By Sudip Kar-Gupta and Elizabeth Pineau
PARIS, Oct 19 (Reuters) - France's central government asked some local authorities to impose curfews and faced pressure over security failings on Monday after a weekend of riots and looting borne out of nationwide anti-government protests.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu did not rule out declaring a state of emergency but said it was more appropriate for now to apply partial and localised curfews, without providing details of which cities would be affected.
"My determination to restore order is absolute," he said in a press conference, ruling out, however, a blanket curfew in Paris.
The weekend of looting and violence between some protesters and police followed weeks of student demonstrations, rocking France six months ahead of its next presidential election and highlighting pressures from a weak economy and surging debt.
MINISTER BLAMES FAR-LEFT
Lecornu blamed far-left groups for some of France's worst unrest in years. "There is, after all, a far-left movement that wants to cause — we can’t put it any more strongly — profound unrest in the country in the run-up to the presidential election," he said.
Hard-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon urged him to provide evidence. "Otherwise, he should apologise, keep quiet and stop fanning the flames of unrest," he said on X.
The Federation of Trade and Retail said almost 3,000 shops had been affected over the weekend.
"Once again, the retail sector finds itself on the front line, at a time when it is already weakened by a succession of crises," it said.
"Behind every ransacked shop are business owners, employees and families who have seen years of work and effort wiped out in a matter of hours," it added, calling for relief from social security contributions and tax for those businesses affected.
Lecornu said the government would provide furlough measures from Tuesday.
Some 2,400 people were arrested and one protester died from a cardiac arrest on Saturday while nearly 1,000 officers were injured.
French assets were underperforming broader European markets on Monday, though moves were more contained than at some other moments of recent political friction.
Tensions in President Emmanuel Macron's fragile government over apparent security shortcomings — coming just as the government needs to pass a much-needed budget bill to rein in its finances — could further unsettle investors.
Macron's office said on Monday he had turned down his Interior Minister Laurent Nunez's offer to resign, telling him instead to put an end to barricades and looting and be transparent over what Macron called "intelligence and foresight failings".
Nunez told reporters that Tuesday evening's Champions League soccer match between Paris Saint-Germain and Barcelona would go ahead as planned, even though the capital was one of the worst-hit areas.
LEFT WITHOUT PROTECTION
The mayors of Paris, Marseille and Lyon said in a joint op-ed published by the newspaper Liberation that they were used to demonstrations and protests.
"But on Saturday ... for the first time, we had the feeling that whole sections of our cities had been left without protection," the mayors — all from the centre-left — said. "We now need to patch the wounds of our cities and face up to the anger of our residents, aghast at this level of violence."
The start of school holidays on Monday may give the government some relief, but students were staging more gatherings and blockades in some places, including the Louvre gallery and Sciences Po university in central Paris.
Marseille, another city badly hit by the riots, banned gatherings and demonstrations. French unions meanwhile called for a new round of strikes and rallies on November 5.
INTELLIGENCE FAILURES
At the weekend, hundreds of thousands took to the streets to protest over what many say are declining and dysfunctional public services that leave citizens to fend for themselves amid cost-of-living pressures.
In Paris, at least 300 to 400 businesses were vandalised at the weekend, Dominique Restino, the head of the Paris chamber of commerce, told BFM television.
At the Place Vendome, home to luxury hotels and boutiques, most shops were shuttered and surrounded by security guards. The front door of a Dior boutique was smashed, while the windows were damaged in the stores of other luxury brands in central Paris, including Rolex, Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren and Gucci.
In Marseille, Ligue 1 club Olympique de Marseille said its official store on the city's historic main avenue had been looted, while a town hall in central France was torched.
France deployed 60,000 police and other security forces on Saturday, Nunez told France Inter radio, but he acknowledged that was not enough to control violent crowds.
European governments have advised citizens travelling to France to avoid large crowds and exercise caution.
BOND YIELDS RISE, STOCKS DOWN
As France was busy cleaning up its streets, Macron arrived in Kuwait for a Gulf trip aimed at securing additional petrol and diesel supplies to bring down pump prices.
Cost-of-living issues were also front and centre during numerous demonstrations and protests staged in other European countries including Italy, Belgium and Albania at the weekend, with high fuel prices, largely resulting from the Iran war, adding to pain.
French shares were among the worst performers on the European market on Monday, as the CAC 40 fell 1.3% in early session trade. A slide in bond prices meanwhile pushed France's 10-year yield up 8 basis points to 4.86%,.
(Reporting by Zhifan Liu, Tassilo Hummel, Elizabeth Pineau and Alessandro Parodi in Paris, Sudip Kar-Gupta in Brussels, Amanda Cooper, Alun John and Helen Reid in London; Writing by Tassilo Hummel and Charlie Devereux; Editing by Aidan Lewis and Andrew Cawthorne)
