France’s Senate has approved controversial legislation designed to recover the costs of damage caused during violent demonstrations, extending potential financial liability beyond those who personally committed acts of vandalism.
The bill, adopted in the early hours of 28 October by 229 votes to 105, would allow the authorities to pursue compensation from certain participants in gatherings where destruction or violence occurred.
Its provisions include a potential liability of up to €10,000 per person and mechanisms for recovering compensation through deductions from certain social benefits.
The legislation, widely described in France as the casseurs-payeurs bill, reflects growing political pressure to respond to property destruction accompanying demonstrations and public gatherings.
However, it also raises legal questions about the circumstances in which individuals may be held financially responsible for damage they did not personally cause.
The bill must still be considered by the National Assembly before it can become law.
Under existing arrangements, the French state can be required to compensate victims for certain damage resulting from gatherings or public disorder.
Authorities may subsequently seek reimbursement from individuals legally responsible for that damage.
The proposed legislation would expand the circumstances in which compensation could be recovered.
According to the French Senate’s official explanation, liability could extend to people who participated in a violent group or remained in a gathering despite police orders to disperse, when they could not reasonably have been unaware that violence or destruction was taking place.
An individual would not necessarily have to be identified as the person who broke a window, damaged a vehicle or destroyed public property.
Instead, participation in a gathering meeting the relevant legal conditions could provide a basis for civil liability.
The distinction is central to the controversy.
The proposed €10,000 ceiling concerns financial compensation rather than a new criminal fine imposed automatically on demonstrators.
Nevertheless, opponents argue that expanding civil responsibility beyond direct perpetrators could undermine the principle that liability should reflect an individual’s own conduct.
The government introduced the legislation in September against a background of public disorder associated with demonstrations and sporting celebrations.
Violence following Paris Saint-Germain’s Champions League victory in May contributed to demands for stronger mechanisms to recover the costs of destruction.
Subsequent disturbances during demonstrations on 17 October added urgency to the debate.
The Senate’s conservative and centrist majority supported the bill, while left-wing lawmakers opposed important elements of the proposed system.
Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez defended the principle that those involved in destruction should contribute to the cost of repairs.
Supporters maintain that criminal penalties alone do not adequately compensate shopkeepers, residents and public authorities faced with substantial financial losses.
They also argue that taxpayers should not automatically bear the costs of damage attributable to individuals involved in violent gatherings.
The disagreement therefore extends beyond criminal punishment to the distribution of financial responsibility after public disorder.
One of the most disputed provisions concerns the recovery of compensation from people with insufficient resources to pay.
As approved by the Senate, the legislation would permit deductions from certain social benefits, including housing assistance and family allowances.
Senators also extended the proposed mechanism to the revenu de solidarité active, or RSA, the minimum-income benefit available to eligible low-income individuals.
Supporters of the measure argue that financial responsibility should not disappear simply because an individual lacks conventional assets or income.
The proposed arrangements would nevertheless have to leave recipients with a minimum amount for living expenses.
Opposition lawmakers have questioned whether deductions from family-related benefits could impose financial consequences on relatives who had no involvement in the original incident.
This is particularly relevant where parents’ social payments could be affected by damage attributed to their children.
The debate therefore concerns both the enforceability of compensation claims and the possibility that recovery measures could affect entire households.
France’s legal framework recognises freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate, subject to restrictions established by law.
It also permits the authorities to impose obligations and penalties on individuals involved in unlawful conduct.
The issue raised by the proposed legislation is where the boundary between these principles should be drawn.
A system requiring direct evidence of property destruction presents different legal questions from one imposing liability based on participation in a wider gathering.
The latter arrangement would require careful assessment of the individual’s conduct, awareness of violence and opportunity to leave.
Opponents fear that demonstrators could face substantial financial exposure even without personally committing vandalism.
Supporters respond that the legislation is directed at participation in violent disorder, rather than peaceful protest itself.
Any final legislation could face scrutiny over proportionality, equality before the law and the protection of constitutional freedoms.
The Senate vote represents an important stage, but not the completion of the legislative process.
The National Assembly remains politically divided, making the final form of the proposal uncertain.
Deputies could amend the conditions for civil liability, the compensation ceiling or the provisions concerning social benefits.
