I don't think the suburbs that are burning right now were seeing significant investments in the first place, same for the libraries and free services, surveillance and police.
There has always been a split between rich/middle class suburbs, and the more social and left over suburbs. Sometimes the two being separated by a small river, sometimes just a big road to cross.
Nanterre [0] for instance is really interesting as it's a pretty socially low place, but surrounded by La Defense (basically Paris' newer financial center), Neuilly (where a ton of old money resides) and Puteau/Courbevoie/Rueil MalMaison which have France's giant consulting and service firms (Cap Gemini etc.) and the newer white collar elite.
This comment echoes a lot of the sentiments I'm seeing in this thread. I have to wonder if holding the proverbial gun to the head of the world around you, ready to pull the trigger at any well-timed injustice, paying lip service to the destruction of private property in spite of the authoritarian sentiments it fosters, and generally thumbing one's nose at the idea that it's entirely possible that neither the police nor the rioters are in the right, is the intellectually-honest approach?
Anyway, the French protest very often. People joke that it's their national passtime. If these protestors are almost entirely children I have a hard time believing this is about civil injustice and I am more inclined to believe this is just for fun and clout.
Here are some smaller ones for you then: €1+ billion worth of damage to private property isn't in the norm for France's protest fixation, and regardless of the motivations of the actors, my concern is how many people here are giving it lip service like France deserved it for one officer's bad(?) shoot.
Kids seem to be replaying 2005 to be on the track of their big brothers.
But suburbs no longer exist, and the legitimate grievance and political claims from back then are hardly current anymore.
So it's just for fame they do that now. And the one who spoke up in the news, or faced trials, are just airheads who did this for the clout and to follow friends. They're not criminals or activists.
And honestly, it feels weird.
The clout culture is no more important than the state or the left wing political demands of our generations. We're old.
However, in a way, they have anarchy in their blood. So it will be interesting to see what they will become in a decade or two.
If it's only children protesting I have a hard time sympathizing with the protests. I feel that if something truly heinous happened then many French people would be protesting, not just children on TikTok.
Why? If people will fully developed brains who have an active, vested interest in society don't care. If activists don't care. If the only people who care are, on average, 15 years old, then why should I feel the protests are important?
I have zero sympathy for Macron, but the article seems to miss an important aspect: it was mentioned in front of ~200 mayors of cities where the riots are happening.
I believe he said this to satisfy his audience, and maybe to try to put pressure on social media so that they cooperate with authorities (to identify leaders and/or limit coordination between rioters).
It's bad because he's still pushing the overton window to the right, pretending this is OK for a the leader of a democracy to consider this. But I don't think they are seriously thinking about cutting social media.
they had already blocked Telegram for a day "by mistake", just last month
and the code of the page that said it was blocked showed they were gathering details about users.
They are not allowed to gather these details even for lawfully blocked websites (terrorism and child abuse). But they did it for Telegram.
Those riots were indefensible and the state actually went very softly on them partly not to throw oil on the fire.
There is nothing authoritarian or 'right wing' in suggesting that limiting communication means of rioters, looters, and, frankly violent thugs, should maybe be considered. Rioting is not a human right, neither is communicating to organise violence and looting.
In fact, I believe that there are plans to cut mobile networks in some situations like terrorist attacks. Frankly what has just happened is getting close to that territory.
IMHO the events and the reactions are worrying and show that French society is now as dangerously divided as what we've seen in the US for instance in relation to the 6th January events.
For context, France has seen a constant wave of strikes and demonstrations for months and months now, with people getting beat to death, going blind, dying of gases etc. and the government not moving an inch. and doing almost nothing regarding police violence.
So sure, rioters are going overboard, but expecting pacific demonstrations at this point is kind of a lost cause.
People get hurt when they become violent and police responds. Let's not turn the table.
In a democratic society people are free to peacefully demonstrate but that does not entitle them to policy change, that's what elections are for.
There's also a problem with the way people react in France, specifically. With the recent pension reform retirement age in France is still lower than the EU average and yet some people react like this is the end of the world and deserves a bona fide revolution. Why is that? IMHO there is a deeper resentment at play.
These tables have turned for a long time now. Whatever police's motivations are, we now have so many recorded evidence of them starting the violence that it's hard to argue they still work under the base assumption of protecting the order.
You might still have faith in the police in general and believe those were just "bad apples" and these number of incidents we somewhat isolated, but the fact they happened still remains and won't be forgotten.
> democratic society[...] that's what elections are for
The gov explicitely chose to pass laws bypassing the parliament's vote, the parliament being composed by directly elected deputees.
Again, there can be many arguments but it's a far more complicated situation than "manifestants bad"
On what basis are you assuming the role of spokeperson for all protestors and rioters?
