Laurent Marie Joseph Nuñez-Belda is a French senior civil servant and politician. He has served as France’s Minister of the Interior since 12 October 2025.

The interior minister is traditionally responsible for internal security and territorial administration. Before taking the post, Nuñez held senior roles in French security and public administration, including director-general of the General Directorate for Internal Security from 2017 to 2018 and Prefect of Police of Paris from 2022 to 2025.

During the school protests described in the news context, Nuñez said security forces had used crowd-control weapons at least 18,000 times. He said a launcher-fired grenade had been used about 40 times before he suspended its deployment against high schoolers. He also reported 36 investigations into alleged police misconduct.