris. This was down from the previous weekend, when more than 400,000 protesters had taken part, not to mention the 800,000 claimed by trade unions for the October 17 protests.

In Paris, this third round of protests began early in the morning with a dispute over the planned march route. The capital’s administrative court had approved a march from Bastille to Nation. To the organizers’ dismay, however, the Council of State banned that particular route and designated Bagnolet as the starting point for the procession, which would head toward Porte de Charenton.

The Paris demonstration remained peaceful all the way to its endpoint in the late afternoon.

As happens at the end of every peaceful march, just as the protesters were beginning to disperse, the black blocs launched their pitched battle against police, who used tear gas and water cannons to contain the rioters.

A new and particularly serious development emerged: at times, police were targeted with… Molotov cocktails.

Amid riots that also broke out that evening in Lyon, Nantes, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Rennes and Marseille, vandals in Marseille burst into a building housing a nursery school, in a charged and hostile atmosphere.

An atmosphere of unease in Paris

Late in the evening, tensions were running high in parts of Paris where hundreds of vandals and rioters were wreaking havoc, according to Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who held a press briefing to discuss the day’s developments. The minister singled out the conduct of “hundreds of looters and vandals (…), driven by an ultra-left movement.” “We’re ready for those looking for a fight,” the interior minister declared, reflecting fears of widespread unrest and a turbulent night in the capital, particularly in areas such as Châtelet and Bastille, where various subversive far-left groups had issued late-night calls for “unauthorized demonstrations.”