People live every day with the fear and grief that this could be them, or their friend, or their son. They care enough to take real risks to make their issues heard. It's so deeply cowardly to sit comfortably on the internet and say they don't really mean it when their every action says they do.
During the yellow vest protests, I was lurking in groups where rioters planned their actions. A lot was also organized in plain sight in the comments of websites like demosphere.
And I guarantee that they didn't care at all about what the protests were about. They were just looking for random protests to join. Adrenaline is what they were after.
And to you this feels like sufficient authority to speak on the motivations and values of protestors generally? A protest sparked by a completely different event?
On what basis are you assuming that all people have good intentions? Yes, those people exist. But don’t pretend all people or even a majority are out there because of that. There are political reasons, material reasons, and basic behavioral reasons people show up to these protests/riots.
To say that no one wants to just watch things burn, or smash and grab, or assault others is to ignore basic human nature and is equally cowardly because it is a denial of the truth to satisfy your beliefs.
To assume most protestors are good is equally as wrong as assuming most are bad actors.
I'm perfectly comfortable with the wide range of motivations people have for participating in protests and riots.
The comment I was responding to however is making assertions about "the real reason" and that rioters "don't care." Which I simply don't accept that they have the authority to make broad statements like that.
He can't just say something along the lines of "oh yeah, my policies are what the youth (and not just them) is taking issue with so we'll go back to the drawing board on these and see if we can do better by the people".
Because they think they're the teachers/parents of the populace and they have the power to take away our "toys"?
The existence of nudge units I think also supports this, insofar as governments think they can tell people how to live, even if it's supposed to be the citizens which tell governments what to do.
>It's actually pretty horrifying, because blaming video games suggest that they have no idea what is the real reason for those riots.
The Macron quote I heard didn't blame video games. Macron said that social media encouraged rioters to riot, and that while doing so they felt the rush that they had felt while playing video games.
> The killing of a 17-year-old of North African descent
One nuance picked up by Polish media - the car had Polish license plates. It's a scam disguised as an investment. Well off people get legit car lease for a high end car, then are baited to "rent it" abroad for a monthly payment. Sometimes receive multiple months upfront payment. Then car "vanishes", while of course physically driving with original license plates on the French roads, and the payments stop. Basically car version of "buy an apartment with a mortgage and rent it, the tenant will pay your mortgage, after X years you have an apartment for free". The victims are people who are even more greedy than well off. The 17 years old was likely linked to drug dealing and to financial scam, driving recklessly and running away from police.
he was pulled over for driving on a bus lane (not something that is so reckless that it's punishable by death even in the most 'based' countries, in the middle east and things.)
and the running away thing is being questioned, as the passenger just testified. He says police beat the driver, which made him release the brake pedal, so the car creeped forward.
And anyway, police was on the side of the car, so at not point it time they were in danger. And their version of events didn't match the social media footage that has latter emerged.
Justice will take time. but it's hard to see anything but over-reaction and death penalty, as the teen matched the stereotype you described.
And anyway, police was on the side of the car, so at not point it time they were in danger. And their version of events didn't match the social media footage that has latter emerged.
That's not true. Police officers have been killed while standing beside the driver side door during a traffic stop. All it takes is for their arm to get trapped by the open window and they can fall and get dragged or even pulled under the rear wheel.
Were they shoving their arm through the window? Did they need to do so? Is their safety more important than that of a civilian?
These are leading questions, because the answer is obvious: if the choice is a dead cop or a dead civilian, a dead cop is the only moral choice that can be made. Optimizing for the safety of the police is how you turn police into fearful, scared "warriors" who view the citizenry as their enemy, like we have in the United States.
Risk is the police's business, taken intentionally and with foreknowledge on behalf of the citizenry. Or else they're bullies with badges.
Your use of the word "civilian" is super misleading because of its connotation of being an innocent bystander. Replace it with "fugitive" and see if your statement is still so obvious.
Sure, no problem! Let's sound it out, just for you.
If the choice is a dead cop or a dead fugitive, a dead cop is the only moral choice that can be made.
That was easy. And it's true and it's right, too.
The police are not judges and they are not executioners. If it takes a dead cop to bring in a non-violent fugitive, who in functional countries is to be presumed innocent until found otherwise by a court of law, that is a good price to pay for society. And I do note non-violent; somebody who's engaged in violence against other people--not property--has implicitly raised the stakes and I don't have a problem with the police then responding with force. (But they are not mind-readers, and so hypothetical future endangerment of civilians without cause is not within bounds.)
If police don't like defaulting to rules of engagement where civilians' lives matter more than their own, they can find another job where they can't employ force against other people.
Do you execute somebody for it could have happened? Well, I mean, I think officers of the peace shouldn't do so regardless of country.
