France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez handed in his resignation Monday after admitting that police completely lost control of violent nationwide protests that turned into one of the worst episodes of urban unrest in French history. President Emmanuel Macron rejected the resignation and told Nunez to stay put… even though Macron and his lust for flooding the border is basically what’s really causing this. Just look at the protesters themselves. Do they look French to you?
“I have handed in my resignation because I am responsible for everything that happens,” Nunez said Monday on France Inter public radio. He acknowledged the police deployment was simply too small to handle the scale of the looting and vandalism that erupted Saturday. About 550,000 people took part nationwide according to the interior ministry, with 110,000 in Paris alone.
The numbers from the weekend are jaw-dropping. Nearly 2,400 people were arrested, around 1,000 police and gendarmes were injured, and more than 1,500 shops were looted with public buildings set on fire. France riots and looting coverage Violence continued overnight into Sunday in Paris, Marseille, Lyon, and Nantes, with at least 30 more shops hit in the capital.
President Donald Trump responded by reminding them to close the borders and stop being migrant-loving leftists who let them destroy their city. Macron needs to own this, but he’s already deflecting and acting like it’s not the migrants causing this. Trump said France is about to become a Muslim city with all the liberal leaders allowing the place to be flooded and destroyed. The same thing could be happening in America, but Trump’s administration is following the immigration laws, something Biden’s administration seemed to really ignore.
Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin went on France 2 television Monday and said 2,331 people were taken into police custody over the weekend, with 70 percent adults and more than 80 percent facing prosecution. He was blunt about where the system broke down: “Clearly, it is not tackling the far-left effectively,” he said. “We have undoubtedly failed.”
In a televised address Sunday evening, Macron blamed far-left extremists and delinquents for what he called “unbridled violence.” The protests were originally called over the rising cost of living and poor education conditions, with student unions and trade unions joining the cause. Most demonstrations stayed peaceful, but groups of black-clad, masked activists known as “black blocs,” along with young vandals, turned things ugly fast.
The economic damage is staggering. More than 2,000 businesses are expected to have been affected, with damage running into hundreds of millions of euros, according to Alain Di Crescenzo, head of France’s network of chambers of commerce and industry. Commerce Minister Serge Papin was set to meet with retailers, restaurants, hotels, banks, and insurers Monday to talk through the wreckage. Paris public prosecutor Laure Beccuau urged businesses to preserve any evidence, including abandoned objects and traces of blood.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu held a crisis cabinet meeting Monday to assess the damage, and Macron asked Nunez to introduce new measures to tackle looting going forward. Paris mayor Emmanuel Gregoire called the scenes in his city “unbearable.”
France’s far-left helped torch the country, the police weren’t ready, the interior minister quit, and the president said no, you’re staying. Lecornu and the cabinet will now try to figure out how to keep “black blocs” from burning everything down the next time someone posts an angry video on social media. Good luck with that.
It’s almost like Trump warned everyone this would happen. This is not what we want for America, that’s for sure.
