French police ‘at war with vermin’ as rioting spreads across nation

British tourists warned of curfews and restrictions on travel as Macron faces pressure to declare state of emergency

FRENCH police last night said they were “at war” with “savage hordes of vermin” as France was rocked by waves of riots and looting.

British travellers were warned about the risk of possible curfews and travel restrictions owing to the growing upheaval and vandalism around France.

Two of the country’s top police unions threatened a revolt unless Emmanuel Macron’s government restored order after protests broke out over the police shooting of a teenager in a Paris suburb. “Today the police are in combat as we are at war. Tomorrow we will be in resistance and the government should be aware of this,” they said. A domestic intelligence note seen by

has warned riots could become increasingly “widespread” and go on for “the coming nights”.

The government announced last night that all major public gatherings that could “pose a risk to public order” would be banned. Some rock concerts have been cancelled and some 45,000 police deployed. Meanwhile, security will be increased during the upcoming Tour de France, which is due to start in Spain today.

Mr Macron faced intense pressure yesterday to impose a state of emergency as he called on parents to keep their children at home and blamed video games for “intoxicated” young protesters.

In updated travel advice, the Foreign Office said: “Locations and timing of riots are unpredictable. You should monitor the media, and avoid areas where riots are taking place.”

Minutes later, Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, announced that “all buses and tramways” would cease to operate after 9pm in France. Curfews have so far been imposed in the towns of Clamart, Compiègne and Neuilly-sur-Marne.

The restrictions came after Mr Macron cut short a European Council meeting in Brussels for crisis talks as he said there were “no taboos” on tackling anarchy. Élisabeth Borne, his prime minister, added that “all options” to restore order were on the table, including imposing a state of emergency.

Marine Le Pen, Mr Macron’s closest rival, backed the move, while Eric Ciotti, head of the conservative Republicans, insisted a state of emergency be imposed as “France is burning”.

Security forces have been struggling to contain the riots since the death of 17-year-old Nahel M, shot at point-blank range by a police officer after he was pulled over for traffic offences in Nanterre, west of Paris. The shooting was filmed and contradicted initial police claims they had acted in self-defence.

Mr Macron pledged “extra means” for police and his prime minister approved the use of armoured vehicles and drones to track vandals. However, in a damning appraisal, two of France’s top police unions, Alliance Police Nationale and UNSA Police, suggested the response had been far too weak.

“Faced with these savage hordes, calling for calm is no longer sufficient, it must be imposed!” they wrote, saying they were waging a fight against “vermin” before threatening a revolt.

After crisis talks, Mr Macron yesterday called on parents to keep child rioters off the streets. “It’s the responsibility of parents to keep them at home,” Mr Macron told reporters. “It’s not the state’s job to act in their place.” The president urged social media providers to remove the “most sensitive” content related to the rioting, arguing that graphic footage of vandalism “sparks a form of copycat violence”.

“We sometimes get the feeling that some of them live out in the street the video games that have intoxicated them,” he added.

The funeral of Nahel will be held today. In a stinging rebuke, the UN rights office yesterday suggested that this week’s killing of the teenager of North African descent was “a moment for the country to seriously address the deep issues of racism and racial discrimination in law enforcement”. Paris called the claims “totally unfounded”.

Nahel was killed as he pulled away from police who were trying to stop him for a traffic offence. A video showed two police motorbike officers standing by the side of the stationary car, with one pointing a weapon at the driver.

A voice is heard saying: “You are going to get a bullet in the head.” The police officer then appears to fire as the car slowly drives off.

The officer’s lawyer, Laurent-Franck Lienard, told BFMTV that his client had apologised as he was taken into custody. “The first words he pronounced were to say sorry, and the last words he said were to say sorry to the family,” said Mr Lienard.

‘Faced with these savage hordes, calling for calm is no longer sufficient, it must be imposed!’

Cheers erupted as a black sports car rammed a Lidl supermarket on the outskirts of Nantes. The car reversed and sped forward once more, smashing its way through the glass facade. As the Lidl logo came crashing to the ground, dozens of hooded youths rushed gleefully in to loot the budget store of its contents.

“I don’t understand why they are attacking people who work. They’re taking it out on their own population: people who have done nothing,” said one despondent local surveying the damage yesterday morning.

Similar acts of pillaging were repeated across France as the country teeters on the edge of anarchy after three nights of spiralling violence and destruction in the wake of the police shooting of a teenager in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre. Riots have also spread to French Caribbean territories, including French Guiana and the island of Reunion.

In scenes resembling guerrilla warfare, balaclava-clad elite RAID police in body armour patrolled key spots in black armoured vehicles in Nanterre, as well as Lille in the north and Marseille down south. Rioters looted a gun store in the centre of Marseille and took away hunting rifles but no ammunition. One individual was arrested with a rifle likely coming from the gun store, police said.

With a domestic intelligence note seen by Le Monde warning that riots could become increasingly “widespread” and go on for “the coming nights”, Emmanuel Macron is under growing pressure to impose a state of emergency.

Yesterday, the French president cut short a European Council meeting in Brussels for crisis talks as he said there were “no taboos” on the measures he would take to clamp down on the rioting.

“All options” to restoring order, including imposing a state of emergency, were on the table, confirmed Elisabeth Borne, his prime minister. That would grant authorities more powers to enact localised curfews, ban demonstrations and give police more freedom in restraining suspected rioters and searching homes. Opposition conservatives and the hard Right are calling for such a measure. Marine Le Pen said that emergency should be declared in “certain sectors” and be rolled out nationwide if the situation deteriorates.

