Benoît Payan
Role at the time: Mayor of Marseille
Statement summary
At a press conference after protesters forced their way into Marseille city hall, Payan said he had to telephone the president, the prime minister and the interior minister to ask for reinforcements.
“I had to call the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior, and get them on the phone, to ask them for reinforcements (Translated from French. Original: Il a fallu que j'appelle le président de la République, le Premier ministre et le ministre de l'Intérieur, que je les ai au téléphone pour leur demander des renforts)”
Report published on the evening of October 17, 2026 on the press statements of Marseille mayor Benoît Payan and Bouches-du-Rhône prefect Jacques Witkovski after protesters forced their way into Marseille city hall and shops were looted.
Archived copy (opens in a new tab)Why we used this label
The reference point is Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez's preparation and policing of the October 17, 2026 protests in France. Payan complains that he had to call the country's top three officials to obtain reinforcements, and the report says he denounced what he saw as a lack of police deployed in advance. Faulting the deployment is a criticism of how the day was policed, so we labeled it as condemning.