French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has firmly denied accusations from left-wing parties that law enforcement deliberately shielded far-right groups during nationwide protests on Saturday, October 24, as political tensions over the weekend’s violence continue to escalate.
Speaking on BFMTV/RMC on Monday, October 26, Nuñez rejected allegations that police collaborated with or protected ultra-right militants. “We protect no one,” he stated emphatically. “I want to put an end to these rumors: at no point, obviously, did police protect them. At no point did they work in coordination with police officers and gendarmes.”
Clashes in Nice, Montpellier, and Nancy
The minister explained that in Nice, Montpellier, and Nancy, far-right groups had primarily come “to target the ultra-left movement, as they usually do.” He emphasized that officers “intervened numerous times to disperse and prevent confrontations between the ultra-left and the ultra-right.”
“Police officers were able to observe clashes, which they put an end to,” Nuñez added, visibly irritated by the accusations.
Left-Wing Parties Demand Accountability
The controversy erupted after La France Insoumise (LFI) lawmakers Manuel Bompard and Thomas Portes took to X to accuse authorities of allowing “fascists to roam the city armed with knives and iron bars to attack passersby” in Nice, and of having “protected far-right militias this weekend.”
LFI deputy Mathilde Panot was even more direct following the minister’s explanations. “Laurent Nuñez is a liar,” she wrote alongside a Mediapart video filmed in Nancy showing men dressed in black with concealed faces throwing projectiles at another group. In the footage, police officers positioned further up the street advance, pass in front of the group of men, and appear to move toward those who received the projectiles.
Marine Tondelier, national secretary of the Green Party and presidential candidate, also voiced concerns on Télématin, stating she was “extremely shocked by this double standard compared to the repression” of student protests. “There is impunity for far-right movements,” she said.
Violence Erupts Across Multiple Cities
In Nice, approximately one hundred “masked ultra-right activists” converged on the city center to “physically confront demonstrators,” according to the Alpes-Maritimes prefecture. Eleven people were taken into custody.
In Rouen, prosecutors opened an investigation for aggravated violence after the media outlet Blast broadcast video showing nationalist militants beating a man following the October 24 demonstration. Rouen prosecutor Sébastien Gallois confirmed that “clashes opposed individuals from ultra-right and ultra-left movements in downtown Rouen” after the protest dispersed.
The video shows several individuals, some masked and hooded, running through the city center before striking a man on the ground. Moments later, about ten police officers pass through the group to check on the victim while the perpetrators retreat, shouting “Nationalist Rouen” and “The street, France, belongs to us.”
Possible Legal Action Against “Combat Groups”
Nuñez revealed that authorities had detected social media calls from “numerous ultra-right movements,” individuals from “the identitarian movement,” and “nationalists who wanted to go into city centers to protect businesses.”
These groups “formed what is called a combat group, or at least a group organized with the intent to commit violence,” the minister explained. This “may fall under criminal charges,” and “administrative policing measures apply, particularly the possibility of dissolving these groups if they truly formed combat groups, which appears to be the case.”
Nuñez promised both judicial and administrative consequences. For groups previously dissolved, he warned: “We will prosecute them criminally for reconstituting a dissolved league.”
