Cardinal Aveline: Don't be drawn into violence, but restore peace

By Roberto Paglialonga

“I urge everyone not to be drawn into the spiral of this violence. With all believers, we pray that these disturbances will cease and that peace will return.”

This was the appeal Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, Archbishop of Marseille, made in a statement published on the Archdiocese of Marseille's website following another day of clashes and confrontations in the capital and other French cities on Saturday, 17 October. 

'Our country deserves better'

“Unacceptable violence” is how Cardinal Aveline described the situation, which resembles urban warfare and has alarmed France for several days.

“On the sidelines of planned demonstrations, shops were looted, churches broken into, the town hall stormed and vandalised, a police station ransacked, and members of the security forces attacked,” he explained.

On behalf of the Church in Marseille, he expressed “support and solidarity with those who have been injured and with the shopkeepers who have fallen victim to these acts of vandalism.”

The Cardinal also urged people to pray for the clashes to end as soon as possible and for peace to be restored.

“Our city and our country deserve better than this,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, the local prefecture has banned demonstrations in the city between noon and 8 p.m. on 19 October.

Lyon’s Archbishop: Facing society’s challenges together

Lyon’s Archbishop Olivier de Germay expressed similar sentiments in a post on X, voicing his solidarity with “shopkeepers, law enforcement officers and all those who have been victims of these excesses,” including “those who wanted to demonstrate peacefully.”

The violence that erupted on Saturday in the capital of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, he added, “goes far beyond the bounds of a demonstration in which legitimate grievances can be expressed.”

The city, the Archbishop said, had been the scene of “unacceptable clashes, hatred, destruction and looting.”

The protests must not be ignored, he explained, as “this violence, too, is a sign of a society in distress.” However, violence is not the way to make grievances heard.

“It is a dead end and can only lead to further injustice and division. We will face the challenges confronting our society not by turning against one another, but by standing together,” Archbishop de Germay stressed.

He urged people to pray “for peace” and to become “peacemakers.”

Weekend failures

The French government has accepted responsibility for the events. “This weekend, we undeniably failed,” Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said, expressing his support for Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez—despite the shortcomings in maintaining public order.

Nuñez, who admitted that the authorities had “lost control of the crowds in several cities”, submitted his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron, but it was rejected.

In an address to the nation on Sunday evening, Macron spoke of “anger and shame,” while acknowledging the anxieties of students. He called on political forces to show “unity” and vowed to take a firm stance against those responsible for the violence. “Those who destroyed must pay,” he said.

The scale of the damage is becoming increasingly clear. Alain Di Crescenzo, president of the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry network (CCI France), told RTL radio that “more than 2,000” shops and businesses had been vandalised, estimating the losses at “hundreds of millions of euros.”

New demonstrations for Saturday

Protests continued on the morning of 19 October. The entrance to the Louvre, the world’s most visited museum, in the heart of Paris, was blocked by demonstrators expressing support for the high school students’ movement, according to the museum’s management and trade unions, as reported by Agence France-Presse.

Further looting and violence took place in the capital on Sunday and overnight, with at least 30 shops targeted. A total of 351 people were detained in recent hours.

The latest measures have brought the number of people detained since the unrest began to 2,331—dozens of whom have been placed in pre-trial detention.

Meanwhile, the Yellow Vests coordination group behind the 17 October mobilisation has announced a “second act” of protests for Saturday, 24 October.