> You're back to the word "civilians" again. And I don't accept that law enforcement's lives are worth less than lawbreakers' lives.
Because they are civilians! That's the definition! Words mean things!
You don't have to accept that cops are less important than civilians. I think your position is wrong and gross, but I concede that there's a discussion to be had about rules of engagement. We could have that, if you were packing for it.
But you want call me out for dirty pool about the word civilian?
How about lawbreaker?
In a liberal society, it is the job of a court to decide who's a lawbreaker. Cops don't make law and cops don't prescribe punishment. If we're talking about dirty pool, loading that implication onto an extrajudicial execution should make it really hard for you to look in the mirror. I hope you've got the same energy for taking one in the ten-ring when you go five miles an hour over the speed limit in an area with a few curb cuts. After all, you could have hit someone.
> You don't have to accept that cops are less important than civilians. I think your position is wrong and gross, but I concede that there's a discussion to be had about rules of engagement. We could have that, if you were packing for it.
There's bad faith arguing and then there's this, you're just rushing to claim a moral high ground you don't have to move the post towards someone having to dismantle the claim that cops are less important than civilians.
In my country, Chile, there was a brief flash of time when this attitude was taken, that even if a suspect threatens a cop's life to get away, they should be given that right.
People got sick of dead cops quite quickly, and the position was just thrown into the dustbin of history, poof, there, wrong side of history, discredited, shunned, almost forgotten. You don't have rule of law when "civilians" make their own in the street and the State giving up the monopoly of violence.
> You don't have rule of law when "civilians" make their own in the street and the State giving up the monopoly of violence.
This is true. This is absolutely true!
But that cuts both ways. Can you explain to me how, given that in a liberal society police do not and must not determine guilt or innocence, you can have the rule of law when the police are seizing that role for themselves? Because, when we go down this rabbit hole, the police committing extrajudicial killings is also the state yielding their monopoly on force; the extrajudicial action of an agent of the state, when not ordered by the executive, is seizure of that monopoly for personal ends.
You could convince me of a middle ground instituting an automatic venue-changed prosecution of every police killing and letting a jury sort it out--take your chances with that shoot!--but I tend not to think that would go over well with this crowd either.
you can't really compare the police in the USA and the police in France.
US cops are just a rogue and racist organisation, who apply their own law (mostly based on racial profiling).
I think that comparing it to the police in the Philippines would be more appropriate.
The victim in this case got hated by the right wing was because he was a stereotypical drug dealer who drove off, and nothing else, and they wanted the police to be able to work.
Of course. Your point is a good one. But police in France aren't being dragged by cars when they stick an arm through the window, so I was accepting the implicit move in framing.
Conclusion: The 17 years old was likely linked to drug dealing and to financial scam, driving recklessly and running away from police.
It's like Sherlock Holmes deducing an entire life story from a missing shirt button. Unfortunately that isn't possible in real life and this chain of logic is absurd.
Further, it's literally in support of "well, it's okay to kill him, he was probably a bad egg". Which...is certainly something you can believe, but it makes you pretty awful to do so.
> His judicial file included 15 recorded incidents, including use of false license plates, driving without insurance, and for the sale and consumption of drugs.
That might have been relevant evidence to include in the comment. However, these are unproven claims made by the same organization that murdered him and then lied about it. It is not particularly strong evidence given the context.
This is corroborated by the fact that the car is a Mercedes A45 AMG, which has an MSRP of around £60k (~$/€75k) [0], and costs several hundred Euros per day to rent [1]. How could a 17 year old (who worked as a pizza delivery driver [2]) obtain such a rental, especially given that the minimum age to rent a car in France is 18?
This doesn’t excuse the fact that he was killed, which is an unforgivable overreaction by the police to someone driving recklessly in what’s likely a stolen car.
17 years old driving recklessly a sport car with foreign license plates, running away from the police. The situation strongly points he is linked to drug dealing, financial scam, car thievery, or all of them. What measures are expected in such situation, what was he expecting to happen?
Few weeks ago a Polish man was choked to death by 10 Dutch police officers [1] for...running away on a bicycle, and no on bat an eye. I guess this is the new normal?
Death may not be justified, but neither were his actions. He put himself in a position where this could be an outcome. I'm not saying it was justified, but it did start with him, not the police. The mere act of skydiving doesn't justify death, but it is a possible outcome nonetheless.
>> The mere act of skydiving doesn't justify death, but it is a possible outcome nonetheless.
Similarly, the mere act of driving with a broken tail-light doesn't justify death, but it is a possible outcome. Now...if someone comes and shoots you and kills you, that doesn't make it right.
Similarly, if someone comes and shoots a sky-diver and kills them, that is also not right, even if there was a possibility of death.
