No one, of any political stripe, has been surprised by the present riots, though agreement on their cause is not as universal: sooner or later, everyone knew, some pretext or other would occur for yet a further episode of widespread violence. In this respect, France is like a patient with impaired immunity who will one day suffer a serious infectious disease, though no one can be sure exactly when.
(17 yo)“…Nahel was driving a stolen car without a license and therefore without insurance; he had been admonished several times before for doing the same thing; the car had Polish number plates, and it is well known that cars stolen in Germany, taken to Poland, and given such plates, are used by drug dealers in France.”
Its impossible not to draw parallels with the Chilean estallido, where the violence was not spontaneous; it was deliberately planned with the intention of bringing down the government. And these days, Social Media allows malcontents to easily find each other and form mass action pressure groups that can challenge the status quo through civil unrest.
Its easy to whip up resentment, and as we saw here, for every “peaceful protester” there were a dozen Anarchists, lumpen and barristas bravas enjoying the opportunities for looting and violence.
In France I don’t know enough about the country’s internal situation to form a judgement, but despite not being a fan of conspiracy theories, I’m pretty sure there’s some bigger impulsor behind it.
And, as in Chile’s case, the world’s media tacitly aquiesce by not condemning this pointless violence, on the vox populi principle, I suppose.
Unfortunately, this abuse of individual liberties to cause mayhem will only result in more State control, as already practiced by the Chinese:
Democracy, imperfect as it is, cannot be allowed to degenerate into Oclocracy.
*
(At least they didn’t try to destroy the statue)
Por comparar, los disturbios que afectaron a 22 ciudades en Estados Unidos a raíz de la muerte de George Floyd costaron unos 2.000 millones de euros, en una estimación bastante conservadora. Francia, un país mucho más pequeño, ya ha alcanzado los 1.000 millones
In Chile, a country much smaller than France, the damages were higher still, around USD $3Bn.
