It was a peaceful weekend in France apparently. One broadcaster described the latest protests as ‘calm’ and Le Monde said they unfolded ‘without serious incident’. Tell that to the 53 police officers who were injured in clashes with demonstrators, 1,513 of whom were arrested as trouble broke out across the country. Laurent Nunez, the Interior Minister, said that in several towns and cities the police had been subjected to an ‘extremely high level of violence’.
This Saturday is Halloween and social media is full of threats and taunts about bringing terror to the Parisian bourgeoisie
In Grenoble, for example, hundreds of far-left extremists were beaten back by police who resorted to tear gas and baton charges. In the mayhem, several shops were vandalised and a pizzeria and a supermarket were ransacked. That’s a ‘serious incident’, certainly for the employees who, like so many shopkeepers in France now live in a state of almost perpetual fear.
Some commentators in France have started using that dreaded word ‘lockdown’ again. Just as during the pandemic of 2020/21, curfews have been imposed in many towns and cities, shops and restaurants have pulled down their shutters and people have stopped going out. At least public transport kept running during Covid, which isn’t the case now. Twenty-four metro stations were closed in Paris on Saturday, as were several museums including the Louvre and the Grand Palais. The city’s football team, PSG, were forced to move their match against Lyon from Sunday to Monday just in case it was a magnet for troublemakers.
Pressure was also applied to Marine Le Pen to reschedule or, better still, cancel her party conference at Orleans at the weekend. The leader of the National Rally refused and the conference went ahead albeit with the presence of 3,000 police officers and two armoured cars.
An estimated 13,000 left-wing demonstrators marched peacefully through Orleans on Saturday in protest at the presence of the party that has more MPs in parliament than any other. One of them told reporters why she was marching against Le Pen: ‘I’m afraid for 2027,’ she explained. ‘But we want to stop being afraid.’
This march against the National Rally was widely reported in the press. There was less focus on the fear felt by Le Pen supporters attending the conference. A group of hooligans attacked a bus in Grenoble that was about to set off for Orleans; windows were smashed and Antifa graffiti was sprayed on the side of the vehicle.
Earlier in the week Le Pen said she found it ‘mad that nobody is outraged’ by the intimidation to which she, her party and its voters are routinely subjected.
It is surely the sign of an ailing democracy when the country’s most popular political party requires a ring of steel for its conference.
What actually makes most people in France afraid is the spectre of a civil war.
Last Friday, a man opened fire indiscriminately with a machine gun in Trappes, a suburb of Paris. One man died and several others – including a 12-year-old girl – were seriously wounded. The authorities have described the atrocity as racially motivated because the white gunman appeared to target people based on their skin colour.
At the weekend, groups of far-right thugs clashed with protestors in Nice and Montpellier. The far-right in France isn’t as widespread or as well-organised as the far-left but it exists and it has a history of violence.
Last month, two young far-right extremists received long prison sentences for shooting dead a former Argentine rugby international after an argument in a Paris bar.
No, France is not calm. It is febrile. The tension, the anger and the despair will deepen in the coming weeks. The Yellow Vests have announced a mass sit-in outside the National Assembly in Paris on Saturday. Two days later, pupils return to their schools after the two-weekend autumn half-term and it’s expected their protest movement will reignite. Then, on Thursday, 5 November is a union-organised day of action that is likely to bring the country to a standstill.
There will almost certainly be a repetition at some stage of the anarchy that was unleashed in many cities on 17 October. This Saturday is Halloween and social media is full of threats and taunts about bringing terror to the Parisian bourgeoisie. These young thugs are emboldened by the cowardice and complicity of some on the left.
In recent days, numerous university academics have appeared to excuse the looting and vandalising; one compared the pillaging of sportswear stores and fashion boutiques to the Apartheid struggle in South Africa. ‘Peaceful activism doesn’t work,’ said the lecturer. ‘Nelson Mandela called for people to take up arms at one point because apartheid could never have been fought peacefully.’
In a stormy session in the National Assembly last week the Prime Minister, Sebastien Lecornu, asked Mathilde Panot, the parliamentary leader of the far-left La France Insoumise, a straightforward question: ‘Do you condemn the arson attack on Limoges Town Hall’? He asked the question hours after police had arrested a far-left activist in connection with the destruction.
Panot refused to answer.
France is suffering from a malaise of morality. Hypocrisy, cowardice and dishonesty are endemic among the French elite and have been for decades. This immorality has created a void and it is now being filled by anarchy.
Comments