France has been traumatized – and embarrassed – by the wave of violence, vandalism and looting in recent days in the cities. Although calm has gradually returned, the riots have left deep wounds, not only physical, but to the collective self-esteem. Emmanuel Macron and the Government are trying to reach a political consensus to overcome the crisis and take measures so that the periodic eruptions of street rage cease to be a French fatality.
The President of the Republic met in the Elysée with the Presidents of the National Assembly and the Senate, while the Prime Minister met with the leaders of the parliamentary groups. Today, Tuesday, Macron will receive more than two hundred mayors of municipalities where they savagely attacked the facilities, from their headquarters to newspaper libraries and other premises.
The night from Sunday to Monday was already considerably calmer, thanks in part to the fact that the Home Office maintained an impressive deployment of 45,000 officers, armored vehicles and helicopters. The appeasement was influenced by the call for an end to violence by the grandmother of Nahel, the teenager who died on Tuesday in Nanterre – shot by a policeman during a checkpoint – and also by well-known rappers who are popular among young people of Maghreb and African origin in general.
Although the fire is being extinguished, it is not so with the indignation for the days lived, for the almost civil war scenes that have been shown to the world and the enormous destruction caused that a country already heavily in debt and with high taxes will have to ‘take on. In the editorial on the front page, with the title “The French shipwreck”, the conservative newspaper Le Figaro claimed yesterday that an image of a “Third World nation” has been given. “One year from now it will be the country that hosts the Summer Olympics – concluded the editorialist-. The question is not whether it will be ready, but whether it will be worthy of the event”.
Yesterday there were rallies in support of the mayors in front of the town halls of many French towns to show them solidarity in the face of the numerous attacks suffered. The most significant event took place in L’Haÿ-les-Roses, on the southern outskirts of Paris, where the young mayor, the conservative Vincent, of Els Republicans (LR), saw his house being attacked by a vehicle on fire saturday night His wife and two small children fled in fear of the fire and some assailants who threw high-powered fireworks at them. The woman broke her tibia while escaping and a child suffered a contusion.
The rally in L’Haÿ-les-Roses, which was attended by other mayors and political leaders, was in a way the counterpoint to the march that took place in Nanterre in disgust at Nahel’s death, the drama that unleashed the wave of riots.
The outbreak of anger has exacerbated French political divisions. The instrumentalization of events between one and the other has been scandalous. On the one hand, a right and an extreme right that demand more of an iron hand and very restrictive measures on immigration and, on the other, a radical left that tends to justify or minimize violence while pointing to the State as ultimate culprit and constantly denounces police brutality.
An example of the tension and divisions has been the collection to help the policeman who shot at Nahel and who is in pre-trial detention on the charge of “voluntary homicide”. The solidarity piggy bank had accumulated more than one million euros in four days. The initiative came from Jean Messiha, who was spokesperson for the presidential campaign of far-right polemicist Éric Zemmour.
The events of the last few days have been a hard blow to Macron’s strategy to calm spirits after the multiple mobilizations, for months, against the delay of the retirement age. The Head of State set himself the goal of calming the country down in one hundred days to reach the national holiday, on July 14, in positive conditions. Things could not have gone worse for Macron, whom the start of the revolt took to Marseille, a city undermined by drug trafficking and revenge, and which is a priority in the Government’s action. Here the revolt broke out rather late, but when it spread it was extremely virulent.
