A Ban Is Not an Emergency

Emmanuel Macron addressed France at 20:00 on Sunday, the day after marches against the cost of living ended in looting and arson in cities from Marseille to Limoges. He did not declare a state of emergency and did not impose a curfew, Al Jazeera and France 24 both reported. What he announced instead was a use of powers the prefects already hold.

“Les préfets prendront les décisions en lien avec les maires pour protéger nos villes, nos bâtiments publics et nos commerces, y compris en allant jusqu’à interdire quand il le faut certains rassemblements,” he said, according to the transcript published by the Élysée. In this publication’s translation: the prefects will take decisions with the mayors to protect cities, public buildings and shops, including by going as far as banning certain gatherings where necessary. The prefect is the state’s representative in each département. The sentence names no new power, because none was needed.

What a ban requires

The rule the prefects would apply is set out in the Code of Internal Security and in the case law that polices it. In an order of 18 October 2023, the Conseil d’État summarised it. Article L. 211-1 requires prior declaration of “tous cortèges, défilés et rassemblements de personnes” on the public highway. Under Articles L. 211-4 and R. 211-1, it falls to the prefect to ban by order any “manifestation projetée de nature à troubler l’ordre public”, a planned demonstration likely to disturb public order.

The same order sets the limits. A ban “ne peut être prise qu’en dernier recours”, only as a last resort, and only if it is “adapté, nécessaire et proportionné” to the circumstances. Freedom to demonstrate counts as a fundamental freedom under Article L. 521-2 of the Code of Administrative Justice, which means a ban can be taken to an emergency judge, the juge des référés, on the ground that it is a serious and manifestly unlawful interference. That 2023 case is the precedent for the gap between a national instruction and a local decision. The interior minister had told prefects by telegram that pro-Palestinian demonstrations “doivent être interdites”; the Conseil d’État held that each prefect must still assess each demonstration against local circumstances, and may not justify a ban by citing the minister’s instruction alone.

A state of emergency works differently. Under the law of 3 April 1955, as the Conseil constitutionnel has described it, it is declared by decree in the Council of Ministers and must be extended by a law fixing its length after twelve days. That is a national act, with Parliament’s vote attached. Sunday’s choice keeps every decision in the départements and every ban open to challenge in the administrative courts one by one.

The arrest figures

The number of people arrested rose through Sunday, and the published figures show the sequence. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu put the total at 1,200 late on Saturday, according to CNews’s live coverage. On Sunday morning the interior minister, Laurent Nuñez, posted a figure of 1,800 arrests and more than 500 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters injured. By early afternoon a post on his account gave more than 2,000 arrests and more than 600 injured, and franceinfo reported the same “more than 2,000” from it. In the evening the ministry issued what CNews called a consolidated tally: 2,397 arrests, and 997 police officers and gendarmes injured, seven seriously.

That sequence explains why reports published hours apart differ. France 24’s afternoon report and an Al Jazeera report from Paris carry the morning figure of 1,800; their evening reports on the address carry nearly 2,400. The injury figures are not counts of the same people: the earlier ones included firefighters, the consolidated one names only police and gendarmes. Paris accounted for 855 arrests on its own, in the Paris police prefecture’s count at 08:00 on Sunday. None of these is a count of people charged, which has not been published.

What happened on Saturday

The Interior Ministry said 550,000 people marched nationwide; the CGT union said 800,000, France 24 reported. The protests began in mid-September in schools, over crowded classrooms and teacher shortages, Al Jazeera reported, and on Saturday the Yellow Vest movement, unions and students marched together over the cost of living and fuel prices. Most of the marches were peaceful, in the assessment of the Eurasia Group analyst Mujtaba Rahman quoted by France 24, who said “the violence came from a fringe of the ultra left”, with looting “by opportunistic gangs from the poor suburbs.” Macron used his own words for those responsible: factieux from ultra-left groups, joined by many delinquents.

Limoges lost its 19th-century town hall to a fire that the local prefect, Maurice Barate, told LCI had been set deliberately by “a wild horde”, France 24 reported. In his address Macron also listed the tourist office burned in Lyon, the town hall invaded in Marseille and the attack on the prefect’s residence in Bordeaux. The Retail and Trade Federation estimated that about 1,500 businesses were damaged, a figure France 24 attributes to the federation.

What else the address promised

Macron said the Prime Minister would chair a crisis unit from Monday to organise aid for traders, and France 24 reports that the meeting covers insurance, help for shops and prosecutions. He asked the government, and the interior minister in particular, to draw lessons on intelligence and anticipation, saying “J’attends des réponses claires et toute la transparence sera faite”: he expects clear answers, and there will be full transparency. He also said he would leave on Monday for Gulf states to secure fuel and gas supplies, and that the Prime Minister would bring pupils, students, teachers, unions, employers, local authorities and members of Parliament together this week to work on proposals.

Police conduct is the other open file. The police inspectorate, the IGPN, had opened 36 investigations into alleged police violence since the school protests began, according to Interior Ministry figures of 13 October that Al Jazeera cites, a figure that predates Saturday. France 24 reports that a 17-year-old boy lost his right hand to a crowd-control grenade in Saint-Étienne, and that a 17-year-old girl lost an eye in Mulhouse, according to prosecutors.

Blame, six months out

Lecornu wrote on social media that “This is YOUR political responsibility,” accusing far-left groups of orchestrating the violence, Al Jazeera reported. Jean-Luc Mélenchon said the government had “failed to organise the maintenance of public order.” Jordan Bardella of the National Rally called the address “lamentable,” and Marine Le Pen said the government was “running on fumes, exhausted and disoriented,” per France 24. Macron, who cannot stand again, told viewers that “nous sommes à six mois de notre élection présidentielle.”

He chose the tool that leaves the most to others. The prefects will decide what to ban, and the administrative judges will decide whether each ban was the last resort the law says it must be.