The government’s ability to secure sufficient parliamentary support will determine whether the measures survive intact.
The legislation illustrates an increasingly difficult issue in French politics: how to ensure compensation for victims of public disorder without extending legal liability so broadly that participation in demonstrations becomes a substantial financial risk.
The answer will depend on the precise safeguards contained in the final text and how courts would be required to apply them.
A series of drone attacks on commercial shipping in the western Black Sea has brought the consequences of Russia’s war against Ukraine increasingly close to NATO territory, prompting additional military surveillance and renewed regional defence cooperation.
France has temporarily deployed an Atlantique 2 maritime patrol aircraft to Romania, while NATO members bordering the Black Sea are strengthening arrangements to monitor shipping routes, identify airborne threats and protect critical infrastructure.
The French aircraft began operating from Romania’s Mihail Kogălniceanu airbase on 18 October and is scheduled to continue reconnaissance missions until 6 November.
Its deployment follows repeated attacks on merchant vessels near Romania and Bulgaria, both members of NATO and the European Union.
At least eight cargo ships have been struck in the region during October, with approximately 34 sailors reported dead or missing, according to figures reported by Reuters on 27 October.
The incidents have transformed commercial maritime security into an increasingly urgent issue for European defence planners.
The latest escalation has centred on shipping routes serving Ukraine’s Danube ports and commercial traffic passing through the western Black Sea.
Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian maritime infrastructure have increased the importance of alternative export routes, including those connecting the Danube to international shipping lanes.
However, recent incidents demonstrate that geographical proximity to NATO territory does not necessarily provide commercial vessels with protection from the effects of the conflict.
On 23 October, a drone struck a Comoros-flagged cargo vessel near the Romanian port of Constanța.
According to maritime security company Ambrey, the vessel was hit approximately 16 nautical miles east of the port and subsequently capsized.
One crew member was reported dead, nine were rescued and three remained missing in the initial casualty figures.
Ambrey assessed it as highly likely that Russian forces carried out the attack, pointing to the vessel’s links with Ukrainian Danube ports.
That assessment represents an attribution by a commercial security organisation, rather than a final determination by an international investigative body.
Other incidents have similarly raised questions over responsibility.
Ukraine has accused Russia of attacking civilian shipping, while Bulgarian authorities have acknowledged difficulties in conclusively identifying the operators of drones involved in some strikes.
Romania’s Defence Ministry announced on 27 October that the Atlantique 2 deployment followed a request from Bucharest in response to the deteriorating security situation.
The aircraft is conducting surveillance and reconnaissance over the western Black Sea, working with Romanian naval authorities and maritime rescue coordination services.
Its principal responsibilities include identifying hazards to navigation and improving awareness of threats to critical infrastructure within Romania’s exclusive economic zone.
That infrastructure includes offshore energy facilities and maritime installations whose protection is increasingly relevant to European energy security.
The deployment adds to Romanian naval patrols conducted by ships, helicopters and unmanned systems.
Romanian authorities are also providing navigational warnings and recommended routes to commercial vessels.
Nevertheless, additional surveillance does not automatically prevent attacks.
The practical challenge lies in detecting relatively small unmanned aircraft or maritime drones, determining their intentions and responding before they reach civilian targets.
The security crisis was also discussed at a trilateral meeting of defence ministers in Sofia on 28 October.
Romania’s Defence Minister, Ștefan-Radu Oprea, met his Bulgarian counterpart, Dimitar Stoyanov, and Turkey’s Defence Minister, Yaşar Güler, to examine the consequences of attacks on commercial shipping.
According to the Romanian Defence Ministry, the ministers discussed closer intelligence-sharing, improved maritime surveillance and better coordination between their naval forces.
They also reaffirmed the importance of the existing Black Sea mine-countermeasures initiative involving the three countries.
Maritime mines remain a persistent hazard because they can drift beyond their original deployment areas, endangering civilian vessels irrespective of their destination or ownership.
The trilateral format provides a practical mechanism for neighbouring countries to coordinate activities while retaining responsibility for their respective national waters.
It also gives Turkey a central role in regional discussions, reflecting its position on the Black Sea and its control of access through the Turkish Straits under the Montreux Convention.
The attacks raise a complicated legal and operational question: what responsibilities do NATO members have when civilian ships are attacked near their coastlines?
