For urban crime and youth hardship, part of the French government has a new solution in mind: making kids stay at home, at least at night. The curfew would be applied to children under 18 at the local level by order of mayors, provided that administrative courts give the green light.
Although the debate on the measure is still at an early stage at a national level, its generalized application would not seem that far away: in Pointe-à-Pitre, a municipality in the overseas department of Guadeloupe, it is already in force and will remain so for two weeks, and numerous French mayors with a penchant for security approaches are now arriving to follow suit. French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin himself ordered the curfew in Guadeloupe with the declared aim of fighting crime.
Curfews already exist in two cities: a measure that the right likes
“We are very marked by the fact that juvenile crime is extremely widespread, unfortunately, in Guadeloupe and in Pointe-à-Pitre in particular,” Darmanin said. The measure was greatly appreciated by Robert Ménard, a former icon of the left who later settled on far-right positions close to those of the Rassemblement National, as well as author of the essay “Vive le Pen!” and current mayor of Béziers, one of the poorest and most degraded municipalities in France. Last Tuesday 23 April, Ménard declared that he had introduced a curfew for children under 13 in “three priority neighbourhoods” of his city, from 11pm to 6am, unless they are accompanied by an adult. The theme is generating
In his decree, the measure is motivated by the “growing number of young minors left to fend for themselves in the middle of the night”, as well as by an “aggravation of the number of episodes of urban violence”, citing the fire in a school four years ago , in 2019, and the “July 2023 riots.”
The precedents during the guerrilla war in the banlieues
The application of curfews is nothing new in France. The ban on movement in the evening hours was applied massively during the 2005 banlieue riots, then again last summer, when the death of 17-year-old Nahel at the hands of a policeman in the city of Nanterre triggered an urban guerrilla war the likes of which had not been seen for years.
Because in France there are clashes and protests
It is common ground in every democracy that the curfew, a measure which is by its nature an emergency, can be applied with very specific methods and limits in certain moments of particular risk to public order. Another thing is to make the measure a normal method of managing social life in cities, thus hoping to mitigate the impact and visibility of youth crime. As if crimes and violence cannot be committed inside any private building, as if by keeping young people at home at night, criminal networks would fall apart. And then, do municipalities really have enough resources to guarantee controls? The issue is attracting criticism among those who point to the mayors being in favor of wanting to implement cosmetic policies, while the issue of youth safety and crime is gaining momentum, in France as in Italy, in the wake of frequent episodes of violence and of the ongoing electoral campaign for the next European elections.
The Interior Minister is in favor
After Béziers’ choice, other mayors are considering the use of curfews. Among the first to say he was in favor was the mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, a member of the conservative Horizons party. The Minister of the Interior was then called to pronounce on the subject: “It is not normal for teenagers to be on the streets at midnight, at one, at two in the morning when they have to be at home, sleeping, to go to school the next day “, he told the France 3 TV station. “When there are these kinds of situations, which may be the case in some parts of the national territory, I am in favor of a curfew that affects minors.”
And on the feasibility of the application the minister clarifies: “The mayors have the power to issue decrees, like the State, to prevent these minors from staying outside, especially those under the age of 13. I support them and the prefects of the Republic will support”, he added, specifying however that “the green light from the administrative court will be necessary, if it is brought before it, on a possible excess of power”.
