Student protests turn to riots

Mass riots erupted across France after weeks of lycée student protests over underfunding and poor school conditions. Rioters looted property and set fires in Paris and other cities.

Protests expand beyond schools

As demonstrations grew, other groups joined, including those upset with the cost of living and the Presidency of Emmanuel Macron.

Le Pen positioned to win

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally, was already Macron's most likely successor according to polls. The riots have made that even more likely.

Mélenchon emerges as rival

Left-wing politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who has associated himself with the protest movement, is now likely to be Le Pen's final-round opponent, though he is radically unpopular.

A qualitative shift in meaning

The riots transformed the political landscape beyond what the student protests alone represented. They revealed anxieties about the state's functioning and government control.

October seventeenth as turning point

Jackson referenced a comment that there will be a before October seventeenth and an after October seventeenth, suggesting the riots marked a hinge moment in French history.

State appeared powerless

The state was completely taken unawares and had no control. There was a sense of a void, similar to the mood in nineteen sixty-eight when de Gaulle's number two felt the state could do nothing.

Class panic among centrists

At a Paris dinner party, centrist and center-right guests expressed apoplectic fury at the rioters, using language reminiscent of reactions to the Paris Commune of eighteen seventy-one.

Fear across the country

Everywhere in France, people are terribly worried about what will happen next. There is a strange, ghostly expectancy, a mixture of apprehension and fear.

Mélenchon's clever positioning

Mélenchon cannot defend the looting but says he is not the government and will not comment on violence. He supports the students' legitimate demands and will demonstrate with them.

“I'm not the government. It's not for me to make a comment on that.”

Centrists rendered inaudible

Centrist politicians have been almost completely inaudible over recent days. They do not know what to say and cannot find their voice.

The centrist dilemma

Centrists cannot go too close to school protesters without seeming to legitimize disorder, but cannot support police too strongly either. They are caught between two voluble extremes.

Universal contempt for Macron

Jackson says he has not met a person with anything good to say about Macron. People see him as an authoritarian figure with no power, the worst of both worlds.

Macron killed the center

Macron had incredible political success and will have been President for ten years, but he killed off the center right and center left without providing an alternative.

Macron ignored succession

Macron seemed indifferent to or incapable of thinking about succession. Unlike Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, he made no efforts to build a center party between Gaullists and the left.

Macron's detachment from France

Macron had never been elected to anything before becoming President and lacked feel for France. He showed contempt for intermediary organizations like trade unions and local mayors.

“I was never a teenager”

Macron's policy failures

Macron's gasoline tax increase sparked the Yellow Vest movement. He framed it as environmental policy but did not anticipate that deprived rural people needed cars for work.

The redistributive tax mistake

Early in his presidency, Macron abolished a redistributive tax, a bad symbol announcing he was the President of the rich. It was a handout, not economic liberation.

Macron tried de Gaulle's model

Macron pitched himself as a Jupiterian President above politics, like de Gaulle. But de Gaulle had historical weight and legitimacy. Macron arrived as a palace adviser and Rothschild banker.

Macron's legacy of failure

Macron was preparing to reinvigorate institutions de Gaulle created but failed. He was politically brilliant at exploiting possibilities of coming to power but disastrous at knowing what to do with it.