France; why isn't France outlawing demonstrations for six months. Adolescents are being mutilated??
I understand the frustration. If adolescents are being seriously injured during demonstrations, it is natural to ask why the government does not simply suspend protests for a while.
The short answer is that France regards peaceful demonstration as a fundamental democratic freedom. Under both French law and the European Convention on Human Rights, the authorities may restrict or ban particular demonstrations when there is a serious risk to public order, but a blanket nationwide ban on all demonstrations would be very difficult to justify legally.
The French state has in fact imposed temporary restrictions in exceptional circumstances. After the November 2015 terrorist attacks, a state of emergency allowed temporary bans on demonstrations. However, those measures were linked to a specific national emergency and were controversial even then.
The argument against a six-month ban is that:
Most demonstrators are peaceful and have done nothing wrong.
Demonstrations are one of the main ways citizens express political opposition.
A government could be tempted to use a broad ban to silence legitimate dissent.
European human-rights law generally requires restrictions to be necessary and proportionate, rather than sweeping and indiscriminate.
On the other hand, critics of the current system argue that when demonstrations repeatedly lead to serious injuries, especially among young people, the state has a duty to impose much stronger restrictions or to change policing methods. That is an active debate in France, particularly after the Yellow Vest protests, pension-reform demonstrations, and more recent periods of unrest.
So the French government's position is generally not "demonstrations are more important than safety." Rather, it is that both safety and the right to protest must be protected at the same time, even though in practice many people feel France has not found the right balance.
The extreme behaviour we are seing comes from Immigrants. Who in France would set fire to a bicycle, or desecrate a shop window showing blouses??
It's important to be careful about drawing conclusions from highly visible incidents.
There are certainly cases in France where people involved in riots or violent demonstrations have come from immigrant backgrounds. However, it would not be accurate to say that the extreme behaviour seen in French unrest comes exclusively from immigrants.
French authorities have arrested and prosecuted a wide variety of people during different episodes of unrest: long-established French citizens, people with no immigrant background, far-left activists, far-right activists, anarchists, football hooligans, ordinary local youths, and people from immigrant families. The composition varies greatly depending on the event.
For example:
During the Yellow Vest (Gilets Jaunes) protests, many participants were from rural and small-town France, often with no connection to recent immigration.
During the 2023 urban riots following the death of Nahel Merzouk, many participants were young people from immigrant-origin neighbourhoods, but not all were immigrants; many were French citizens born in France.
Acts such as vandalising shops, burning cars, or attacking public property have occurred in different social and political movements over decades, long before recent immigration leve
As for your question, "Who in France would set fire to a bicycle or smash a shop window displaying blouses?" The answer is that a small minority of people, whatever their background, sometimes engage in destructive behaviour during riots. Most French people, including most immigrants and most descendants of immigrants, do not.
One reason the debate is so heated in France is that different people emphasize different causes:
Some see immigration and failures of integration as the main issue.
Others point to poverty, unemployment, segregation, and poor relations with police.
Still others argue that a breakdown of respect for public authority affects people from many backgrounds.
The evidence supports the view that immigration and integration are part of the discussion, but it does not support the claim that violent disorder is simply something "immigrants" do while other French people do not.
What has made the French debate particularly difficult is that some riots have been concentrated in suburbs with large immigrant-origin populations, which leads many people to associate the two. Whether that association explains the whole problem is exactly what is fiercely disputed in French politics today.
In effect, I read this was the case in the English-language press. The casseurs are Arabs, and the looters are Black.
Some English-language commentators and journalists have indeed made claims along those lines, particularly after episodes such as the 2005 riots or the 2023 unrest. However, there are two important distinctions.
First, many of the young people involved are not immigrants in the legal sense. A large proportion are French citizens born in France, often children or grandchildren of immigrants from North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, or elsewhere. So describing all participants as "immigrants" is often factually inaccurate.
Second, while arrest reports from certain riots have shown an overrepresentation of youths from disadvantaged suburbs with large North African and African-origin populations, that does not mean all "casseurs" are Arab or all looters are Black. French authorities generally do not publish detailed ethnic crime statistics in the way some other countries do, partly because of France's republican tradition of treating citizens as simply French. As a result, broad ethnic claims are often based on observation, journalistic reporting, or political argument rather than comprehensive official data.
What many observers across the political spectrum do agree on is that:
Some of the worst urban-riot violence has been concentrated in suburbs with large immigrant-origin populations.
Problems of integration, educational failure, unemployment, drug trafficking, and strained police-community relations are frequently present in those areas.
The overwhelming majority of people of Arab and Black background in France do not participate in riots or looting.
The political disagreement is over causation. One side argues that immigration and failed assimilation are the primary causes. Another argues that social and economic exclusion are the primary causes. A third view is that both factors interact.
So it is fair to say that many French people have noticed that some highly publicised rioting has occurred in neighbourhoods with large Arab and African-origin populations. It is not fair, however, to conclude that Arabs are the "casseurs" and Blacks are the "looters" as a general rule. The evidence does not support such a simple division, and different episodes of unrest involve different groups of people.
I am not making a racist argument, but I am agreeing with President Macron that a demonstration about the fate of hight schools has been hijacked by people with Palestinian scarves who break things, and blacks having a grand old time looting shops. That is what the press is reporting, and what the government needs to address...
I think you're raising a legitimate policy concern, and it's possible to discuss it without making a racist argument.
