France may calm violence in the short term but it is a country infused with dread

The police and rioters who fought running street battles in France last weekend were de facto proxies for populist leaders Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Le Pen’s National Rally (RN) and Mélenchon’s France Unbowed (LFI) are the public faces of more radical groups – referred to as ultra-right and ultra-left – on the fringes of their parties.

A majority of French security forces support Le Pen. Mélenchon participated in a peaceful protest march in Paris on October 17th but stands accused by the centrist government and the French right of having instigated the violence. The investigative website Médiapart reported that interior minister Laurent Nuñez asked the domestic intelligence service to falsely accuse LFI of responsibility.

Mélenchon’s supporters claim that French president Emmanuel Macron’s contempt for the underprivileged and police brutality provoked the unrest.

Six protesters have been maimed in recent weeks, including two last Saturday. A 17-year-old girl lost an eye in Mulhouse and a maths student, also aged 17, lost his right hand in Saint-Étienne. Tear gas, anti-encirclement and stun grenades used by the CRS riot police destroyed dozens of eyes and hands during the 2018/9 yellow vests revolt.

Prime minister Sébastien Lecornu said it was “a miracle” that no one was killed, but two corpses found on the margins of the riots remain unexplained. Videos showing riot police beating unconscious a 26-year-old volunteer street medic called Antoine circulated widely online.

The latest violence gave rise to comparisons with the storming of the Bastille, the Paris Commune and the May 1968 revolution. Before October 17th, polls showed that a majority of French people supported the student demonstrations which began on September 21st in protest at poor conditions in French secondary schools.

Foreign media focused on violence, including students whose hands were blown off, and arson attacks. French radio and television tended to portray initial protests as a rite of passage, until the extreme violence of last weekend quelled romanticism about the beauty of revolt.

More than half a million protesters marched peacefully last Saturday, but their exercise in democracy was stained by the vandals and looters who laid waste to large parts of French cities. Security forces were concentrated along the main route for the Paris march, but were thinly spread across the rest of the city. Using social media to organise, small groups of hooded and masked youths appeared suddenly to attack shops and hurl metal barriers at police.

Nuñez made the alarming admission that the government “lost control in certain big cities.” Justice minister Gérald Darmanin said French domestic intelligence had been so focused on Islamists, organised crime and foreign interference that it failed to conjure with the ultra-left.

Le Pen told France Info radio: “The state is collapsing. The government has lost control of everything.” She promises to restore law and order.

[ ‘I have never felt anything so painful in my life’: Irish caught in French riotsOpens in new window ]

In the aftermath of the riots, tourists wandered through streets littered with broken glass and spent spray paint cans. Nearly a third of the more than 2,500 people detained were minors. Anti-capitalist demonstrators who looted some 3,000 shops sold plunder on the internet. The government vowed to punish looters by withholding social welfare payments. Le Pen warned darkly that “next time they’ll break into apartments”.

Video footage led to the arrest of a 34-year-old left-wing extremist charged with burning down Limoges’ graceful, 1883 town hall. The owner of a ransacked optician’s shop said looters returned the following evening to take security cameras. Police used suspects’ mobile phones to track their whereabouts at the time of attacks.

The sheer scale of the violence, the high stakes of next year’s presidential election and the international reach of the protests distinguished them from dozens of riots in recent decades. Absurdly, friends in Kyiv, who endure near-constant Russian drone and missile attacks, sent messages asking if I was okay.

The root causes of the riots are global: high cost of living, particularly fuel, housing shortages, disillusionment with politics. Similar protests occurred in Albania, Belgium, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The latter three will, like France, hold general strikes next month. Corriere della Sera reported that many of the rioters arrested in Italy were aged 11-14. Le Monde found a looter under age 10 in Paris.

Financial markets “are treating France as the economic sick man of the western world”, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman warned. The government can no longer buy social peace. France’s debt of nearly €3.6 trillion is a colossal 119 per cent of GDP.

French youth feel they have no future in a world plagued by war and climate change, where AI threatens employment opportunities. They have flocked to LFI in part because it is the only party that supports Gaza. Palestinian flags are a feature of the protests, as emphasised by Israeli media.

Macron’s detractors from what he calls the “reactionary international”, including Donald Trump, JD Vance, Putin’s confidant Kirill Dmitriev, Nigel Farage and Alice Weidel, portrayed the French riots as being the result of Muslim immigration. Fake AI-generated images and videos originating in Iran, Israel, Russia and the US spread lies about the riots, as reported by journalist Barry Lando on Substack.

Macron’s televised address sounded like an abdication speech. With only six months left in office, he is inaudible and ineffectual.

The resuscitated yellow vests have called for Act II of the protests today and Act III on October 31st. The Paris prefect advised businesses to “strengthen security”. Some shopkeepers are buying weapons. Patchy curfews are imposed in many towns and cities. France Inter radio hosted a debate between philosophers asking if France is heading towards civil war.

[ France is falling to the extremes of left and right. Ireland cannot be complacentOpens in new window ]

Lecornu promises a “massive” security presence for demonstrations while conservative politicians call for a state of emergency. France may calm the violence in the short term, but the country is infused with long term dread. If the presidential election were held now, polls indicate Le Pen would defeat all rivals. If she is elected next May 2nd, ultra-right and ultra-left are likely to fight in the streets. Last week’s riots could be the harbinger of worse to come.