Watching the news footage of the civil disturbances in France over the weekend, I found myself caught in two minds, between taking it too seriously and not seriously enough. On the one hand, our nearest neighbour’s house was on fire, citizens were ranged against the state, public buildings were attacked and the streets of its cities were scarred with blood and debris. You can’t get more serious than that.
On the other, haven’t the French always been at it? Students, activists, nihilists, extremists, professional malcontents – at the first sign of a popular cause, the barricades are up, the petrol bombs are thrown, cars are set alight, disorder reigns, and, for a moment, it’s like the sons and daughters of the Fifth Republic are in a live-action re-enactment of Les Misérables.
Is this not part of the cycle of political (and student) life in France, and as symptomatic of the French character as the belief in égalité and the primacy of terroir? Why should we take this outbreak more seriously than the others in recent times?
What is certainly true is that a small, and rather laudable, protest at a high school in Paris against staff shortages and inadequate funding has turned into an inchoate popular movement railing against the cost of living and associated hardships which, in turn, has become an excuse for the looting of commercial premises. Who would have thought that the money to pay for schools and colleges across France could be found in a sportswear shop in Nice? Neither is the burning down of a town hall in Limoges a sophisticated critique of public administration.
Yet, the anger on the streets cannot be dismissed as routine. There is a very different flavour to these protests, however much Presidents Macron and Trump would like to characterise them, respectively, as the work of far-left agitators and immigrants. “The immigration of people from an entirely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, has shattered that once great country,” wrote Trump on his own social media site. Meanwhile, Macron told his nation that the trouble was the work of “insurrectionist elements from radical far-left groups, joined by numerous criminals”.
This, of course, is the easy way out. Even if one accepts the US President’s charged insinuation that some of those taking part in the riots are from immigrant stock… so what? France’s imperial past has given it an historical obligation to many of those who make up its immigrant population, and they have as much right to protest about their lot as other members of society. And, there’s not been an insurrection in modern history that hasn’t been attractive to anarcho-radicalists and opportunist law-breakers.
No, what is significant about these October protests is not the nature of the violence, but that the grievances behind it are hardly confined to France. The protests began among young people frustrated by the teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, dilapidated school buildings and an iniquitous university application system, and while it is hard to imagine that such privations could spark a wave of protest here, we would be wise not to dismiss the possibility that, one day soon, there might be a similar challenge to a British political class which is unable to offer disenchanted young people a convincing vision of how their lives might improve.
Many among our younger generations feel that the social contract is broken. They work hard, they get the requisite qualifications and then what? The labour market is shrinking, the cost of living is rising and even if you find a suitable job, it’s unlikely that you’ll then be able to afford to buy a home of your own. And that’s without taking into account the macro-anxieties, like climate change, global insecurity and the relentless march of artificial intelligence.
At the same time, young workers are expected to finance the pensions, health provisions and accumulated obligations of an increasingly ageing population, while many of the elderly are sitting on a vast amount of property wealth which has increased effortlessly and almost unceasingly down the years. We do not have the same tradition of civic protest as the French, but we should not discount the idea that the same latent discontent is present among our young people, and needs to be recognised in policy terms. Tinkering with the triple lock doesn’t touch the sides.
A generation doesn’t have to put on masks and burn cars in Piccadilly Circus to register its disaffection with authority. It can be seen in the disengagement from mainstream politics, a move towards populist ideology and the loss of faith in the idea that government can actually improve lives.
These expressions of discontent are there to be exploited by radical, fringe groups, while social media can easily spread feelings of injustice and disadvantage and turn them into something much darker. We have seen its destructive manifestations over the weekend in Paris, in Marseille, in Lyon, in Limoges and elsewhere. And it’s why we in Britain should view what’s happening on the streets of France with utter seriousness.