What President Macron and many French politicians have said over the years is that some demonstrations are indeed "hijacked" by groups whose objective is not the original cause being protested. A march about education, pensions, or police policy may attract a small number of people who come specifically to confront police, vandalise property, or loot shops. That is a recurrent complaint from governments of the left, centre, and right in France.
Where I would be cautious is with the jump from "many of the offenders appear to belong to particular ethnic groups" to "the problem is Arabs" or "the problem is Blacks."
A government can address:
vandalism,
looting,
attacks on police,
property destruction,
failures of integration,
gang activity,
without assigning collective blame to millions of law-abiding citizens who happen to share an ethnic background with some offenders.
In practice, many French voters would agree with at least part of your argument: they look at the footage of burned cars, smashed shops, and attacks on public property and conclude that France has serious integration problems in some suburbs. That view is represented quite openly across parts of the French political spectrum.
At the same time, the French state's official position is that responsibility is individual. If a teenager from an immigrant-origin neighbourhood burns a shop, the offence is burning a shop. If a native-born Frenchman from a rural area attacks police during a Yellow Vest protest, the offence is attacking police. The law punishes the act rather than the ethnic category.
The real political disagreement in France is not whether looting and vandalism are a problem. Most people agree they are. The disagreement is over whether the root cause is primarily:
immigration and integration failures,
social and economic exclusion,
criminal subcultures,
weakening respect for authority,
or some combination of all of the above.
Many French citizens, including some who are not hostile to immigration in principle, would say that the government has been reluctant to discuss integration problems frankly enough. Others would argue that focusing mainly on ethnicity risks overlooking broader social factors.
So I would frame your point this way: "If particular communities are disproportionately represented among violent offenders during riots, the government should be willing to examine why and address the causes." That is a policy argument. It becomes problematic only if it assumes that all members of those communities share responsibility for the actions of a minority.
My argument is that France needs to take a break. Indeed the Palestinians may at this point not see alternatives to acting-out wherever they can. This has to stop; French schoolchildren have lives!!
I think you're expressing a concern that many French citizens share: when protests about one issue, such as schools or universities, turn into violence, the original cause can get drowned out and ordinary people end up paying the price.
Where I'd draw a distinction is between three separate questions:
Should schoolchildren and students be protected from disruption and violence? Most people would say yes.
Can some demonstrations be infiltrated by people with completely different agendas? Yes. French authorities, unions, and even protest organisers have often complained that peaceful marches attract small groups seeking confrontation, vandalism, or political theatre unrelated to the original protest.
Should France suspend the right to demonstrate altogether? That is where opinions diverge sharply, because many French people see public protest as an essential democratic safeguard, even when some demonstrations are abused.
On the Palestinian issue specifically, it is also worth separating:
peaceful pro-Palestinian demonstrators,
radical activists who may seek confrontation,
and opportunistic rioters or looters.
Those are not necessarily the same people, even when they appear at the same event.
Your underlying point seems to be less about ethnicity than about public order: if a protest about education results in damaged property, frightened pupils, cancelled classes, or injured teenagers, then the state has failed to keep the protest focused and safe. That is a position that many people across the political spectrum in France would recognise.
The difficult question for France is how to preserve the right to protest while preventing a small minority from turning demonstrations into scenes of violence. Successive governments, from left and right, have struggled with that balance for decades.
In other words, one can simultaneously believe:
schoolchildren deserve safety,
vandalism and looting should be dealt with firmly,
demonstrations can be hijacked by unrelated causes or extremist groups,
and peaceful citizens should still retain the right to protest.
The real debate is not whether the violence is acceptable. Almost nobody thinks it is. The debate is about how far the state should go in restricting civil liberties in order to stop it.
My suggestion is about right now. Stop demonstrations. There is another planned for next Saturday. The Unions have a massive one scheduled for October 29...
Your proposal is certainly one possible policy response. A government could argue that repeated violence, injuries, and disruption justify temporarily prohibiting demonstrations in certain places or under certain conditions.
The obstacle is not that French leaders are unaware of the problem. It is that they face a trade-off:
If they allow demonstrations, some may be disrupted by violent groups and public disorder.
If they prohibit demonstrations broadly, they are restricting a fundamental civil liberty enjoyed by millions of peaceful citizens.
Many French people would agree with you that the balance has tilted too far towards tolerating disruption. They look at damaged property, injured protesters, injured police officers, and interrupted schooling and conclude that public order should come first.
Others would respond that governments often face unrest precisely when policies are controversial, and that suspending demonstrations during tense periods risks inflaming tensions rather than calming them.
Your specific concern about schoolchildren is understandable. If a protest about education leads to classes being cancelled, pupils being exposed to violence, or young people being injured, then many citizens will feel the system is failing those children. One need not oppose the right to protest in general to think that schools deserve special protection.
In practical terms, France is more likely to:
ban specific demonstrations deemed high-risk,
impose conditions on routes and locations,
increase policing,
prosecute rioters and looters more aggressively,
than impose a nationwide six-month moratorium on demonstrations.
Whether that approach is sufficient is a political question on which French voters are deeply divided. Your position, as I understand it, is not "nobody should ever protest," but rather: "when disorder becomes chronic and children are being affected, public order should temporarily take precedence." That is a serious position in the debate, even though many others would disagree with the remedy.
A lot of people have been arrested. They need to be processed and given 'the talk'. Modern France was founded in the violence of the Revolution; the population is not timid. This is something else. Heck, some stolen goods are ending up on resale sites on the Internet!!!
