The key facts
- Paris banned gatherings near the Élysée Palace, Bastille, parliament, the Louvre and the Champs-Élysées from 8:00 to 20:00
- Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez admitted that the authorities 'lost control' of the unrest
- Macron accused Trump and Netanyahu of exploiting the unrest for political gain; Le Pen called his remarks 'conspiratorial'
Ban on gatherings in Paris
Ahead of new protests planned for Thursday, Paris police banned participants from gathering near the Élysée Palace, at Place de la Bastille, near both chambers of parliament, as well as in several tourist areas, including the Louvre and the Champs-Élysées. The restriction is in effect from 8:00 (06:00 GMT) to 20:00 local time. Large protests are expected in Paris over the weekend: Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu promised a 'massive' deployment of security forces.
Crisis and the authorities' admission
The crisis began with student protests against high prices and demands for education reform, but escalated into violence: masked rioters looted shops and clashed with police. On Monday, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez admitted that the authorities had 'lost control' and failed to anticipate the scale of the violence. After two relatively calm nights, footage of burning cars and looted shops is being used by politicians inside and outside France to pressure Emmanuel Macron's government.
Trump: 'migrants, jihadists and communists'
US President Donald Trump blamed the unrest on 'migrants, jihadists and communists', saying they had 'seized, looted and burned (France) to the ground'. Speaking on the campaign trail ahead of the US midterm elections, Trump also said he had warned Macron about immigration problems, but the French president refused to close the borders.
Macron's response
During a visit to Qatar on Wednesday, Macron said some leaders were 'running an election campaign at France's expense' — both in the region and 'across the Atlantic'. Asked whether he meant Trump, he replied: 'Among others.' According to him, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who previously spoke of an 'invasion of extremist Islam', is also trying to derive political benefit from the situation. Macron claimed that information about the crisis was being manipulated, including 'AI-generated images of scenes that never happened', which provoked comments 'as unacceptable as they are stupid, from many people, including foreign leaders'. He called false the claims that France had been 'overrun by a horde of migrants and Islamists'.
Le Pen: 'a sad reality'
Marine Le Pen called Macron's version 'conspiratorial'. 'The footage we saw last Saturday was not created by artificial intelligence: it shows the sad reality of what France has become after ten years of Macronist rule,' she said. According to Deutsche Welle, Le Pen is considered the favourite of the 2027 presidential election, followed by the left-wing candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
