Over 1,000 law enforcement officers and firefighters have been left injured while combatting rioting in France, the country’s interior minister claimed Saturday.
Gérald Darmanin, the Minister for the Interior for Emmanuel Macron’s government in France, outlined the damage caused by ongoing civil unrest plaguing the country.
The senior official also lashed out at the French far-left and its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, openly blaming them for the violent disorder originally prompted by pension reforms implemented by the Macron government.
Speaking to Le Journal du Dimanche, Darmanin expressed fury at the “extreme left” in the country, saying their violence had resulted in hundreds of injuries and arson attacks since mid-March.
“Since March 16, there have been 1,093 police officers, gendarmes and firefighters injured, 2,579 arson attacks, 316 attacks on public buildings and not a word from the far left to condemn this violence,” he said.
A protester gestures in front of French gendarmes during a demonstration against a pensions reform in Vire, northwestern France, on April 1, 2023. (LOU BENOIST/AFP via Getty Images)
A protester holding an umbrella attempts to kick back a fuming tear gas pellet during a demonstration in support to victims of police brutality, after events in Sainte-Soline and in pension protests, in Nantes, western France, on March 30, 2023. (SEBASTIEN SALOM-GOMIS/AFP via Getty)
Darmanin went on to accuse the country’s militant left wing of “intellectual terrorism” by accusing the police of violently attacking certain protesters, arguing that this is a complete reversal of what is actually happening on the ground.
“When the police use legitimate force, it can obviously be strong, but it is to respond to extremely violent attacks by professional thugs, who are there to destroy property, or, worse, to “kill cops”,” the minister claimed, adding that the vast majority of police in the country do their jobs with “honour”, and that the few who fail to uphold professional standards never escape punishment.
“The freedom to demonstrate is a fundamental right. Almost all of the demonstrations took place without any incident,” he insisted. “But the freedom to demonstrate is not the freedom to demonstrate violently.”
“When violence, thugs and the ultra-left get involved, then it is the duty of law enforcement to say stop.”
The interior minister’s claim that accusations of police brutality made by the left are an attempt to gaslight the public stands in stark contrast with recent reporting from the country, which has heavily focused on the allegedly over-zealous actions of police in dealing with the demos.
One police force in particular, the Brigades for the Repression of Motorized Violent Actions (BRAV-M), has found itself in hot water after members were secretly recorded allegedly making threats of violence against arrested members of the general public.
Darmanin is not the only individual backing the idea that the ongoing violence is currently coming from France’s left with Reconquete MEP Nicolas Bay telling Breitbart Europe last week that Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his supporters are the ones responsible for the unrest.
Riots in Bordeaux during an unauthorized demonstration against Macron’s pension reform, Thursday March 30, 2023 (Fabien Pallueau/NurPhoto via Getty)
“It is mostly an agitation of the far left led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the overprotected unions who only know how to do two things, block and break, always to the detriment of the working French,” the EU parliament representative explained, adding that such violence is actually a good thing for the Macron administration, as it gives them an opportunity to crack down on the protests under the justification of restoring order.
Others have insisted Emmanuel Macron is at fault for the violence, with former French President François Hollande attacking his successor for his car-crash handling of the protest movement, saying Macron has only inflamed tensions in France since the protests began rather than trying to calm things down.
Either way the French government has so far failed to end the protests either through diplomacy or force, with the next major day of protests set to take place this coming Thursday, April 6.
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