Cost of living, continued: the streets calm down, Lyon stays under curfew, the political response is still awaited

The facts

The official toll came out on Sunday. According to the Interior Ministry's statement, Saturday 24 October brought together 410,000 people in 289 actions on public roads, including 110,000 in Paris, compared with 550,000 the previous week. These provisional figures above all describe a de-escalation: 1,314 arrests compared with 2,628 on 17 October, 53 police officers and gendarmes injured compared with 1,144, and 24 shops looted whereas 1,522 had been hit a week earlier.

The ministry nevertheless qualifies this picture. It states that groups of the "radical far left and ultra-left" formed at the head or on the fringes of most marches in large and medium-sized cities, with a level of violence comparable to that of 17 October, but with attempts generally thwarted by the systematic intervention of law enforcement. Several investigations have been opened.

In Lyon, the calm remains fragile. According to Lyon Capitale, the prefect of the Rhône, Étienne Guyot, renewed for this Sunday evening a ban on gatherings from 4 pm to 11 pm, followed by a curfew until 6 am on Monday, over part of the Presqu'île around Place Bellecour. On 17 October, shops there had been looted and the tourist office set on fire. On Saturday, around 10,000 people still marched despite the prefectoral ban, before clashes at the end of the day, according to the same outlet.

What comes next has already been set. The inter-union alliance is calling for a day of strikes and demonstrations on 5 November, and the CGT is inviting employees to decide in general assemblies to extend the strike that day.

The positions at stake

The government is defending a firm line. As early as the evening of 17 October, Sébastien Lecornu blamed the violence on ultra-left groups, joined by looters, and confirmed that the so-called "casseurs-payeurs" (vandals pay) bill would go ahead, as LCP reported.

No one will impose their political agenda through violence. — Sébastien Lecornu

This argument deserves to be taken seriously. The toll of 24 October shows that better-prepared policing protected peaceful protesters, shopkeepers and law enforcement alike. A State that lets its city centres be looted loses the trust of those who protest as well as those who do not.

The unions, for their part, believe the social response is lacking. Received at Matignon on 21 October, they came out disappointed, according to Public Sénat: Sophie Binet, for the CGT, deplored the absence of any concrete measure, Marylise Léon, for the CFDT, called for answers on wages and civil servants' pay before 5 November, while the CFTC noted a door left ajar on the minimum wage (Smic). The CGT is notably demanding a 10% rise in the minimum wage and the indexation of wages to prices.

On the left of the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon hardened his tone in an interview with Mediapart, published on Sunday and reproduced on his website. He rejects urban guerrilla warfare and argues for non-violence, "to be more effective", but denounces a crackdown he considers disproportionate. In his view, the government would now have no choice but to accept the demands or leave. He raises the prospect of a motion of censure if the budget does not include them, and advocates a price freeze, the abolition of Parcoursup and a Sixth Republic.

The analysis

First, the drop in violence should be welcomed. It owes a great deal to the work of law enforcement, but also to the vast majority of protesters who marched peacefully, and the call for non-violence issued by the leader of La France insoumise is a step in the right direction.

However, public order does not settle the social question. A fall in turnout is not a fall in discontent: 410,000 people in the streets for a second Saturday in a row is a signal the executive cannot treat as a mere policing problem. The Lyon curfew, renewed evening after evening, illustrates this deadlock. An emergency measure is justified when the danger is proven; it cannot become the ordinary way of managing anger whose causes, wages, prices, the future of young people, are well known.

The Gaullist and Chiracian tradition has always linked the authority of the State to its ability to listen. A strong State holds the streets and opens the negotiating table in the same movement. Conversely, the "accept or leave" ultimatum is not a democratic method: in a parliamentary Republic, the way out of a crisis lies in compromise, not in the street against the institutions.

The government still has ten days. The avenues raised by the unions themselves, the minimum wage, civil servants' pay, the place of youth organisations in the consultation, offer a realistic basis for discussion that does not require abandoning budgetary seriousness.

Conclusion

Rather than waiting for 5 November, the executive would do well to convene a conference on wages without delay, with a timetable and quantified commitments, involving secondary school and student organisations. And to lift the Lyon curfew as soon as the situation allows. The question is simple: does the government only want to put out the fire, or to address its causes?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.