French govt meets on riot response as clean-up begins

Bloomberg

Clean-up crews were at work across Paris after Saturday’s riots as President Emmanuel Macron returned from Argentina and held an emergency cabinet meeting.
Last week’s “Yellow Vests” protests saw 412 arrests and 133 wounded, including 23 among the security forces, according to the Paris police. There was also violence in Toulouse, Nantes, near Lyon, and in the Ardennes. Rioters burned cars throughout Paris, looted stores and restaurants, and sprayed graffiti on the Arc de Triomphe monument and trashed its interior.
Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said on Europe1 that the government wouldn’t alter the main points of its controversial ecological and budget policies, but was “open to
dialogue.” He also said “ all options must be studied” when asked about police unions’ requests that emergency law be imposed.
Macron last year lifted emergency rule that had been imposed after 2015’s terror attacks.
Macron returned from Argentina and went straight to the Arc de Triomphe and adjoining streets to survey the damage and talk to policemen and store owners. He then met at the
Elysee presidential palace for an hour-and-a-half with prime minister Edouard Philippe and Interior Minister Christophe Castaner.
Macron’s office said they discussed security measures, but never raised the issue of emergency rule. Macron isn’t expected to speak publicly in the next few days, his office said, but the president asked Philippe, who cancelled a trip to a climate conference in Poland on Monday, to meet with the leaders of political parties and with representatives of the protesters.
The Interior Ministry said 75,000 people took part in a third weekend of nationwide protests. The demonstrations began against higher gasoline taxes and have now spread to wider complaints about purchasing power.
Commentators on television said it was the most extensive violence in Paris since the May 1968 student uprisings.
The grassroots movement, named after the Yellow Vests that motorists must keep in their cars, has led to sporadic blockades of roads, fuel depots and warehouses for the past two weeks, and violent clashes on weekends.
It’s organised through social media and has no leadership, but has the support of three-quarters of the French public, polls show.
While political parties have tried to show their support for the movement, the Yellow Vests have rejected any political link.

Macron: Violence in Paris not reflecting legitimate anger
Bloomberg

President Emmanuel Macron said scenes of “chaos” aren’t representative of the “legitimate anger” roiling France, but refused to answer questions over his response to protests that have left swaths of Paris with burned cars, exploded shop windows and graffiti tags on the Arc de Triomphe.
“What has happened in Paris is not the pacific expression of a legitimate anger,” Macron said at the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires.
“The culprits of those violent acts don’t want change, don’t seek improvement, they want chaos.”