The French government has changed tack. Two days after the shooting of 17-year-old Nahel at a police roadblock at Nanterre in the western suburbs of Paris, the minister of the interior is now talking about a tough crackdown on the unrest that has broken out in several of the country’s cities. “We’ve carried out a massive deployment of forces of law and order for this evening and night,” Gérald Darmanin told prefects on Thursday, talking about the mobilisation of 40,000 officers, including specialist units such as the elite police tactical group RAID, its gendarme equivalent the GIGN and BRI units which tackle serious crimes.

In the same message the number three in the French government called for “arrests at the start of riots” and a “presence in front of public service premises” such as town halls and schools. “Public order must be re-established with a firm hand,” he concluded. On the two previous nights the police and gendarmes on the ground had been told not to seek confrontation with youths.

Emmanuel Macron and Gérald Darmanin during a public meeting in the La Busserine district of Marseille, June 26^th 2023. © Photo Ludovic Marin / Pool / AFP

The change in instructions coming from the Ministry of the Interior is not just about law and order issues. It displays a shift in approach by the government, which wants at all cost to avoid a repeat of events of 2005 when widespread rioting broke out across France after the deaths of two youths in a Paris suburb. “We’ve fallen back on taking a tough line because that’s the only way to restore calm,” says one government source. Speaking on BFMTV news channel on Thursday the official government spokesperson Olivier Véran had criticised what he called “attacks against the Republic”.

Thus, at a stroke, interior minister Gérald Darmanin is back in his more habitual routine: attacking the violence in the morning, visiting a police station in the afternoon, issuing instructions on a crackdown in the evening. On Thursday the prime minister’s office told ministers to scrap all visits that it was possible to cancel. Instead, prime minister Élisabeth Borne and four of her ministers - Gérald Darmanin, justice minister Éric Dupond-Moretti, education minister Pap Ndiaye and cities minister Olivier Klein – went out to look at damage from the night before.

“We can’t ignore the violence that we’ve seen,” explains one ministerial adviser. “You don’t torch a school in France, whether you have good reason to be angry or not. For the time being our approach can only be one based on law and order.” As during the ’yellow vest’ protests of 2018 and 2019, or the more recent protests against pension reform, the presidential team is hanging onto the belief that its electorate has an overriding desire for order. “People are stunned by Nahel’s death but they have common sense,” says one member of the ruling majority. “They also find it unacceptable to burn down a town hall or a school.”

The thinking behind this makes some sense tactically, in the minds of an interior minister and a ruling party who have made “Republican order” one of their very few clear political attributes. But this approach is purely based on law-and-order: by showing its toughness, the government is hoping to avoid the unrest taking root and spreading. The government is watching the situation “very closely” confirms one ministerial advisor. “Up to now it hasn’t boiled over in the same way everywhere. If 93 wakes up we’re stuffed,” added the advisor, referring to the Seine-Saint-Denis departement or county on the northern suburbs of Paris where there are high levels of deprivation and social discontent.

 Police violence absent from Macron’s agenda

From the government’s point of view the tragic death of Nahel came at a critical moment. The president had already decided to devote this week to the plight of France’s deprived working class districts or quartiers. After a three-day visit to Marseille that began on Monday, Emmanuel Macron was leaving it to Élisabeth Borne this Friday to detail how the government intends to tackle the future of such districts, a plan known as ’Quartiers 2030’.

In was in the Mediterranean city of Marseille that the president learnt on Tuesday of Nahel’s death. His aides suggest that it was because of this visit that he reacted so quickly in describing the teenager’s death as both “unforgivable” and “inexplicable”. One source said: “He was in the middle of this kind of reality on the ground, accompanied by that section of his government and private office which is the most sensitive to these issues. That inevitably played a part.”

Afterwards Gérald Darmanin himself attacked what he called “extremely shocking images” and promised action against a “police officer who clearly didn’t act in line with legislation or the code of conduct”. It was a surprising tone from a minister who is more used to displaying unconditional support for the forces of law and order. “He had no choice,” says one leading Member of Parliament from the ruling majority. “The minister of the interior isn’t going to contradict the president of the Republic! He had to stay in line.”

In April, following the implementation of the bitterly-opposed and divisive pension reform, Emmanuel Macron launched a period of 100 days to “calm” the country down. Even before this week, few in the presidential camp continued to believe in it; and current events have finished off any lingering hopes among even the most naïve. Having just got through the pension issue, the government now finds itself embroiled in a new social and political crisis.

What makes the issue even harder to grapple with is the fact that the goverenent has fought hard up to now to avoid the subject. The most recent example of this is perhaps the most blatant: on Monday evening Emmanuel Macron spent three hours in a sports hall in Marseille to present his ambitions for deprived neighbourhoods yet he offered not one measure, not one single word, on the issue of police violence. Even though action on this is a key demand on the ground, the topic of police relations with the populace has gradually disappeared from political thinking.

The current unrest is now forcing the subject of police violence in through the back door. Yet astonishingly the government is still hoping it can get through the current crisis without confronting it. Even though there are already political demands and criticism over 2017 legislation on the use of police firearms, Macron’s supporters are trying to hold off such talk until the future. “You don’t respond when you’re in the middle of emotion,” says Maud Bregeon, an MP and spokesperson for the ruling Renaissance party. “Issues have to be dealt with when things are calm. No one is in a position to think about this calmly today.”

 The PM goes ahead with her plans for deprived areas

Inside the government itself, an advisor to a senior minister explains the thinking. “You don’t make laws based on an isolated case, it doesn’t work like that,’ he says. “What measure would be worthy of the death of a young man? For the time being the authorities acknowledge the error and condemn it and is letting the emotion come out, but is also reminding people that there’s a framework for living together. Later, and only later, will it be the time for responses and finding solutions.”

Against all expectation, the prime minister has decided to carry on with the presentation of the ’Quartiers 2030’ plan for the future of deprived neighbourhoods at a meeting today of the inter-ministerial group the Conseil Interministériel des Villes (CIV). However, the meeting will not, as was originally hoped, take place at Chanteloup-les-Vignes in the north-west suburbs of the capital. There is a good reason for this: local mayors, MPs and state officials were unanimous in telling Élisabeth Borne not to come. “It would have been seen as an act of provocation,” was the message sent to the PM.

Nonetheless, the prime minister had been keen to make it clear she was on top of the issue and on Thursday she had asked her team to try to organise a visit to a deprived suburb. “She doesn’t want people to say that she’s afraid to go to the districts or that she can’t go there,” said one ally. “She’s a mother herself and this story has affected her a lot, she wants to be with the residents of the local neighbourhoods.” The final outcome, though, is that while the CIV meeting will take place, it will be held at Matignon, the prime minister’s official residence and offices – far from any deprived areas.

On Thursday evening Élisabeth Borne dispatched three advisors, including her chief of staff Aurélien Rousseau, to explain to journalists her decision to carry on with the CIV meeting. “We want to show that there’s a strong commitment from the government and that it is not just reacting to events,” the prime minister’s entourage said. In Le Figaro one aide promised “major announcements”. Yet none appear to be on the issue of police violence.

All this is causing some irritation among the president’s camp. “She’ll either announce something that really responds to the concerns of the moment or she won’t be heard,” says one MP from the majority party. The ministerial advisor quoted earlier said: “It’s only going to reinforce the impression that we’re out of touch. Announcing stuff about ANRU [editor’s note, the urban renewal body the Agence Nationale pour la Rénovation Urbaine] is good, it’s fine but … the angriest young people are going to say ’Look at these bastards, they’re taking the mickey and they haven’t understood anything’. She’s taking a real risk.”

Ilyes Ramdani