In your briefing today:

📣 The cleanup has begun across France after a night under curfew in central Paris and several other major cities and towns nationwide. The move came after Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, whose resignation President Emmanuel Macron rejected, admitted police had "lost control" in some cities.

Thousands of businesses have been damaged by the weekend riots, in which more than 2,500 people have been arrested. One demonstrator's hand was blown off by a police crowd-control grenade and around 1,000 police officers were injured in the disorder. (BBC)

📣 An Australian MP has lost a leg after being run over in a shocking attack outside her constituency office. Helen Haines is in a critical condition in hospital after a suspect performed a U-turn to hit her, then reversed to hit her a second time. A 43-year-old man from the local area, thought to be a well-known local environmental campaigner, was subdued by passers-by before police arrested him. (BBC)

📣 Six of the 10 UK areas where people are most likely to die before 60 are in Scotland, new stats show: Glasgow comes second only to Blackpool, with 12.8% of people failing to reach their 60th birthday. Dundee, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, East Ayrshire, West Dunbartonshire and Inverclyde all feature, too. (Herald has the exclusive)

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📣 Hundreds of people contacted police over hoax bomb threats targeted at schools across Scotland. Several schools were evacuated and closed after the threats were made: Police Scotland's Cyber and Fraud Unit is investigating. (Daily Record) (BBC)

📣 MSP Amanda Bland has quit Reform and will now sit as an independent, leaving Reform as the third-biggest party in Holyrood. (Holyrood)

📣 Jason Leitch, Scotland’s Covid-era National Clinical Director, is to head up the MoD’s medical services. (Times)

📣 Hundreds attended the funeral of former Glasgow gangster Paul Ferris yesterday, with his ex-wife saying he was “finally free” of his demons. (Daily Record)

📣 Voters in Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta have rejected a proposal to begin a process toward independence. (AP)

📣 Chancellor John Healey has rejected calls to increase capital gains tax in his first budget, citing concerns it would damage economic growth. (Times has the exclusive)

📣 New rules announced by Andy Burnham will make it easier to challenge harsh car parking fines. (BBC)

📣 I was at the Mirror’s Pride of Britain Awards last night in London: amid an evening of heartwarming tales of bravery, a highlight was the remarkable reunion between pioneering cardiac surgeon Dr Asif Hasan and several of his young patients. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. (Mirror)

⚽️ Returning Celtic star Diego Jota has spoken of his road to recovery: it was 533 days long, but he says he never feared his career was over after a bad knee injury. (Daily Record)

⚽️ Another returning star made the difference for Spurs last night: James Maddison, making his first start in 18 months and scoring after only 14 minutes in a 3-1 victory over Coventry. (BBC)

⚽️ Duncan Ferguson has made a comeback too, as manager of Glentoran in Northern Ireland, where he’ll be charged with ending the club’s 17-year title wait. (Scotsman)

🏉 And we have a comeback to look forward to this weekend, as former Scotland captain Jamie Ritchie makes his keenly anticipated debut for Glasgow Warriors against Benetton, returning to play in Scotland after time in France, and an ankle injury. (Scotsman)

The violent French protests that shook Europe over the weekend have prompted a lot of debate, most of which agrees on a few key points: first, they will have a profound impact on next year’s French presidential elections, probably in favour of Marine Le Pen, the likely hard-right candidate. Second, her victory is one of several outcomes that would only prolong and deepen France’s crisis and likely spark more violence from her outraged political opponents. Third, France is in a deep mess, almost ungovernable, as a consequence.

🗣️ “Even for a country hardened by street insurrection, the events at the weekend were shocking,” writes The Economist. It sees the protests as an expression of the underlying tension linked to next year’s election. “The country wants change, but is deeply divided about what should come next,” says the newspaper.

On the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the populist-left Unsubmissive France (LFI), whose supporters see the (peaceful) protests that also took place at the weekend as evidence of his strength.

On the right, Marine Le Pen, whose supporters think the (violent) protests show Mr Mélenchon is unfit for office.

As things stand, if the two run off, The Economist sees only one winner: Ms Le Pen.

And, if so, France’s troubles could run on: the left would hardly accept a populist, hard-right President. And, amid all this, France’s finances are in trouble, with markets charging it more for its debt than Italy or Greece.

“Wariness in the markets and anger on the streets make for a toxic mix. Worse, as attention turns to law and order, France is even less likely to have the political conversation it badly needs: about what sort of welfare system it can afford and how to generate the wealth needed to sustain it,” it says. (The Economist (£))

🗣️Andrew Neil also says the violence makes a Le Pen victory all the more likely. “The anger of the country is palpable – and it has quickly dawned on most folk that none of this anarchy was spontaneous,” he writes.

Like The Economist, Neil also fears that these violent protests are only the beginning of France’s troubles, and that next year’s elections will offer no cure. France urgently needs reform, he says:

“Out of an adult population of 55 million, over 30 million depend on the state for most of their income - pensions, state jobs, welfare payments. Economic stagnation has done nothing to make them realise they need to settle for less.”

And Le Pen is unlikely to make things better.

“She is no reformer,” he writes. “Much of what she proposes would make matters worse. Her very presence in the Elysee Palace could split France asunder.

“Saturday, I fear, might just be a harbinger of even worse to come.” (Mail+ (£))

🗣️An editorial in the Guardian is critical of Emmanuel Macron, who it concludes has brought France to this point. “As Mr Macron’s lame-duck second term enters its last phase against a quasi-insurrectionary backdrop of torched public buildings and looted shops, the failure of [his] political project appears total,” it writes.

“The obtuse and stubborn response from Mr Macron has been to double down on a cost‑cutting agenda to reduce France’s public debt, in order to appease the financial markets.

“But in an era where the asset-rich have continued to flourish, and the wealthiest have done best of all, to argue that that there is no alternative to spending less on schools and healthcare won’t wash. The economist Thomas Piketty pointed out during last week’s student protests that the boom in private wealth means that, despite the size of its public debt, ‘France has never been richer’.” (The Guardian)

🗣️In The Times, Melanie Phillips sees the start of something much bigger:“It’s a war on the West being waged by groups with disparate agendas taking advantage of a civilisation in deep trouble,” she says.

“Those involved are leftists, anarchists, Islamists, assorted grievance artists and useful idiots imagining they’re marching for the “oppressed” of the earth - and with malevolent outside actors stirring the pot.” (The Times)

🗣️The Morning Star states the political centre can no longer hold. “The current protest movement in France cannot be resolved by snap elections or a change of bourgeois government,” the newspaper says.

“These are demands for a different kind of society, one that was ruled out by the Maastricht Treaty. The protesters are demanding a radical rupture with the politics of the EU and of so-called ‘centrism’ exemplified in Emmanuel Macron.

“As Europe approaches the fifth year of a war with Russia in Ukraine that its political and military leaders have stoked with money, guns and long-range missiles, frenzied discussions taking place in Paris, Brussels and Berlin, reveal the weakness and illegitimacy of the centrist project, which is predicated on denying the democratic right of citizens to choose an alternative path to that of neoliberalism and war.” (Morning Star)

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