Alexandre Chauveau // Photo credit: Xose Bouzas / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP
As the riots are gaining in intensity all over France, three days after the death of Nahel, 17, Emmanuel Macron is holding a second interministerial crisis unit. Objective for the Head of State: to take stock of the situation, anticipate what will happen next, and study the possible establishment of a state of emergency.
Three days after the death of Nahel, a 17-year-old teenager killed in Nanterre by a police officer after refusing to comply during a traffic check, the situation remains tense in France. Emmanuel Macron cut short his presence at the European summit in Belgium, in Brussels, to chair a new interministerial crisis cell, this afternoon. Objective of this meeting: to take stock of the situation and above all to consider the future.
Because in reality, the situation update was made quite early this morning in Matignon, around Elisabeth Borne and the ministers gathered especially for the occasion. This new interministerial crisis unit is therefore first convened to study the possibility of triggering a state of emergency. The hypothesis is clearly envisaged in the medium term, even if, at this stage, nothing has yet been decided.
Reservists soon as reinforcements?
In the meantime, Emmanuel Macron should therefore encourage as many mayors as possible to set up curfews, as was the case last night in several cities, in Montrouge or Clamart for example, in the Paris suburbs. The challenge is also the ability of law enforcement to last over time. All the reservists of the gendarmerie and the police should thus be engaged.
There is also a symbolic aspect to this cell, the executive seeking to respond politically to images of violence and to display its firmness. But in Beauvau as at the Élysée, no one hides their amazement in the face of a situation described as out of control. In several places, the toll is considered more serious than at the time of the 2005 riots.