The Paris police prefecture has decreed a night curfew in certain neighborhoods of the French capital and has prohibited demonstrations in some areas during the night from Monday to Tuesday, October 20, following the disturbances recorded over the weekend.
The mobility restriction will be applied between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. in the Place de la République and the Les Halles sector. According to the authorities, these places concentrated a good part of the incidents and looting of commercial establishments that occurred on Saturday and Sunday.
The decision seeks to limit new incidents in the affected areas and reinforce security during the next few hours.
Demonstrations prohibited from 8:00 p.m.
In addition to the curfew, the prefecture has established a ban on demonstrations from 8:00 p.m. this Monday until 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday. The measure coincides with the period in which the authorities want to avoid new concentrations and episodes of violence in the capital.
The riots occurred within the framework of the mobilizations against the rising cost of life and the conditions of education, which led to acts of vandalism and looting in different parts of France. In Paris, incidents continued overnight from Sunday to Monday, with new attacks on commercial establishments in the city center.
The French Government has defended the need to adopt localized restrictions to stop altercations and restore security in the most affected areas.
Measures for affected businesses
Given the serious economic consequences of the riots, the French Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has also announced that workers in businesses affected by the riots will be able to benefit from a partial unemployment benefit from Tuesday, with 100% coverage by the State.
This is an “employment protection” measure, since “we cannot allow social damage after the material destruction,” added the president, without specifying what its cost will be at a time of extreme economic fragility in France.
In fact, this very Monday investors have punished the French social instability both in the price of its 10-year bonds (the differential with the German reference bond increased to 144 basis points) and in the Parisian CAC-40 stock index (-1.5% at the halfway point of the session).
All of this in a pre-electoral context and with a Government budget project having difficulty succeeding in the French National Assembly, fragmented into three blocks: left, macronist center-right and extreme right.
