Macron under fire as ministers trade blame for worst violence in modern France

France's Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu convened a crisis cabinet meeting on Monday to assess the damage wrought by a weekend of violence and looting that ranks among the worst scenes of public disorder in modern French history.

Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered his resignation on Monday morning, the Élysée Palace confirmed. President Emmanuel Macron declined to accept it, instead tasking him with examining how to make the nation's streets safer and ensuring those responsible for the weekend's mayhem face justice.

More than half a million people demonstrated peacefully on Saturday against rising living costs and diminishing access to decent public services, including a good state education. But groups of black-clad, masked activists and vandals infiltrated the crowds, and the protests turned ugly. An estimated 1,500 shops and businesses were looted and destroyed. Riot police fired tear gas and deployed water cannon; officers were seen striking people with batons in several locations. The interior ministry reported that about 1,000 police officers were injured on Saturday, seven of them seriously.

Nuñez has faced accusations from political opponents, some trade unions and social media commentators of being ill-prepared and under-policed ahead of the multiple, scheduled protests. Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the lower house of parliament, has called for an inquiry into exactly what happened.

On Sunday night, red paint daubed across a wall beside a row of shattered shops in the capital read: "Things are dark in the City of Light."

Rumours had circulated that Macron might introduce a temporary curfew in parts of the country, or even impose a state of emergency to calm the febrile atmosphere. In the end, he used a televised address to the nation on Sunday to call for national unity and to assure the French public that the perpetrators of the violence would be punished. His speech has been roundly criticised in the French media for lacking concrete detail.

How vandals and rioters will now be brought to account remains unclear. Nor is it evident how France's towns and cities might be better protected, particularly with new mass demonstrations announced in a fortnight. Exactly how destroyed businesses will be compensated has yet to be determined. And when dialogue will be established with students and teachers' bodies on the subject of education—the issue that sparked these demonstrations last month—remains an open question.

On Sunday, Sophie Binet, secretary general of the CGT union, accused Macron of failing to address students' concerns, the cost-of-living crisis or the dwindling quality of public services. The president has apparently passed that baton to Prime Minister Lecornu. Macron is widely viewed in France as a lame-duck president, a leader on his way out.

A hotly contested race to succeed him is under way, with the vote scheduled in six months' time. The presidential candidate from the anti-immigration nationalist right, Marine Le Pen, and the anti-capitalist left, Jean-Luc Melenchon, are vying to make headlines. That is adding to current tensions in France—in politics as well as on the streets.

Parliament is paralysed, deeply divided between three vying political blocs. Then there are France's financial woes. Investors are leaning hard on the country to bring its spiralling public debt under control. But the government worries that if it cuts public services or welfare, yet more angry people will pour onto the streets.

What now, what next, is our country broken? You hear these questions a lot at the moment.

People across France were shocked and troubled by Saturday's events. The images of tear-gassed towns, apparently unimpeded looters and burning public buildings have worried the nation. Many passers-by express frustration that, while they worry about the future, their leading politicians seem instead to be passionately focused on finger-pointing, blaming one another for the volatility.

"While we worry for our safety, they use this situation as a pre-presidential election political football," Edouard, a teacher and father of three, told me.

Macron and his prime minister blamed Saturday's violent chaos on radical far-left groups and delinquents; hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon alleged government "incompetence"; Marine Le Pen, on the nationalist right, posted a video seated in front of the French flag, delivering a presidential-style address that blamed the "Macronist administration that is out of steam, exhausted, and disoriented."

For the next two weeks, the French authorities hope for a measure of respite. Students start their half-term break on Monday. But on 5 November, a cross-section of trade unions, plus France's disparate gilets jaunes movement that staged demonstrations for over a year in 2018—during Macron's first term—have announced huge protests. France is holding its breath.