France to deploy military as it braces for fresh unrest this weekend

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France will deploy some military forces to help maintain order during a fresh wave of protests expected this weekend, officials said Tuesday.
French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez told lawmakers in the National Assembly that the government would deploy forces from France's Sentinelle force — a domestic military operation that was launched in 2015 following terrorist attacks in Paris — "mainly on static security missions."
This would free up police and gendarmes — a military police force — to carry out law enforcement objectives, Nuñez added.
Also addressing parliament on Tuesday, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said authorities planned to mobilize a "massive" security presence this coming Saturday, adding that the government's objective was to achieve "an immediate return to order."
Lecornu also said there would be fresh curfews "where the situation requires it," according to French newspaper Le Monde.
Curfews contributed to a "calm" night across France, he said earlier on Tuesday, even as public discontent remained high following the weekend's mass protests, looting and violent scenes.
Certain areas of several French cities were under curfew overnight, including Place de la République and Les Halles in Paris, and parts of central Lyon. Lille and Nice were among the cities to impose curfews for minors.
The unrest comes at a particularly fragile moment for France, where public anger over living costs and deteriorating services is colliding with political instability and a fiscal crisis that threatens to turn into a debt crisis as government borrowing costs rise to the highest level in decades.
The country faces a divided parliament with no majority and presidential elections in April 2027.
In a statement on Tuesday, Lecornu said local officials would impose new curfews where required.
Meanwhile, criticism is mounting over President Emmanuel Macron's decision to embark on a three-day tour of the Middle East as France suffers its most severe riots in many years.
Riots followed weeks of demonstrations over the country's education system, the cost of living and other issues.
While hundreds of thousands of people marched peacefully, pockets of violence erupted, shocking the country, as protesters smashed shopfronts and set Limoges Town Hall on fire.
Political commentator Christophe Barbier on radio station RTL said on Monday there was "no longer a pilot in the plane." At the same time, newspaper La Dépêche du Midi wrote in a scathing editorial that Macron had "to see if the misery of a reviled president is less painful in the Persian Gulf sun" as France "sinks deeper into crisis."
Macron said on Sunday he was looking to address high fuel prices and secure French energy supplies through the trip to Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar, while strengthening defense and security cooperation.
Businesses hit
There is also public anger over claims that police lost control of the situation at the weekend as disorder and looting escalated. Police were earlier this month accused of excessive force in their response to student protests, after a 15-year-old boy's hand was blown off by a stun grenade.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez' offered to quit his post on Monday after claiming responsibility for what unfolded. Macron declined his resignation, saying immediate leadership of law enforcement was needed.
"The lack of enforcement means that more than 3,000 shops have been sacked, and for the economy today we awake with a feeling that the state cannot do the basic duty that it is supposed to do, and this is now creating somehow lack of trust," Fabrice Le Saché, vice president of business group MEDEF, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Tuesday.
"This is dangerous because we have been used to... riots in our country — remember the Yellow Vests and other movements — but this one has passed, I think, the level of the previous ones, and we cannot continue to keep going with that same type of situation every time we have social unrest," Le Saché said.
French businesses have one of the highest tax burdens in the euro area but now feel they cannot receive basic security in return, he added.
Lecornu said Monday that a support fund would be established for damaged or looted businesses, and that the government would talk with insurers to speed up assessments.
"The scale of the damage suggests this weekend's riots could ultimately prove more costly than the unrest that followed the death of Nahel Merzouk in 2023," which generated around 1 billion euros ($1.12 billion) in insured losses, Jess Middleton, senior Europe analyst at risk intelligence firm Verisk Maplecroft, said by email.
"Further violence is not inevitable, but protests linked to the underlying grievances, including cost-of-living pressures and discontent over public services and education, are likely to persist, putting continued pressure on the government to demonstrate that it can maintain order," Middleton said.
French markets came under pressure on Monday after the weekend scenes, with bonds, stocks and the euro all selling off, amid growing skepticism about the country's ability to bring down its deficit to a sustainable level.
Fierce debate is underway over the 2027 budget, with the government targeting an overall decline in the deficit to 5% of GDP from 5.4%.

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