Why Paris Is Burning
The French have made it rather a habit to rise up in protest every few years, so it would be ludicrous to say the current orgy of unrest, arson and disorder is unprecedented.
Even the burning down of a 140-year-old historic town hall and the arrest of record numbers of people, does not change the usual dirge: The spiral of street protests has been hijacked by casseurs, opportunistic thugs, the Black Blocs.
Dressed all in black, a Black Bloc is said to execute a certain style of protest rather than an agenda. Theirs is the original move-fast-and-break-things strategy from before Mark Zuckerberg instituted the motto for Facebook engineers.
It is a short term tactic that does not address France’s urgent needs. It is beset by three ‘D’s: deep political divisions; high debt and youthful disaffection.
While youthful discontent set off the current round of protests some weeks ago, record indebtedness and political splintering between extremes is creating a whirlpool of crises.
As the mayor of Marseille has lamented, “Students and others have real claims they want to air which no one is listening to now because idiots are smashing everything”. Exactement. France, that nation of philosophers, seems unable to have a meaningful conversation with itself.
Read on…
