Image Credit: Mustafa Suleman via Squarespace
The general unrest felt in many European countries seems to have manifested itself in the most recent protest-turned-riot in France. Like the rest of the world, I watched the clips of stores being looted, their owners trying to fend off men in black masks with long sticks, unsure of what I was witnessing: what is happening here? Though it is important to understand France's events of 17 October, it is crucial to consider France’s history of protest and growing political dissatisfaction. These two points leave the question: is France a nation addicted to the street, or one with no other way to be heard?
France has a semi-presidential system. The president, directly elected by the people, appoints a prime minister, who leads the government and must keep the support of the National Assembly. Yet confidence in this system is falling. Reports published by Sciences Po's Centre for Political Research (Cevipof) have recorded an increase in political mistrust, rising to 74% of respondents that “have no trust in politics”, which the study describes is a 4% increase from last year. This mistrust is not only a matter of statistics; it reaches back to distinct historical moments that shaped the volatility of the present. One of these is May ‘68, a movement in French social history starting in French suburbs which transformed into an immense movement, taking to the streets and clashing with the French riot police.
It was in part a response to a decade of de Gaulle’s rule, which was perceived as paternalistic and out of touch, with power so concentrated in de Gaulle himself that it was his conservative values the younger generation rebelled against directly. Beyond de Gaulle, rioters in 1968 felt a general unrest in France’s government and its entrenched political elites.
Back in the present, the latest protests began at two lycées (secondary schools) in Créteil and Saint-Denis, where crumbling buildings and overcrowded classes led students to demand better conditions for teaching and learning. These demonstrations developed into a nationwide movement involving students, teachers, political organisations and trade unions. These protests are also in line with the public sector strikes in France because of the budget plans that the government has proposed, among which are €61 billion in spending cuts.
However, as Muriel Zagha points out in her piece for Engelsberg Ideas, the starkest contrast of today’s protests to those in 1968 is the expression of “anti-French feeling”. She writes that, though protesters may have carried Vietnamese flags in the uproar against capitalism, some rioters now are “wrapped in the flags of Algeria and Morocco and are voicing support for Palestine, a cause that, on the face of it, has little to do with any structural problems in the French education system”. This contrast is also what has changed the nature of the protests and fuelled their transformation into the riots we have seen online. Thus, the student protesters' original demand, starting in Créteil and Saint-Denis, is being drowned out by the politicisation of the conflict, whether it is necessary or not. So rather than roll our eyes at the readiness to the fight of the French people, it is important to view these riots as another link in a long chain of frustration with leadership, with no way out but the streets.