• France
• Scandal

Paris, Oct 19 (EFE).-

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced Monday that he would ask Prefectures to decree partial curfews in several cities in France, without specifying which ones yet, due to the wave of riots in the country.

Lecornu, after an inter-ministerial meeting, said it would be a partial curfew, by territories, serving as a more adapted instrument than decreeing a state of emergency, and that the interior ministry would carry out a precise mapping of the affected areas during the afternoon.

Lecornu did not rule out the need for a state of emergency if necessary and warned that looting would not be tolerated under any circumstance.

He remarked that it was a miracle that there had been no fatalities, and blamed the extreme left for the disorder and disturbances that occurred during the day and “general delinquency” for those that occurred during the night.

He also warned that the government was launching “a massive criminal response” following the pillaging and looting in several shops in France.

Lecornu said that, in the Paris area alone, there were 200 investigators working to identify looters using video surveillance footage, as many of them acted with their faces uncovered.

The head of government stated that citizens would also be asked for their cooperation to help identify the suspects.

As of 8am Monday, 2,331 people were in police custody for the riots and looting, according to the Ministry of Justice, which noted that 70 percent of them were adults and that the Prosecutor’s Office was requesting pre-trial detention in more than 80 percent of cases.

Shops were looted, public buildings were attacked, and clashes with security forces took place as a part of the riots in Paris and other French cities on Saturday. EFE

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