The distinction between territorial waters and an exclusive economic zone is important.
A coastal state’s territorial sea generally extends up to 12 nautical miles from its baseline, while its exclusive economic zone can extend considerably further and confers particular economic and jurisdictional rights.
An attack within a NATO member’s exclusive economic zone does not automatically constitute an armed attack against that member’s territory.
Nor does every strike on a civilian ship near NATO territory automatically trigger the collective-defence provisions of Article 5.
The circumstances, attribution, location and consequences of an incident would all influence the response.
This creates a security problem in which threats can affect European economic interests without necessarily crossing a threshold requiring collective military action.
The implications extend beyond individual vessels.
Repeated attacks can increase insurance costs, complicate shipping schedules and discourage operators from using particular routes.
They can also affect Ukrainian agricultural exports and the wider commercial networks linking Black Sea ports to European markets.
Offshore energy installations face related vulnerabilities, particularly where surveillance and response capabilities are insufficient.
For NATO, the challenge is therefore to strengthen deterrence and protection without unintentionally escalating the conflict.
France’s reconnaissance deployment and the trilateral cooperation between Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey indicate that regional governments are moving towards a more coordinated response.
However, the continuing attacks demonstrate the difficulties of protecting civilian maritime activity against comparatively inexpensive unmanned systems.
The longer-term question is whether increased surveillance, counter-drone capabilities and naval cooperation can make western Black Sea shipping sufficiently secure while the war in Ukraine continues.
• « La polémique des punaises de lit (…) a été artificiellement amplifiée sur les réseaux sociaux par des comptes dont il a été établi qu'ils sont d'inspiration ou d'origine russe » (Jean-Noël Barrot, ministre français délégué à l'Europe, TF1, 1er mars 2024).
• « Vladimir Poutine et ses amis font tout ce qui est en leur pouvoir pour empoisonner le débat public partout en Europe » (Ursula von der Leyen, présidente de la Commission européenne, au sujet des manifestations d'agriculteurs s'étendant en Europe, citée dans L'Opinion, 27 février 2024).
• « Impression massive de faux billets, grève sur la ligne B, mobilisation de délinquants sur les réseaux sociaux… Stade de France : la piste du sabotage par la Russie est à prendre en considération. Le match était initialement prévu à Saint-Pétersbourg… » (Brice Couturier, journaliste, au sujet des échauffourées qui ont émaillé la finale de la Ligue des champions, organisée à Saint-Denis le 28 mai 2022, sur Twitter, 31 mai 2022).
• « Il y a de très nombreuses allégations sur des tentatives russes d'influencer les votes lors du référendum de 2016 : des études ont montré la prédominance des articles pro-Brexit et anti-Union européenne sur RT et Sputnik, et l'usage des bots et des trolls sur les réseaux sociaux » (rapport de la commission parlementaire chargée de la sécurité et du renseignement à la Chambre des communes, 21 juillet 2020).
• « Des comptes russes alimentent la colère des Français (…). Ces comptes ont répandu de la désinformation, utilisant des photographies de manifestants blessés dans des événements sans rapport afin de renforcer le récit d'une police française violente » (The Times, au sujet du mouvement des « gilets jaunes », 8 décembre 2018).
Shopkeepers are facing a staggering financial toll following the widespread damage and looting during the Oct. 17 demonstrations, with preliminary estimates out of the IFRAP Foundation surpassing €1 billion.
“Initial reports from insurance companies indicate that the losses will exceed one billion euros,” reported CCI France on Tuesday. “For Paris, we’re talking hundreds of millions,” France’s network of chambers of commerce, CCI France, has stated, as cited by Le Figaro.
Damage in Paris alone already stretches into the hundreds of millions of euros.
IFRAP’s €1.1 billion estimate includes nearly €910 million in physical property damage and €190 million in lost business revenue due to forced closures and reduced activity. The financial hit is heavily concentrated on businesses (€666 million) and public property (€200 million), the latter including the fire-ravaged Limoges City Hall.
These amounts would eclipse the summer 2023 riots, which cost insurers €793 million across 16,400 claims, with the unrest spanning 11 nights and impacting 672 municipalities.
Rating agency Morningstar DBRS estimates the current damage could peak at €1.2 billion, provided the unrest subsides.
