‘STUPID COMMENTS’: Macron, in an apparent swipe at Netanyahu and Trump, said that some leaders were campaigning at France’s expense
Police banned protests in parts of Paris yesterday, while Lyon banned all protests tomorrow as France braced for more demonstrations just days after student and other rallies degenerated into some of the worst street unrest in years.
Wednesday’s announcement came after French President Emmanuel Macron took an apparent swipe at US President Donald Trump for exploiting the riots for political advantage in the US midterm election battle.
The Paris ban was to last from 8am to 8pm and apply to key landmarks in the French capital, including the Elysee Palace, both houses of parliament and tourist havens such as the Louvre and the Champs-Elysees.
French President Emmanuel Macron speaks to reporters in Lusail, Qatar, on Wednesday.
Photo: AFP
Rallies were also prohibited in the Bastille and Republique squares, and the Chatelet-Les Halles shopping area, which was heavily targeted by looters over the weekend.
Lyon officials yesterday said that given the violence that unfolded in the city on Saturday last week, it would ban “all protests” in Lyon tomorrow.
France has admitted it “lost control” in the frenzy of street violence that erupted over the weekend, when masked youths clashed with police, looted shops and vandalized public buildings.
As his government struggled to contain a crisis that has damaged France’s image abroad and rattled financial markets six months before presidential elections, Macron implied that Trump, and possibly Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is also fighting an election campaign, made “stupid comments” on the unrest for political gain.
“There are people who campaign at France’s expense — leaders who are in campaign mode, whether here in the region or on the other side of the Atlantic,” he told reporters in Doha.
Trump has sought to link the unrest to “migrants, jihadists and communists” as he campaigned for his Republican party in the US on his anti-immigration messaging.
Trump on Tuesday hailed French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who shares his ideologies.
Le Pen late on Wednesday branded Macron’s remarks as “conspiratorial” in a post on X.
“The images we saw last Saturday are not generated by artificial intelligence: they show the sad reality of what France has become after 10 years of Macronist rule,” added Le Pen, who is leading in the polls for next year’s presidential election.
The unrest overshadowed weekend demonstrations in which more than 500,000 people marched nationwide against the cost of living. Those rallies followed four weeks of student protests that have closed many schools across France.
Since the rioting — the worst France has seen in years — and ahead of fresh cost-of-living demonstrations planned for tomorrow, Macron’s government has warned it would brook no further violence.
Fresh demonstrations planned by high-school and university students were similarly struck down in Paris and Lyon.
Following a meeting on Wednesday with French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu, Confederation of Labor secretary-general Sophie Binet called for a “new phase” of protests, with strikes early next month.
French Minister of Justice Gerald Darmanin on Wednesday said that, of the 2,500 people taken into custody during and after the protests, 174 had been jailed, while another 917 had been formally prosecuted.