Saturday 31 October: Nuñez fears a night of violence, the State must protect without confiscating the street

The facts

The Interior Minister is preparing for a very tense Saturday. In a telegram signed on Wednesday 28 October and seen on Thursday by AFP, Laurent Nuñez warns prefects, zone prefects and the Paris police prefect that the risk of urban violence will be "very high" on Saturday 31 October, Halloween night, from early evening until late into the night.

According to Actu17, the minister says multiple calls to gather in town centres have been spotted on social media. He asks for particular attention to public squares from 8 p.m. and fears unauthorised marches. According to AFP, he is calling for a "powerful, responsive and agile" deployment and has approved the suspension of leave for police officers and gendarmes where necessary, in order to bring their availability rate to 75%. Europe 1 reports that the measures under consideration could go as far as a curfew. Franceinfo, quoted by Actu17, reports that the security forces also fear attacks on public buildings.

This telegram follows two turbulent Saturdays. On 17 October, a national mobilisation over the cost of living was marked by violence and looting, and Emmanuel Macron acknowledged a lack of anticipation, AFP recalls. On 24 October, around 410,000 people demonstrated across France according to the minister, 1,435 people were arrested and 267 police officers and gendarmes were injured. Laurent Nuñez had then described the day as "under control". The movement, which started in mid-September in high schools in the Paris suburbs, combines, according to AFP, the defence of purchasing power, the defence of public services and the demands of high school and university students. High school student organisations have called for the mobilisation to continue on 31 October and 5 November.

Another fact weighs on the debate. On Wednesday 28 October, the Paris administrative court suspended, at the request of the association Vigie Liberté, the curfew imposed on minors from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. in several areas of the capital by an order of 19 October. According to Le Club des Juristes, the judge found a serious and manifestly unlawful infringement of the freedom of movement, in the absence of specific evidence establishing a risk specific to minors. However, the court upheld the perimeters banning spontaneous gatherings and the ban on carrying certain equipment, such as masks or saline solution.

The positions

The government points to a reality that cannot be brushed aside: looted shops, hundreds of members of the security forces injured, online calls which the minister believes leave no doubt about the intentions of their authors. Protecting people and property is the first duty of the State, and a minister cannot be blamed for anticipating. The same concern lies behind another announcement: according to Europe 1, government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said the executive would make it easier for shops to open on Sundays until Christmas to help affected traders recover their losses.

On the other side, concerns focus on the method. High school students accuse the security forces of violence, while Laurent Nuñez defends a proportionate response, AFP reports. Also according to AFP, the mayor of Rouen has taken legal action after a video showed a grenade exploding near a five-year-old child. La France insoumise, for its part, denounces gatherings it describes as "neo-fascist" planned this weekend in Paris and the suburbs. Finally, the administrative court's decision is a reminder that urgency does not exempt the administration from justifying its restrictions.

The analysis

Both ends must be held. A Republic that lets its town centres be looted abandons the most modest first: the small shopkeeper with no reserves, the local resident, the exhausted police officer. But a Republic that responds to social anger with the vocabulary of public order alone gets the diagnosis wrong. The movement was born in high schools short of teachers and resources, and it has broadened to the cost of living. These are demands for public services and social justice, not threats to be neutralised.

The Gaullist tradition has always linked the authority of the State to its legitimacy. Authority is not measured by the number of orders issued, but by their fairness. The administrative judge said so soberly: a general measure that hits all the minors of a neighbourhood without precise demonstration of the danger is not firmness, it is imprecision. Distinguishing rioters from peaceful demonstrators is the condition for the forces of law and order to remain respected.

There is also a question of timing. Six months before a presidential election maintained on 18 April and 2 May, every tense Saturday feeds those who thrive on disorder. The best bulwark against them remains a State that is both firm on violence and attentive to its causes.

What next?

On Saturday evening, the priority must remain the protection of everyone: shops as well as peaceful marches, police officers as well as teenagers. A simple rule can be proposed: any restrictive measure taken between now and 5 November should be publicly justified, limited in time and space, and accompanied by a report to Parliament. One question remains that the government will not be able to dodge for long: how many Saturdays will it take before real negotiations open on schools and purchasing power?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.