Comparing these estimates to the Yellow Vest movement, which caused retail revenue losses averaging €400 million per weekend between late 2018 and early 2019, IFRAP’s baseline estimate for the Oct. 17-18 riots projects €190 million in operating losses for just the single weekend.
Still, the damage is real. During Saturday protests, “city center businesses lose up to 80% of their revenue,” said CCI France.
In response to the crisis, CCI France President Alain Di Crescenzo is urging authorities to ban all demonstrations, including those in suburban areas, until after the holiday season. “We absolutely must revive commerce,” he stressed.
In the wake of the riots, French government bonds were unloaded by investors in a dramatic sell-off. Ratings agency Moody’s was expected to downgrade France’s credit rating last week but instead maintained its long-term sovereign credit rating at Aa3 with a negative outlook. Some say, this reprieve may not last long.
The post ‘We absolutely must revive commerce’ – Damage estimates from French riots could top €1 billion as economic, debt fears deepen appeared first on Remix News.
Press TV – October 27, 2026
Members of the United Nations Security Council attend a meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. (File photo)
China has denounced Washington’s policy toward Iran, blaming US and Israeli attacks for halting IAEA inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities, while Russia has challenged the legality of a UN Security Council meeting on Tehran’s peaceful nuclear program.
The UN Security Council held a meeting on Tuesday to discuss Iran’s nuclear program after the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) voted to refer Tehran’s nuclear dossier to the council.
During the meeting on Tuesday, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Fu Cong criticized US and European policies toward Iran, saying military attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities had directly blocked IAEA inspections.
“The US and Israeli military attacks on nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards are the direct reason the agency has been unable to conduct inspections,” the Chinese representative said.
He also blamed Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and its subsequent “maximum-pressure” campaign for the current crisis.
“The unilateral US withdrawal from the JCPOA and the implementation of the maximum-pressure policy are the root causes of the current crisis,” Cong said.
The Chinese diplomat also criticized Britain, France and Germany, saying the three European countries had failed to fulfill their commitments.
The representative said the mechanism for re-imposing UN sanctions on Iran, commonly known as the snapback mechanism, had fundamental legal and procedural flaws.
Russia’s representative, Vassily Nebenzia, also challenged the legality of holding the meeting under the “non-proliferation” item of the Security Council’s agenda.
“We are compelled to take the floor on a point of order in connection with yet another attempt to flagrantly violate the Security Council’s rules of procedure and convene a meeting under a non-existent agenda item.”
He said that under Resolution 2231 the council had concluded its consideration of Iran’s nuclear program on October 18, 2025, and removed the “non-proliferation” item from its agenda.
He also rejected claims that earlier UN resolutions on sanctions against Iran had been reinstated, saying such claims “have no legal basis whatsoever.”
Nebenzia said Russia and China had proposed holding the briefing under the agenda item “Threats to international peace and security,” arguing that “repeated strikes against Iran’s peaceful nuclear infrastructure under IAEA safeguards” posed such threats.
The IAEA Board of Governors adopted a resolution on September 9 proposed by the United States, France, Britain and Germany calling for Iran’s nuclear file to be referred to the Security Council. The resolution passed with 23 votes in favor, eight abstentions and three votes against.
The referral marked the first time in 20 years that Iran’s nuclear file had been sent to the Security Council over alleged violations of its non-proliferation obligations.
Iran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful. Tehran has also criticized the resolution, saying Western countries are disregarding its cooperation with the IAEA and the consequences of US and Israeli military attacks on nuclear facilities under agency safeguards.
Iran has also criticized the United States and the three European countries for pursuing the resolution, saying their actions undermine impartiality of the IAEA Board of Governors.
The Security Council meeting was requested by Western countries and Bahrain. Russia and China objected to holding it, prompting a procedural vote.
The proposal to convene the meeting passed with 11 votes in favor, two against and two abstentions. Russia and China voted against the proposal. As a procedural matter, the vote was not subject to the council’s veto mechanism.
The United States and Israel launched unprovoked aggression against Iran two times in June 2025 and February 28 amid indirect talks between Iran and the US.
Other than military and civilian facilities, including hospitals and schools, Iran’s safeguarded peaceful nuclear facilities were targeted by the aggressors in both wars, as the international community and the IAEA were reticent.
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