French President Emmanuel Macron expressed “caution” on Tuesday about returning to calm after several nights of rioting in France, but believed “the peak” of the disturbances will already be over.
The French head of state spoke during an intervention at the Élysée Palace in front of about 250 mayors of cities affected by the wave of violence that hit the country after the death of a 17-year-old boy, shot by police during a traffic check in Nanterre ( on the outskirts of Paris) on June 27.
“Is the return to calm permanent? I will be careful, but the peak we have seen in recent days is over,” said the French president, after addressing the mayors “the support, appreciation and recognition of the nation” out for “the action taken” during the protests.
After the young man’s death, the country was the scene of several consecutive nights of disturbances.
At least 72 people have been arrested in France for the seventh night in a rowwhich according to the French Ministry of the Interior fewer incidents registered than in recent days.
O number of arrests communicated by the government, referring to the night from Monday to this Tuesday, without reference to the seriousness of the incidents, they are fewer than the 157 of the previous night and the 718 arrests that took place from Saturday to Sunday night.
In all, the disturbances caused by the Nanterre incident led to the arrest of more than 3,200 people across France.French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on Monday during a visit to the city of Reims.
During several consecutive nights of riots, including acts of violence and according to preliminary data, about 5,000 vehicles set on fire, almost 1,000 buildings completely or partially destroyed, 250 attacks on police stations and more than 700 members of the security forces.
In recent days, 45,000 police officers and gendarmes (militarized police) have been deployed in different parts of the country, but mainly in the Paris region.
This is reported by the French employers’ organization Medef. the disturbances have already caused damage estimated at around one billion euros: 200 commercial establishments were completely looted and 300 bank branches were destroyed, as well as 250 street kiosks.
Medef has not yet included a forecast of the possible impact of the incidents on France’s image in the field of tourism.
On Monday, Macron visited several Paris fire stations located in the areas closest to where the riots took place after admitting the possibility of “economically punishing” minors responsible for acts of violence.
French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne will receive the leaders of the majority parliamentary groups this Tuesday after meeting leaders of the opposition parties on Monday.
The police officer suspected of the young man’s death is charged with murder and is in jail.
Macron wants to financially punish parents of young people who caused riots
The French president and government want to punish the perpetrators of urban violence in France, but they are still studying hypotheses, such as the recurring idea about the right to impose financial sanctions on parents.
“We must be able to easily and financially penalize families on the first offense, a kind of minimum compensation for the first offense,” Macron said on Monday evening during a visit to a police station in the capital.
Last Friday, at the height of the nights of violence following the death of 17-year-old Nahel, shot dead by a police officer on June 27, in Nanterre, he had called on “parental responsibility” to “keep the minors at home”. to hold”. , who make up a large part of the troublemakers”.
“It is not for the Republic to replace them,” he insisted.
But on Monday night, as the violence eased, Macron said he planned to act “on a case-by-case basis” and “not necessarily” by suspending child support.
France’s Justice Minister, Eric Dupond-Moretti, also pointed the finger at the parents, in a circular sent to the prosecutor’s offices of all courts in France.
“When parents can exercise their parental authority and they cannot, there is a criminal responsibility that I want to put into practice,” he said, recalling the penalties envisaged: two years in prison and a fine of 30,000 euros.
Far from gaining unanimous support from the political class, the speeches were labeled “cynical” by leftist politicians.
Ali Rabeh, mayor of Trappes, a commune west of Paris with a high poverty rate, quoted by the France-Presse news agency (AFP), criticized Macron for “throwing fuel on the fire”.
Rabeh recalled that the population of the neighborhoods where the violence is concentrated is mainly “single-parent families” and described situations where the mother “works alone to try to fill the fridge”, so “she is not present when the child leave the school and run into the street”.
When a child is the subject of an educational measure following a violation, “a specialized educator comes to accompany the mother,” he explains. But “a very large number of educational measures are not implemented by the Ministry of Justice due to lack of resources,” he stressed.
The suspension of child benefits for parents of school-aged children was approved in 2010, during the term of Nicolas Sarkozy, then right-wing French president.
During the 2012 campaign, he even promised to extend the sentence to young offenders, but was ultimately defeated. His socialist successor, François Hollande (2012-2017), withdrew the measure.
Since then, Nicolas Sarkozy’s party, Les Republicans (Les Republicains), has relaunched the idea in the Senate and National Assembly with bills that never materialized.
Some municipalities, such as the city of Valence, led by another party member, Nicolas Daragon, approved monetary sanctions against the families of minors “called to order or convicted of disturbing public order”, depriving them of social benefits received paid by the city. .
In Nice, a family can be evicted from their social housing after the conviction of a relative, especially for drug trafficking.
In the centre-right, Modem president François Bayrou, Macron’s main ally, shares the principle of an “immediate sanction in case of misstep”.
“It is clear that when it comes to small children, the sanction is aimed at families,” he told French radio LCI, pointing out that there should not be any answer consisting of “the deprivation of [as mães] part of the minimum income that sustains them”.
“If we abolish subsidies and social assistance, we will create misery upon misery,” the communist Fabien Roussel stressed on television channel France2.
The police officers Macron met with on Monday were also against the idea of appealing to parents.
“Traders, Mr. President, are the ones who have been asking them to calm down for the past two days, because all this confusion is hurting their businesses,” they said.
Source: DN
