October 17, continued: parties at Matignon, intelligence at the Élysée, the State must first establish the facts

Five days after the violence and looting that followed the October 17 mobilisation, the executive is holding two meetings this Thursday that say a great deal about the current crisis. In the morning, the President of the Republic is meeting the intelligence services and the ministers concerned. During the day, the Prime Minister is receiving the parties at Matignon. Two days before a new day of mobilisation, on Saturday October 24, the stakes go beyond policing: the question is whether the State can still produce a shared account of the facts.

The facts

On Wednesday, speaking from Doha at the end of a tour of the Gulf, Emmanuel Macron announced a meeting on Thursday morning with the intelligence services, the Prime Minister and the ministers concerned, in order to obtain a detailed account of events, Actu17 reports. The head of State spoke of transparency. He judged a state of emergency unnecessary at this stage, without ruling it out, and said he saw no visible foreign interference in the violence, while denouncing after-the-fact information manipulation, notably through images generated by artificial intelligence. According to a news dispatch carried by Boursorama, "firmness" remains the executive's watchword.

At Matignon, Sébastien Lecornu is receiving party leaders and the presidents of parliamentary groups, Public Sénat reports. According to Le JDD, the agenda covers changes to crowd-control doctrine and the security of presidential campaign rallies, in the presence of the Interior Minister, Laurent Nuñez. In his letter of invitation, quoted by AFP, the Prime Minister writes that no disagreement, no anger and no political ambition can justify violence.

This sequence opens against a background of suspicion. On October 19, Mediapart published the testimony of a superintendent from the territorial intelligence service. According to the newspaper, written exchanges dated October 18 show that he was allegedly asked to write that La France insoumise was behind the movement, a thesis he considers "objectively false" in the general view of his colleagues. The Interior Ministry denies giving any such instruction. In the National Assembly on Tuesday, Laurent Nuñez replied "That's false!" to Manuel Bompard, LCP reports, and Sébastien Lecornu called such an instruction "unthinkable". LFI has said it wants to take the minister to court, according to Le Figaro.

The positions

The government stands by a line of firmness and accuses part of the radical left of complacency. On Wednesday in the Senate, according to Public Sénat, Sébastien Lecornu claimed that the far left and the ultra-left were seeking to "pollute the presidential election". The day before, he had also acknowledged a failure of the services:

Our intelligence saw a great many things, but not everything. — Sébastien Lecornu

At the other end, Jean-Luc Mélenchon warned that he would attend the meeting in order to "spoil" it, according to AFP and HuffPost, and denounces a way of treating the opposition "with the whip". The Rassemblement national will be represented, but neither Marine Le Pen nor Jordan Bardella will attend; the latter mocked a "class council", according to AFP. Gabriel Attal says, according to Le JDD, that he did not understand the approach.

Between these poles, the governing left is trying another path. Marine Tondelier will come, but regrets that the letter ignores the way out of the social crisis, AFP reports. The leader of the Socialist group in the Senate, Patrick Kanner, will accompany Olivier Faure, Boris Vallaud and Raphaël Glucksmann with, according to Public Sénat, proposals presented as "an agenda to get out of the crisis": the economy, social policy, institutions, local authorities.

Analysis

Credit must first be given to the approach. Bringing political forces together after serious violence, six months before a presidential election, reflects a sense of the State. General de Gaulle and Jacques Chirac alike knew that authority is not reduced to force: it requires everyone to recognise the rules of the game. Condemning the looting unambiguously and protecting the rallies of all candidates is a republican minimum that no one should refuse.

But a meeting only builds trust if the facts are established. Yet two accounts are clashing. The government points to an organised ultra-left and highlights the proximity of some LFI elected officials to fringe groups. Mediapart reports that an intelligence officer was allegedly ordered to write a thesis he considered false. Nothing, at this stage, makes it possible to decide: the testimony is anonymous, the denial is categorical. That is precisely why the minister's word cannot be enough. In a democracy, it is not for the person under suspicion to absolve himself.

There is also a blind spot. The Prime Minister's letter speaks of order, and almost never of the reasons why secondary school students took to the streets: teachers not replaced, run-down buildings. The Greens and the Socialists are right to point this out. A Republic that responds only to disorder ends up convincing the young that only disorder gets heard.

Conclusion

The account requested by the Élysée must not be left in a drawer. It would be healthy for it to be sent to the parliamentary intelligence committee, where majority and opposition both sit, and for an independent inspection to publicly verify Mediapart's allegations, one way or the other. On that condition, the Matignon meeting could be something other than an exchange of accusations of bad faith. And one question remains for the executive: when will it receive the secondary school students themselves?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.