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France’s escalating riots expose the dangers of political extremism, antisemitism and radical alliances, offering America a stark warning about the future of Western democracy.

Devastating riots swept across France this weekend, and they show no sign of ending soon. The agitation echoes America’s BLM riots from the “mostly peaceful” summer of 2020, but several factors make it far more dangerous. These factors provide a cautionary tale for America: a lesson not to follow down France’s path.

More than half a million people demonstrated across France this weekend, with black-clad agitators jumping out of crowds of protestors to loot shops, vandalise property, and assault police officers. In some cases, the police admitted they had “lost control” of the situation. Demonstrators burned down a 19th-century town hall in Limoges, forced their way into the city hall in Marseille, set the Lyon tourist office on fire, looted stores in Bordeaux and Lille, and waved the flag of Palestine atop a statue in Paris’ Place de la République. Some 600 police and firemen were hurt, and 2,500 agitators were arrested.

Parisian police imposed curfews Monday night on high-profile areas that saw weekend rioting, and France’s second-largest city Marseille banned all public gatherings.

Protests Escalate Into Nationwide Violence

The demonstrations began fairly innocuously with students protesting purportedly low funding for schools on September 17.

However, by 6 October, a quarter million demonstrators had reached a level of violence that caused police to release tear gas. That week marked the third anniversary of Hamas’s terror attack on Israel, and this occasion has tinged the protests “green” (the colour of Islam), as agitators spray-painted Paris’s city hall with Hamas slogans and “Free Palestine”. In the most recent riots, 70% of those arrested are adults.

“We have seen Palestinian flags at demonstrations that were supposed to be about education and social demands. What does Gaza have to do with any of this?” asked Shannon Seban, executive director of European affairs at the Combat Antisemitism Movement.

“This has nothing to do with legitimate student demands anymore. We are talking about organised violence, about people who are not coming to demonstrate but to destroy, to attack our police officers and to challenge the authority of the Republic.”

Antisemitism and the Rise of the Red-Green Alliance

Of course, whenever left-wing riots embrace a Muslim cause, Jews join the target list. On Saturday, Jews in Paris were advised not to go outside, and synagogues cancelled activities due to the threat level; at least one synagogue was ransacked. One French journalist said bands of looters “had addresses of Jewish shop owners,” although their vandalism seemed to spread much further than that.

In a list of demands, the rioters not only demand “an end to militarisation”, “fossil capitalism”, and “imperialism”, but also the end “of all ties with genocidal states (such as Israel)”. Some have even called for French President Emmanuel Macron to resign.

The suddenness and severity of the riots across France suggest some level of coordination, and initial evidence seems to bear that out. Fox News has identified more than 100 organisations in nine countries who “are coordinating, organising or amplifying protests in Europe.” These organisations represent the all-too-common “red-green alliance” between the leftist fringe and radical Islamists — both of whom are willing to use violence to overthrow democratic orders.

Indeed, the riots seem to show a coordinated and long-planned strategy. An online planning document for a November 20 demonstration included the line, “the instagram and website of the strike will be publicly lauch [sic] on August 10,” suggesting that it had been planned months earlier.

France’s Fragile Republic Faces a Political Reckoning

Whatever the initial coordination of the rioters, France’s far-left political party La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed,” LFI) is “actively encouraging” it, warns National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar. LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon would love nothing better than to discredit France’s “centrist” government (whatever centrism means on a mostly socialist spectrum) and consolidate the opposition to the right-wing candidate Marine Le Pen.

The agitation, stoked by “disaffected children of North African immigrants,” provides “a preview of what to expect next year should the nativist Le Pen win the election, Blehar suggests. “His hope is that once he loses to Le Pen, the mass civil unrest will topple France’s Fifth Republic altogether, clearing the way for a militantly socialist Sixth Republic — presumably led by people like him.”

This theory raises two important points. First, the French riots are more dangerous than the BLM riots because the Western Left has combined forces with energetic new Muslim immigrants. This not only provides more manpower, but also more energy, more fervent conviction than secular ideology can provide, and also a wholesale rejection of Western-style representative government. And the problem is so much worse in France because it has opened its doors to mass migration from Muslim countries for decades.

Second, France is already on its fifth republic since 1789, not counting Napoleon, a restored monarchy, subjugation by the Nazis, and several other political upheavals. By comparison, the US just marked 250 years since the Declaration of Independence, making our republic a democratic dinosaur.

For a variety of factors, the American republic is hardier than that of France and has proven its ability to outlast multiple waves of political violence. By contrast, France has a track record of governments folding to violence and popular unrest. In other words, nationwide riots in France represent a threat to the existing social order far greater than similar riots in the US.

A Warning for America and the Future of Western Civilisation

In the face of these threats, the French government’s response has been tepid. Macron was criticised for attending a Céline Dion concert Friday night as the weekend of unrest began. By Sunday, Macron delivered a televised address condemning the violence but not outlining the specific measures the government was willing to take to stop it. France will hold presidential elections in six months, and fiscal constraints also inhibit the government’s ability to act.

“The French political class internalised a critique of themselves that the rioters were not making,” exclaimed National Review’s Noah Rothman. “What is wrong with us, they seemed to ask, that these young people would take a hatchet to their own heritage? Are the efforts by French police to subdue the violence only inspiring more of it? Are they really just angry over fuel prices?”

This is what happens when a public square that has systematically removed all reference to God matches the persuasiveness of its milquetoast liberalism against radical Marxism and fervent Islamism.

Even American media show signs of this same infection. One eyewitness in Paris wrote in The New York Times about encountering demonstrators setting up a street barricade “to block cars and make the trip more difficult for everyone. That’s as it should be, I thought, as I navigated past the makeshift barricades. Against the backdrop of so many destructive forces, none of us, anywhere, should be allowed to proceed easily.”

But any child could tell you that streets are meant for travelling, not barricading. And, when a nation’s inhabitants resort to destroying their own public goods, things are far from the way they should be. The enemies of Western civilisation — both internal and external — are marshalling their forces once again. Unsteady republics like France are their current easy marks. But, Rothman reasoned, “We should not have to endure the French experience before we wake up to the West’s peril.”

This upcoming Saturday, demonstrators in France have planned another 212 “mobilisations” across the country, labelled as “Acte II.” Given how “Acte I” has gone, one can only imagine what comes next. But it does not stop there. “Acte III” action will follow on 31 October, with further protests planned for 5, 14, and 20 November, and even into next spring. If the French regime wants to end the riots without having itself toppled, it must get serious about preserving Western civilisation from the “red-green alliance” that seeks its destruction.

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Republished with thanks to The Washington Stand. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.