Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Monday that he had instructed regional authorities to introduce “partial” and “localized” curfews to protect residents, businesses and property as calm gradually returned following some of the country’s worst street violence in recent years.

The measures followed nationwide demonstrations involving students protesting conditions in the education system, alongside residents voicing anger over the rising cost of living and deteriorating public services.

The first restrictions took effect late on Monday, with police in Paris imposing an overnight curfew from 11 p.m. until 6 a.m. in the Place de la République area and streets around the Les Halles shopping district.

Authorities also banned gatherings and demonstrations across the capital from 8 p.m., while similar restrictions were announced in Lyon, Nice and Coulaines, some applying only to minors.

In Lille and three nearby communes, curfews were scheduled for Monday and Tuesday nights as local authorities sought to prevent further attacks on businesses and public property.

The restrictions followed a weekend in which more than half a million people took part in demonstrations across France, according to figures cited by authorities and news agencies.

Although the protests were driven partly by student demands for better educational conditions, they also reflected broader public frustration over the cost of living and declining public services.

Weeks of student-led demonstrations had highlighted overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and insufficient investment in education before the movement expanded into nationwide rallies on Saturday.

However, the demonstrations were marred by looting, arson and attacks on public buildings, including town halls and police stations, as masked groups clashed with security forces in several cities.

The scale of the violence intensified scrutiny of the government's preparations and prompted an unusually direct admission of failure from the interior minister.

“On Saturday in some major cities, you couldn’t look shopkeepers in the eye after hundreds of shops had been looted and tell them we hadn’t lost control,” Nunez said.

He acknowledged that authorities had failed to anticipate the scale of the unrest and that the number of security personnel deployed was insufficient to contain the crowds and groups involved in looting.

Nunez estimated that 60,000 law enforcement personnel had been deployed nationwide on Saturday, while mayors of major cities demanded explanations from the government over what they described as inadequate preparation.

The Ministry of the Interior reported more than 2,300 arrests and nearly 1,000 police officers and gendarmes injured during the protests.

Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin said more than 2,330 people had been taken into police custody over the weekend, around 70 percent of them adults.

In Paris, approximately 350 people were arrested on Sunday and overnight, while Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire said about 30 shops had been targeted in the capital the previous day, describing the scenes as “unbearable”.

The violence also raised concerns about the use of crowd-control weapons, after a demonstrator reportedly lost a hand when a police crowd-control grenade exploded.

Against this backdrop, Macron rejected Nunez’s offer to resign on Monday morning, with the Elysee presidential office saying the president wanted to preserve the chain of command within the police and security forces while the government addressed the failures.

Macron instructed the interior minister to develop new methods for dealing with looters and to “take all necessary steps to ensure transparency over the failures in planning and intelligence that led to the violence”.

The decision kept Nunez in office while placing responsibility for reviewing the security response directly on his ministry.

Lecornu, meanwhile, said the government was determined to restore public order but argued that a nationwide curfew would be disproportionate.

“It is out of the question to put all of Paris under curfew,” he said.

He added that a state of emergency remained an option if the situation required it, although localized curfews were considered more appropriate at this stage.

“I’ve asked the prefects to implement a number of curfews for this evening,” Lecornu said, adding that “the key issues” included “the protection of people, but also of property and businesses”.

The government's immediate response has focused on preventing further violence, but the unrest has also renewed questions about the underlying social grievances and the authorities' handling of the demonstrations.

The protests have drawn comparisons with the “yellow vest” movement, which organized weeks of demonstrations over fuel prices and economic grievances between 2018 and 2020.

As in that earlier movement, anger over living costs and perceptions of inadequate public services has provided a broader backdrop to the unrest, although the latest demonstrations were preceded by a distinct wave of student protests over education.

The renewed mobilization also comes at a politically sensitive moment, with France's next presidential election approaching in six months and the government facing pressure over economic weakness and rising national debt.

With the “yellow vest” movement calling for another round of protests on Saturday, the authorities face the challenge of containing further disorder while responding to public dissatisfaction that extends beyond the immediate security crisis.