France halts protests with curfew crackdown

Ankur Desai (0:00)

This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. Hi, I'm Uncle Desai, and in the early hours of Tuesday, the 20th of October, these are our main stories. Curfews have been in place in several French cities to prevent more disorder after days of violent unrest. And it's spreading across Europe. In Albania, protests are into their seventh day. Also, in this podcast.

A rocket bound for one of Mars' two moons has successfully blasted off from Japan. And Apu?

Gerard Nouchi (0:41)

That's right.

Hugh Schofield (0:42)

You thought you could just get rid of me?

Hari Kondabolu (0:44)

That I'd disappear?

Hugh Schofield (0:46)

That there wouldn't be consequences for the horrible thing you did?

Gerard Nouchi (0:50)

What did we do again?

Ankur Desai (0:51)

Well, after almost a decade away, Apu returns to the Simpsons TV show with a new voice after a race row.

Widespread disruption across France continues as cities remain littered with burnt out cars and smashed and boarded up windows. Temporary overnight curfews have been in place in some of the biggest towns and cities across France, including Paris, Lyon, Lille and Nice, in an attempt to prevent the violence and looting that rocked the country over the weekend. People across France have expressed shock at some of the most widespread disorder in modern French history after protests against the rising costs of living and run-down public services descended into lawlessness. Hassan Ahmed is the owner of a bike shop in Paris. He told us he'd lost his livelihood.

Hassan Ahmed (1:46)

I can't believe it.

I can't. It's my life, whole life here. It's my whole life. I can't. I don't know. I don't know what I do.

Sébastien Lecornu (1:56)

Do you know what you've lost?

Hassan Ahmed (1:59)

A hundred thousand plus.

Mark Lohan (2:00)

Do you have insurance? Can you recover from that?

Hassan Ahmed (2:02)

I have insurance, but not everything insurance cover because of, you know, in France, the law, it's not cover everything.

Ankur Desai (2:11)

The Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu has warned that ultra left radical groups are hoping to create chaos ahead of next year's presidential election. A correspondent, Hugh Schofield, sent this report from Paris.

Hugh Schofield (2:28)

By the Place de la République in central Paris, the street cleaners are still at it, scraping up bits of charred plastic from the road. Around the square, there's the sound of hammers and drills, as workmen patch up the smashed shopfronts.

Today has been a day of reckoning. First, reckoning up the damage. Across the country, some 3,000 stores were vandalised and or looted on Saturday night. Many were in Marseille, including the clothing store belonging to Gerard Nouchi.

Gerard Nouchi (3:04)

On Saturday, we were looted by young people from the neighbourhoods, probably from the northern districts. There were a lot of them, at least 5,000 to 6,000 people. They trashed everything, broke things, insulted us.

It was like a real tornado with the background of understaffed national police. There just weren't enough.

Hugh Schofield (3:21)

There's a reckoning at the policing level too. What went wrong? Why was there no accurate forecast of the coming violence? Why were police outnumbered and unable to intervene to protect property? The government says, hopefully, that it won't happen again. If it does, Sébastien Locournou, the prime minister, promised reinforcements. And in the meantime, he said, the authorities would have powers to impose selective localized curfews.

Sébastien Lecornu (3:49)

We are not dealing with typical crime here. We are dealing with a very specific type of crime, a very precise and specific form of general crime involving looting and the resale of some of the looted goods.

And there is no question of this situation becoming entrenched. And so I've instructed the prefects to implement curfews. They will be partial and they may be very localized.

Hugh Schofield (4:13)

And then there's the reckoning of politics. Today the government pointed the finger of blame once again at the far left and its outspoken presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. He's fomenting unrest ahead of the presidential election, said the prime minister, to which Mr. Mélenchon instantly retorted, show me the evidence. It's you, the government, that created the mess.

To the side sits Marine Le Pen, candidate of the hard right, who could be in line to benefit from an inevitable law and order backlash.

Ankur Desai (4:43)

Hugh Schofield reporting from Paris. Well, the unrest is not just in France. While Spain and Portugal have seen some largely peaceful demonstrations, in Milan, police fired tear gas after several hundred hooded and masked men broke shop windows and set bins on fire.

And in Albania, there have been yet more violent protests. As our correspondent in the capital Tirana, Nick Thorpe, now reports.