France has a proud tradition of protest

PARIS (AP) – No nation organizes mass protests like France.

When the French fight against high fuel taxes, they don’t do it yellow vests and walks. When angry farmers want better wages, hundreds of them drive tractors on the Champs-Élysées. And when museum professionals want better tourism management, they strike and close the Louvre.

The passionate public protest is as French as “La Marseillaise,” the 1792 anthem that enshrines the collective duty to fight tyranny in the country’s national identity. But this month, the most violent protests in years – and heavy-handed policing – have raised concerns about riots that have overshadowed hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators marching against the rising cost of living and poor conditions in schools.

On Saturday alone, at least 2,400 people were arrested after rioters in cities across France clashed with police, set cars on fire, stormed public buildings, looted stores and burned down a historic city hall. Other demonstrations could take place.

“How can the French do this to France? » asked outgoing President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday. Nothing justifies destruction, he added. “We all feel anger and shame.”

But any student of French history knows that the country’s proud, loud and colorful protest culture has sometimes turned violent — starting with the beheading of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in the revolution that toppled the monarchy in 1789.

A culture of protest is born

Historians say the revolution is where the modern French tradition of civic engagement as duty was born. The idea is that voting is not the only way to bring about change; demonstration is considered a fundamental value, a way to make the people heard by the elites and to defend freedoms. The moment a child becomes an activist is considered a generations-old rite of passage. The right to demonstrate is even protected by the Constitution.

“It’s a way of building a collective identity and a political community,” says Magali Della Sudda, director of political science research at the National Center for Scientific Research in Bordeaux.

France’s post-revolutionary history is not a robust history of protests and reforms, but of cycles of popular uprisings, repression, mobilization, and political concessions. The tradition has become tragic; In 1871, government troops suppressed the new “Paris Commune,” or municipal government, killing thousands.

In some ways, collective action won – as in 1968, when student protests and a general strike forced the government to grant concessions like an increase in the minimum wage.

In more recent history, the “yellow vests” – demonstrated against a proposed increase in the fuel tax, and this broadened into protests over other issues such as the cost of living and inequality. Some protests in 2018 and 2019 were marked by car burnings, looting and clashes with police. It is not uncommon for French violence on the sidelines to disrupt otherwise peaceful marches.

Likewise, the weekend’s student protests spread from education to other demands – and gave rise to dramatic scenes of looting and clashes with police. It is unclear how many of those vandalizing stores joined the day’s protest, which drew tens of thousands of people, or were merely opportunists. The authorities responded with nighttime curfews; there were calls for more protests later in the week.

This happened during a political season, less than two weeks before the US midterms. elections on November 3, this will also be equivalent to a referendum on President Donald Trump disorder second term. Trump and leading Republicans are trying to take advantage of the widespread situation. riots in France by baselessly claiming that social unrest in Europe is caused by Muslim migrants.

Authorities and police did not link immigrants to the riots In France.

Police violence blamed on distrust

Some of the forces that motivated last month’s protests are due to a more recent French tradition, according to political scientist Fabien Jobard, who has studied the history of protest and policing.

Since the 1990s, the country has seen recurring waves of what the French call “urban violence” and Americans would call riots, Jobard said. They are often triggered by police violence: nationwide unrest erupted in 2005 after the deaths of two teenagers while fleeing police, and again in 2023 after a a police officer shot and killed a 17-year-old during a road check outside Paris.

“For young people in the suburbs, rioting is one of the traditional forms of collective expression,” he says.

Government critics and human rights activists say police tactics over the past month have been unnecessarily violent. Much of the criticism focuses on rubber bullet launchers, known in France as LBDs, and stun grenades, which critics accuse of being responsible for serious injuries to protesters.

And Della Sudda noted that the nearly 8,000 arrests in the weeks leading up to Oct. 17 dwarf the few dozen arrested during a 1998 protest of 500,000 students over teacher shortages and dilapidated schools.

The feeling of not being heard is also part of it, she says. Rather than listening to protesters and negotiating, Della Sudda noted, the government, for example, attempted to assuage the grievances of the “yellow vests” via a digital platform, which translates to “the great national debate.” Anti-government protesters criticized Macron’s plan.

“As a result,” writes Della Sudda, “distrust grows. »

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Kellman reported from London.