PRESS REVIEW – Tuesday, October 20: We look at reactions from the French press after President Emmanuel Macron's government announces a curfew in parts of the country. Is it too much or not enough? We also look at what the foreign press from Britain, Germany and the US are saying about the weekend's violence. Meanwhile, the Italian press react to violent looting and destruction of property in Italy as the government there mulls sending in 500 armed troops.
French authorities have put curfews in place in certain areas of the country after a weekend of rioting overshadowed protests against the rising cost of living. For the left-wing press, the curfews are excessive. Embattled Interior Minister Laurent Nunez features on the front of Libération, the left-wing daily, which headlines disapprovingly "Nunez dans la nasse." La nasse is a reference to the restrictive perimeter imposed on protesters, who cannot come and go as they please. In its editorial, the paper says the weekend's events have announced the end of 10 years of Macron's governance. The daily laments that even the basic maintaining of law and order is now a "complicated thing for the president". The Communist daily L'Humanité accuses the government of creating an "impasse of repression." It says that for the past 10 years, the government has chosen a policy of using the baton, which has served to aggravate the gap between the French people and ruling powers.
La Croix, which tends to sit around the middle of the political spectrum, says that maintaining order is being put to the test. It explains that the way France has been policed since May 1968 is simple: a doctrine of "zero deaths". This means that police must always stay at a distance. With protesters promising new action this coming weekend, how can France maintain a balance between dissuasion and professional retaliation, it wonders? Le Figaro asks: "Why hasn't France declared a state of emergency and outlawed protests in the near future? What happened to the bill proposing that rioters be financially responsible for the damage caused to public property?" The conservative daily accuses the government of not doing enough.
In the international press, the British daily Metro sees the imposition of a curfew as a "French correction" – the paper quotes Macron as saying that France will not tolerate thieves or "extreme-left" thugs. An opinion piece in The New York Times sympathises with French students, who are "showing the rest of the world that the only way to march into a dark future is together." But it warns that their challenge is now to keep the violence at bay. In an excellent analysis, a Frankfurter Allgemeine writer argues that the hallmark of the high school protests was the "unusual solidarity" between students from impoverished suburban schools and schools in affluent neighbourhoods. It blames Macron's government for choosing a strategy of waiting it out until the autumn school holidays and ignoring their legitimate demands. It offers this sobering conclusion: "France cannot afford the necessary investments in the education of future generations as long as a majority of voters cling to early retirement and short working hours."
We turn next to Italy, where similar scenes of violence amid cost-of-living protests played out over the weekend. Demonstrators clashed with police, looted shops and vandalised property in Turin, Bologna and Milan. The Italian government will dispatch 500 army troops to defend Milan as part of security measures to be approved at a cabinet meeting this Tuesday. "Try to catch them", the Communist daily Il Manifesto says on its front page. Dozens of arrests, serious charges, ethnically targeted roundups – the paper disapproves of the government's new measures, which it says will also authorise indiscriminate detention. Il Riformista, another daily, evokes Italy's Russian October – presumably a reference to the Bolshevik uprising of 1917 that ended the Russian czar's reign. The right-wing, conservative Il Tempo evokes an "intifada" on the streets of Italy.
In other news, a black bear recently broke into a library, where it helped itself to the pantry cupboard! The Guardian reports that a black bear broke into a California library last week and reportedly raided snacks like peanut butter, cookies and a jar of honey. It spent more than four hours in the library, sniffing through new releases. In a moment of perfect literary timing, all of this happened as the library celebrated the 100th anniversary of the publication of a copy of "Winnie the Pooh"!
You can catch our press review every morning on France 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.