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French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced on Monday a “massive” law enforcement operation following widespread rioting and looting across the country over the weekend.
Major cost-of-living protests turned violent on Saturday, with demonstrators clashing with police in several cities. Buildings and vehicles were set alight, while masked individuals smashed shop windows and looted stores.
Unrest continued in Paris on Sunday, as masked youths erected barricades and police charged crowds and fired tear gas, a Euronews journalist on the ground reported.
“We have decided on several things,” Lecornu told reporters on Monday. “The first, of course, is a particularly significant and large-scale criminal justice response.”
“The second wave of legal action is the one that will be carried out in a more deliberate, methodical manner,” he added, noting that footage circulating on social media showed many alleged looters had not covered their faces.
“And so, we now have a very significant, massive law enforcement operation getting underway today,” he said.
Lecornu added that nearly 200 investigators from the Paris Police Prefecture would analyse images and footage from the weekend to identify suspects in the Paris region alone.
The Paris police prefect said on Monday that a task force would be set up to review all available footage from CCTV systems, shop security cameras and social media.
Hundreds of police officers, gendarmes and firefighters were injured during the weekend’s violence in France, authorities said, with around 2,400 people arrested.
Lecornu said he had also asked regional authorities to impose “localised and partial curfews” on Monday evening to prevent further rioting and looting.
The announcement came after French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said police had “lost control” in some cities during the unrest.
President Emmanuel Macron warned that those responsible for the destruction “must pay” for their actions.
“Those who looted must pay back; those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held to account,” he said in a televised address to the nation on Sunday evening.