French authorities are alarmed by the frequency of episodes of extreme youth violence, sometimes resulting in death, and are prepared to take drastic measures to stop it. One of them is the adoption in some cities of a curfew for minors, a severe limitation of freedom that could extend to other troubled cities.
Curfews for young people had already been used occasionally in the past to respond to emergency situations, for example during the serious riots in the suburbs of Paris in 2005. Now they are being considered again with fewer taboos. It was the Minister of the Interior himself, Gérald Darmanin, who decided on the measure, in force since last Monday, in Pointe-à-Pitre, the capital of the Guadeloupe archipelago, a French department in the Caribbean. The city's mayor, a left-wing environmentalist, claimed it.
On Tuesday it was the turn of the mayor of Béziers (Occitanie), Robert Ménard, founder of Reporters Without Borders and close to the extreme right, who was re-elected by an overwhelming majority in 2020. Unlike Guadeloupe, where the curfew affects minors under 18 years of age between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m., in the southern French city it applies to minors under 13 years of age – between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. – who live in the center and in some especially sensitive neighborhoods. These children will only be able to leave the house at these times if they are accompanied by a parent.
The mayor of Nice, the center-right Christian Estrosi, an ally of President Emmanuel Macron, will also soon apply a similar curfew. The mayor of Perpignan, Louis Aliot, vice president of the National Rally, Le Pen's party, is also thinking about it.
According to Ménard, the curfew is applauded by many mothers in the affected neighborhoods, who often raise their children alone and cannot control them from running away and walking the streets. The support of mothers also exists in Guadeloupe.
Youth gangs, with scores settling that end in homicide, or simple beatings for seemingly banal reasons, are becoming a scourge. Recently there have been two dramatic cases in which the French press has spoken of lynching. The Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, traveled last week to Viry-Châtillon, a suburb in the south of Paris, the scene of one of the latest dramas, to denounce "the addiction of some of our adolescents to violence." Attal called for a “general mobilization” against the phenomenon and “a strong reinforcement of authority.”
Youth curfews are controversial. Béziers tried the measure in 2014 and it was annulled by the Council of State, but Ménard assures that the experience was positive. The General Code of Territorial Communities (municipalities) includes an article that authorizes a curfew ordinance to guarantee “good order, public safety and health.” Even so, not everyone likes its application and it is appealable.
