The Unhinged Racist Response to France’s School Protests

The messaging echoes a pernicious narrative in French media that has sought to portray any political organizing by French Muslims as a self-evident Trojan horse for Islamism.

“Behind demands about the degraded situation of high schools, the Étudiants musulmans de France (EMF) organization and its allies push their battle against ‘state islamophobia,’” reads a subheading from a story in claiming that “Islamist networks” are trying to amplify the movement. The article points to a Muslim student organization it claims a government last year identified as the youth branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.Le Pointreport

Accusing organizations like EMF of “recuperating” the protests, the article says posts from the organization “speak volumes” about their strategy.

One offender from the beginning of the month is a in support of the high schoolers’ fight “for a decent and dignified learning environment.” EMF’s statement goes on to oppose government austerity in public services, including universities; a law that raises fees for foreign students; government measures canceling rent subsidies for foreign students; “university partnerships with genocidal and ecocidal businesses”; the selective and “racist” system of university admissions; and government repression of the protests.statement

also points to AJ+, the Qatari-funded social media wing of, for their viral social media output highlighting atrocious school conditions and police violence as a vector for spreading this narrative.Le Point Al Jazeera

“Most of them return to the topic of police violence, without a word about the protesters’ [violence], and accuse the ‘mainstream media’ of lying about the ‘violence’ of the marches,” the article reads.Le Point

Massive protests over the weekend of at least a half million people descended into violence, with the police in Paris reportedly losing control of the situation as black bloc militants and vandals took advantage of the chaos to loot some of the city’s toniest quarters.

Videos like the clip of the Limoges bell tower falling in flames being wrought by Third World “barbarians” on Eternal France.went viral as examples of destruction

“I hope the world is paying attention to the riots in France,” , a celebrity soldier and MMA fighter. “There are no French flags being flown at these protests. This is the consequence of mass immigration.”said Tim Kennedy

The idea that there were no French flags being flown at the protests is a flat-out lie. . But the post is representative of the hardening of the narrative laid down earlier in the month.I saw manyover multiple days

Pro-European liberals also joined in on the hand-wringing and condemnation.

“Poland will not repeat the mistakes of other European countries, nor will it pay for them,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk without making a direct reference to the protests in France. “We are firmly defending the border against illegal migration, we have our own asylum policy (we do not accept applications), we deport those who break Polish law.”announced

“Shocking videos and images are coming out of France,” Hungarian President Péter Magyar posted. “In the face of this senseless destruction and unjustified violence, perhaps it is now clear to everyone why Hungary advocates the strictest possible approach to migration, and why we will not weaken our border protection or immigration policy under any pressure.”

Feckless American liberals, while condemning the straightforwardly racist framing and acknowledging that the student protesters are “an extremely diverse coalition,” have flirted with the narrative. Thomas Chatterton Williams, in a piece in titled “The Violence Sweeping France Was Never Really About Schools,” dismisses any real content in the protests after a review of five viral social media clips.The Atlantic

“Much of the protesting by students has become an exercise in nihilistic resentment. . . .  beneath the pretext of school reform,” Williams writes, pointing to clips showing acts of violence, property damage, or students rallying and shouting, often from aggregator an anti-immigrant narrative, frequently portraying Arab and African immigration in Europe as a Trojan horse for Islamism.social mediaaccounts that push

“The violence hasn’t been limited to one side,” Williams admits charitably, drawing parallels between students making anti-police declarations in crowds or singing along to rap songs with distasteful references to terrorism and life-changing, disfiguring injuries inflicted on students by the police. “A police officer fired a tear gas grenade at a teenager’s head, knocking out most of his teeth. More recently, a 15-year-old lost his hand after an officer fired a stun grenade.”

At the end of the day France is “at the mercy of protesters,” Williams argues. “The French protest too much,” and “in recent years, France’s protest culture has been indulged and glorified to the point of insanity.”

“Some of these demands may be valid,” Williams allows, “but the violence fanning out across France has little to do with pedagogical concerns.”

French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu made a similar argument on Thursday when he that the social movement was “no longer a high schoolers’ movement” but a “movement of urban violence, the intensity of which has increased further in recent days.”claimed

In a speech on Sunday evening, President Emmanuel Macron blamed the violence from the night before on “troublemakers from far-left splinter groups, joined by numerous delinquents,” while Lecornu denounced the supposedly “important role” of France Insoumise presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon and his party in fomenting it.

While the French government hasn’t engaged in the same grotesquely racist theories of the American, British, and French far right, they are united with them in their narrative that this social movement is the product of outside, illegitimate forces that are trying to instrumentalize the demands of the high schoolers.

That point was driven home particularly forcefully in a report from the on Wednesday, which revealed that Lecornu had personally directed the interior minister to explore the idea of prosecuting Mélenchon for “inciting rebellion.” Lecornu only backed off after getting cold feet about what type of effect jailing Mélenchon might have on the movement.Le Canard enchaîné

The paper reported nearly seven thousand arrestees over the past three weeks, 86 percent of whom were between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. Authorities made around two thousand additional arrests over the weekend.

“The goal of the tactic is to frighten the students and their parents into stopping the uprising as quickly as possible,” one chief of police told. Le Canard

The government remains scared of this social movement because of the fact that it isn’t a foreign plot, the work of immigrant invaders, or an ”” conspiracy. Powerful racists will continue to push the idea that it is because it’s a convenient way to wipe away the demands of the masses, but it won’t change the reality on the ground. Macron’s government has brought violence to France’s streets. A report on Monday morning that Macron rejected the Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez’s offer to resign sends a clear message that he supports what the police are doing despite last night’s pro forma calls for dialogue and rote condemnation of violence.Islamo-leftist

French students have legitimate demands, and many of them are determined to continue protesting until the government answers them.