AFP :
France’s interior minister promised Wednesday to boost security at protests after hooded youths ran amok at a May Day rally in Paris, torching cars and a McDonald’s restaurant.
Police said 109 people were in custody after the violence, which has sparked criticism that the government was unprepared for the 1,200 black-clad troublemakers who joined the traditional May 1 march for workers’ rights.
“The authority of the state, reduced to statements of ‘strong condemnation’, has been tarnished
once again,” read a column in the right-leaning Figaro newspaper.
Regional daily L’Est Republicain deplored “the sight of these 1,200 thugs dressed in black on the Austerlitz bridge”, while the L’Alsace newspaper declared: “Governing means planning ahead.”
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb pledged to look again at how to police protests given the rise of far-left “black bloc” protesters who turn up with the intention of attacking police or property.
“For the next demonstrations there will be even more security forces, this time with the intention of totally separating protesters from those who have come to smash things up,” Collomb told France 2 television.
But he defended the way police had handled the violence, saying little could be done to stop trouble-makers from infiltrating the crowds. “We can only detain a certain number of people who turn up like you or I in civilian clothing and then suddenly are dressed in black bloc outfits in the middle of the crowd,” he said.
