France faces reckoning with public order policing after violent protest weekend

French and international front pages kicked off the week Monday with images of the country in flames and headlines focused on “chaos” or “disaster” after polarising mass demonstrations rocked the country over the weekend. Demonstrators marched across France on Saturday in massive protests drawing about 550,000 people, according to authorities while organisers put the turnout at 800,000. Following scenes of violence involving the police and certain demonstrators as well as looting, arson and at least 2,400 arrests, France is facing a debate over its maintien de l'ordre (“public order”) police doctrine. To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: © France 24 06:14 Sparked in high schools in France’s overseas territories and taken up by schools in under-served Parisian suburbs, student blockades quickly spread across the country in recent weeks, with students demanding more resources for education and complaining about dilapidated infrastructure and a lack of teachers. ...