French President Emmanuel Macron has rejected a resignation offer from Interior Minister Laurent Nunez following nationwide protests over educational conditions and the rising cost of living that escalated into widespread riots and looting, according to a statement from the Elysee presidential office on Monday.
The Elysee stated that Macron instructed Nunez to remain in office to preserve the security forces' chain of command. The president asked the interior minister to develop new tactics to deal with looters and to "take all necessary steps to ensure transparency over the failures in planning and intelligence that led to the violence."
The decision follows a wave of unrest that brought more than half a million people into the streets on Saturday. Masked rioters attacked government buildings, including police stations and town halls, while widespread arson, property destruction, and looting were reported across numerous cities.
Addressing the security failures on Monday, Nunez acknowledged that law enforcement "lost control" during Saturday's events due to a "lack of anticipation" in force deployment. He estimated that 60,000 police and gendarmes were deployed nationwide that day, a figure that proved insufficient to manage the large crowds of rioters and looters on the fringes of the demonstrations.
"On Saturday in some major cities, you couldn’t look shopkeepers in the eye after hundreds of shops had been looted and tell them we hadn’t lost control," Nunez said. "Given the damage that has been caused, it was only right that I should hand in my resignation."
According to the Ministry of the Interior, Saturday's violence resulted in nearly 1,000 injuries among police and gendarmes, as well as injuries among demonstrators, including one protester whose hand was blown off by a police crowd-control grenade. Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin noted that nationwide, more than 2,330 people were taken into police custody over the weekend, with 70 percent of them being adults.
Looting persisted into Sunday. Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire stated on Monday that approximately 30 shops were targeted in the capital the previous day, calling the scenes "unbearable." Nunez noted that roughly 350 arrests were made in Paris on Sunday and overnight.
The weekend demonstrations brought together residents protesting against faltering public services and high living costs alongside students
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