Macron admits state failures in Marseille and promises strong measures as France braces for more protest days

Emmanuel Macron went to Marseille on Monday and said out loud what his government had not said since the unrest began: the state failed.

The visit was announced at the last minute, a step the Elysee took to avoid drawing a protest of its own. Macron kept to two heavily secured appointments, at Marseille City Hall and at the Bouches du Rhone prefecture, and he did not meet residents of the city directly, Le Monde reported. There he admitted for the first time that the state had failed to anticipate the events of October 17, in Marseille as elsewhere, and he said the purpose of the trip was the restoration of order.

"I have asked the government to respond to the legitimate demands that lie at the root of this social movement," Macron told reporters. He promised that the government will announce a package of measures answering the movement, and he said order will be kept on the next high risk days by protecting shops and public buildings, while he restated that protest is a constitutional right. Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu was set to hold a news conference after meeting unions of high school students, who want more resources for education and an overhaul of a university admissions process they say builds inequality into the system. Macron has cancelled a trip to Nigeria and Senegal planned for the end of the month.

The movement he is answering has outgrown the students who started it. Trade unions and yellow vest activists have joined it, marching over the cost of living and the state of public services. On Saturday between 410,000 people, by the Interior Ministry's count, and 800,000, by the unions' count, marched in cities across the country, as of October 26. The ministry deployed 70,000 police for the day. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez put Saturday's arrests at 1,435, and far right gangs confronted far left activists in the streets.

Nunez repeated his warning on Monday. Asked by BFM TV whether he expected further disturbances during the demonstrations planned for October 31, he answered, "Clearly, yes." "Halloween evening is traditionally always a bit lively. We expect it to be complicated again," he added. Another national protest day is planned for November 5. The violence of October 17, which spread across dozens of cities, raised the question the president's trip was built to answer: whether the French state still controls its streets. On Monday, in a guarded room in Marseille, Macron conceded that on the night it mattered most, it had not seen the trouble coming.