“France is burning,” said Eric Ciotti, head of the Right-wing Républicains party. “Our country is on the edge of the precipice … we must wage a merciless war against violence and proclaim a state of emergency in all affected areas,” he said. Some ministers oppose it and François Hollande, Mr Macron’s Socialist predecessor, said it was the wrong move as it was designed more to manage terror threats than urban unrest.

But security forces have been overwhelmed since the death of 17-year-old Nahel M, shot at point-blank range by a police officer after he was pulled over for traffic offences in Nanterre. The shooting was filmed and contradicted initial police claims they had acted in self-defence.

After a bruising three months battling huge strike protests against his pension reforms, Mr Macron this spring had promised “100 days of appeasement, unity, ambition and action in the service of France”.

The hope was that public anger would subside in time for July 14 and the Bastille Day parade and firework displays.

But just two weeks to go before France’s revolutionary anniversary, “appeasement” is hardly the first word that springs to mind when summing up the mood of the nation.

Outside Paris, the site of a swimming pool built for next year’s Olympics went up in flames amid loud explosions. Nearby in Aubervilliers, a bus depot was torched with a dozen buses burned. In Noisy-le-Grand, another Paris suburb, the local secondary school was targeted.

“That’s the end of the school,” one rioter can be heard chuckling.

The violence was not limited to the

banlieues, the suburbs ringing the city. Paris’ historic centre was also hit as fireworks, the acrid smell of smoke and fires peppered the streets of the City of Light last night.

Social media was awash with films of raging fires and looting, and images of flagship branches of Nike and Zara pillaged on the Rue de Rivoli, the Parisian equivalent of London’s Oxford Street.

The situation was equally chaotic in the provinces. A library was set on fire in the city centre of Marseille. In Roubaix, near the Belgian border, a hotel went up in flames. After initially attacking police stations, schools and other “symbols of the Republic”, rioters have increasingly turned their attention to looting, with cash dispensers rammed and restaurants, chemists, hairdressers, tax offices, tobacconists and service stations all seen as fair game.

In Rouen, a young man died after falling from the roof of a supermarket, local authorities said. A police source said the dead man had fallen as the store was being looted.

While most attacks have taken place at night, yesterday afternoon scores of youths smashed windows at a flagship Apple Store in downtown Strasbourg, eastern France, in an attempt to pillage its products. Police managed to beat them back as explosions rang out.

“It’s as if we were at war,” said Marie-Thérèse, a resident.

In all, Mr Macron said that a total of 492 buildings were damaged, some 2,000 vehicles burned and 3,880 fires started nationwide.

About 40,000 police and gendarmes – along with elite Raid and GIGN units – were deployed in several cities overnight, curfews were issued in municipalities around Paris and bans on public gatherings in Lille and Tourcoing in the country’s north.

Despite the massive security deployment, violence and damage continued unabated in many areas.

Latest interior ministry figures yesterday afternoon showed 875 arrests overnight, while 249 police officers were injured – none of them seriously.

With one year to go before the Paris Olympics, trigger-happy police, blazing buildings and pillaged shops is hardly the type of PR Mr Macron had hoped for as he seeks to protect France’s image abroad.

Germany expressed its “concern” over the riots and Norway advised citizens to “avoid gatherings”.

Stopping short of declaring a state of emergency, the interior ministry announced that bus and tram services would be halted nationwide at 9pm from yesterday and sales of large fireworks would be banned. Geneva’s crossborder public trams and buses were not running across the Swiss frontier into France yesterday evening.

Regional prefects, who are in charge of security around the country, were also asked to ban the sale and transport of petrol cans, acids and other inflammable liquids, it said.

With Britons warned about the travel restrictions, many tourists had already taken evasive action by cancelling trips.

Hotels around France are experiencing a “wave of booking cancellations in all areas affected by this damage and these clashes”, according to the country’s main hospitality union, UMIH.

After crisis talks, Mr Macron promised “additional means” to police over and above the huge numbers out on the streets yesterday. These will included 14 armoured Centaure vehicles belonging to the gendarmerie.

However, in an extraordinarily vitriolic critique of the government’s action so far, two of France’s top police unions, Alliance Police Nationale and UNSA Police, appeared to suggest it had been far too lily-livered.

They wrote: “Faced with these savage hordes, calling for calm is no longer sufficient. It must be imposed!”

“Our colleagues, like the majority of citizens, can’t take any more suffering the dictates of these violent minorities,” they went on, saying it was waging a fight against “vermin”.

“Today the police are in combat as we are at war. Tomorrow we will be in resistance and the government should be aware of this,” they added ominously.

Marine Tondelier, the head of French Greens, slammed the statement a “call to civil war”. Greens MP Sandrine Rousseau called it a “threat of sedition”.

Leftist figurehead Jean-Luc Mélenchon said: “The ‘unions’ that call for civil war must learn to be silent. We have seen the murderous behaviour that this kind of talk leads to. The political powers must take control of the police. Those who want calm do not throw oil on the fire.”

The Macron camp made no mention of it but yesterday he called on parents to keep child rioters off the streets, saying that around a third of those arrested overnight for rioting were “young, or very young” – between 14 and 18.

“It’s the responsibility of parents to keep them at home,” Mr Macron said. “It’s not the state’s job to act in their place.”