Let them eat snark.
A woke French student has become the bane of protests after mocking business owners who lost their stores in the riots.
Lola-Fleur Whittaker, a left-wing political influencer who studies at the prestigious Sciences Po Paris, appeared on a television show on Monday to defend the rioters.
“Your little shops are really cute,” she said during an argument over who was responsible for the weekend’s violence during her appearance on The Big Showdown.
But the privileged student was confronted by Khemima Sheilha, owner of a chain of bakeries who had seen her businesses looted.
“This is my life, Lola,” Sheilha said. “We had to see our businesses destroyed. What justifies terrorizing people’s lives?”
Whittaker then tried to portray himself as a poor victim, claiming that his mother is a teacher who eats cookies for lunch because she can’t “pay for the cafeteria.”
But she was soon outed on a social media profile revealing that she was more bourgeois than proletarian.
She regularly shares vacation photos in exotic locations around the world, including Sicily, Greece, Malaysia, Egypt, and Oman.
Whittaker, who completed her BA at the University of Manchester, previously stood as a candidate for the far-left political party France Unbowed in Paris and is also a prominent left-wing influencer.
During Monday’s heated debate, she also appeared to bizarrely suggest a link between the recent riots and attacks on Algerian immigrants by French police in October 1961, La Dépêche reported.
Whittaker was not immediately available for comment.
Around 2,500 arrests were made over the weekend as violent mobs went on a rampage, looting luxury stores and burning historic monuments.
Curfews were imposed on Monday in several French cities “as long as necessary”, in response to the worst riots the country has seen in years, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu announced.
On Tuesday, he welcomed the curfew which helps maintain peace at night.
France is preparing to deploy the army on the streets to help police ahead of more protests planned this weekend, which coincide with an NFL game in Paris between the New Orleans Saints and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Gn world