We don't know what happened and an investigation in on-going.
If police draw their weapon and you try to run them over, IMHO suddenly things do not look exactly like "police brutality", for instance, so let's wait and see.
None of that's relevant. It kinda sounds relevant if you ignore the fact the kid was killed by police officers who weren't acting in self defense, but outright saying "The police should be able to perform summary executions" doesn't play well to most people, so flood the zone with irrelevant nonsense that pushes Culture War buttons.
Let's just stop and consider that the police killing one teenager sparks riots in France. In the US, that's just a Thursday [1].
The most disgusting part of all this is how easily and quickly people will dehumanize the victim, often looking for post facto justification (eg [2][3]). You see in the comments here, like alleging the victim may have been involved in drug dealing, car scams of otherwise driving recklessly. The obvious follow-up is "so it's ok to murder the victim then?"
Remember that Macron is the supposed centrist here, which just goes to prove that there are no centrists. Centrists are simply conservative reactionaries either too embarrassed to admit it or lying about it for political gain.
One other point about France in particular. The submitted article isn't French so specifically says "North African descent". French media does not do this. As a consequence, foreign media often repeats what French media says and makes an error in doing so. Instead of race, French media will simply say "immigrant", even if that "immigrant" is a French citizen for 3 generations but they are ethnically Algerian (or other North African).
I can't imagine cutting off social media working in Europe (eg VPNs), let alone surviving a legal challenge. Even suggesting it should give anyone pause however and expose the truth that Macron here is a reactionary.
Wasn't the arab spring heavily organized over social media? If the government can force social media companies to enforce certain flavors of moderation, it seems like they could get away with this too.
Cutting off communication during protests is a great litmus test for identifying authoritarian regimes. So great to see Macron going down that path. Even if you don't actually do it threatening it carries the same weight, fall in line or I'll do it is just doing it. Can't say it's unexpected, it's not like France has a history of contesting government working out well for them /s
The fact that he called out Snapchat and TikTok is basically all you need to know that he doesn't believe it will work and is just targeting the social media of young people.
Every Government that is faced with situations such as these would qualify the protests as "property, looting, and direct assault on police". It's often half the truth.
If this wasn't a Western country, media would be speaking of ethnic conflict, of the Government led by the leader elected by the white majority of the country enacting more authoritarian measures to quell social unrest.
Peaceful protests without the threat of escalation are 5Ks with signs. A group that is willing to literally burn it all down is the living proof that what your actions/policies have done made it so they have nothing to lose. If you're willing to install an authoritarian regime over everyone in your country to snuff out who you consider to be rebels you've become the empire.
You don't have to cave to their demands, and it's expected that the powers that be will try to arrest them but the rioters are assumed to be desperate, the standing government is held to a higher standard.
Peace doesn't get you very far unless you have some other type of leverage to apply. My country is quite proud and eager to bring up one of its founding events in which a coordinated group of thugs dawned disguises and destroyed a few million in 2023 dollars worth of property (tea).
If you want changes you need to break some shit and bash a few redcoats. Same thing happened in the 60s, Congress passed civil rights legislation because shit was burning and was going to continue burning if they didn't.
> He does not suggest cutting communication during peaceful protests.
What I've witnessed first hand+ and some friends suffered++ is that "peaceful protest" is not a useful metric anymore. Police action is completely indiscriminate and overboard.
+ a dozen people walking back home together down a street, 6 vans chock full of police forces raced to them out of nowhere, swatted them with an entirely uncalled for volume of tear gas and rubber bullets with zero warning, grabbed a few and flew away.
++ they have been protesting peacefully, then gathered for a picnic in a park, sat in the middle of families and all, got tailed by police forces that told them in unfriendly terms to move away "or else", which they could not because they were surrounded and none would let them pass, then immediately proceeded to indiscriminately teargas the whole place on grounds of refusal to comply, grabbing a bunch of fleeing people.
Your concern is the restraint against the police? When the riot is burning down the houses of innocents, robbing them and even taking their lives?
The kid's dead. Settle the issue with the police in court, but keep the innocents out of this. People are far too focused on what's already lost, while ignoring what's about to be lost.
> Your concern is the restraint against the police? When the riot is burning down the houses of innocents, robbing them and even taking their lives?
What I find ironic is that the French Revolution, with its execution of the previous government, gave birth to the conditions for modern property rights to exist [0].
I find it double ironic since my country is founded from a riot triggered by state violence [1].
- Massive tax increases
- Less tourism
- Economy will get worse
- Price increases
- No more investments in the suburbs
- Less libraries and other free services
- More surveillance
- More police
- Restrictions on communications
Just because of kids who wanted an adrenaline rush.