“More than 2,000 people have been taken into custody,” Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez wrote on X on Sunday afternoon. “More than 600 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters were injured in these scenes of violence.”
Before addressing the nation at 8 p.m., Macron will meet Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and ministers responsible for managing the crisis.
US President Donald Trump took advantage of the violence to blame migration. “France is burning! The immigration of people from a completely different world, of people with hatred in their hearts, has broken this once great country,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday afternoon.
“Close your borders and take control, before it’s too late!” » he added.
Earlier in the day, US Vice President JD Vance challenged European leaders: “Western liberals have imported the Third World into France and other countries in the name of diversity and compassion” but “ignored fundamental questions of assimilation and compatibility.”
He called on Americans to pay attention, because “this is the future that Democrats in Congress seek for their country.” The United States faces crucial midterm elections for both houses of Congress on November 3.
The French government has struggled to deal with the crisis in recent weeks – Lecornu called it “urban violence” – and is now hoping the student movement will fade due to the two-week school holidays which began on Friday.
Guillaume Guérin, mayor of Limoges, criticized the government’s handling of the protests, saying the national police “simply ran out of ammunition.”
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