If one had to choose from the many powerful images of the French riots on Saturday, it would have to be the widely shared video of a young blond French shopkeeper who begged the rioters to spare her store, was pushed aside, and watched them loot it, her face crumpling in sadness and despair. She wasn’t alone. Other media reported on store owners “pleading with thugs to leave their stores” and shopkeepers “sitting in front of their businesses in tears.”
Faced with shocking videos that quickly spread worldwide, defenders of French President Emmanuel Macron and Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez say they are not to blame. Everyone was surprised and caught off guard by the sheer number of protesters and rioters who looted stores, burned buildings and invaded city halls. Macron had repeatedly urged protesters not to use violence, which he reiterated on Sunday night. He promised that “those who destroyed must pay,” that “those who looted must reimburse,” and that “those who sought to bring down the Republic will have to answer for it.” And because the riots were not the government’s fault, it was only logical for Macron to reject Nuñez’s offer to resign after the weekend’s mayhem.
But Macron and his government knew for weeks that the CGT, the nation’s largest union confederation, and the student unions had planned a massive protest for October 17, and failed to do what was needed to protect the public. He and the French intelligence community drastically underestimated the crowd size. The day before the marches, the Interior Ministry expected 40,000 to 60,000 demonstrators in Paris and about 100,000 in the rest of the country. Instead, roughly 550,000 turned out, including 110,000 in Paris.
As a result, the government deployed far too few police and other security forces, just 60,000. They deployed few Centaure armored vehicles or RAID tactical units in advance. Nobody should have been surprised. France’s intelligence services told top officials in a government crisis meeting on October 1 that the school movement behind the riots was “an operation organised by LFI (France Unbowed) and its proxies on the far left.”