I guess you did not read the analysis by the French intelligence services that the rioters were one third rent a mob, one third disaffected urban youth.
All organised by the other third – the Hard Left.

I don’t see how it is useful any longer to consider recent insurrections in France in terms of traditional leftist politics. Thus is a culture war which instantaneously moved from the internet to the streets. As much as media try to ignore the prevalent ethnicities of the rioters, their actions represent an attack by those who reject the French nation – hence the targeted attacks on police stations, government offices, schools, etc.
This is insurrection from within by those who show by their actions they look not for reform, but for national destruction.

Thank you for the outstanding summary prof. This should be required reading across western civilization.

My family fled France for America in the 1700s and the more I learn about the history of French politics, the more it makes sense. It seems like a nation that always possesses an orthodox ruling class and a robust counter-culture that actually produces French culture. French culture is basically High End Gnosticism. It’s an Avant-garde Revolt. It’s the Prince Harry and Megan of Cultures. An absolute contradiction of elite bourgeois revoltism. Performance Art.

Thanks for this fascinating article. I hadn’t heard of the périurbain – the connection to the gilets jaunes and frustration over high petrol prices in this context is really illuminating.Also very interesting on the at times surprising positions adopted by France’s communists.

Writers are forever struggling to fit the raw randomness of life into a much more satisfying narrative, but at least the current author includes a few facts. No one is leading these riots, any more than a teacher leads recess. The rioters are young and irresponsible, mostly Muslim, and most are only technically citizens of France, if that. They have no skin in the national game, and as such, bear no resemblance to any American or British equivalent. The French polity remains intact and will react allergically at the polls. Marine will finally get her chance. No one is buying the Left’s interpretation, as they have in other western countries.

“People who cannot afford to live in town centres are isolated and dependent on their cars — which is why high petrol prices are so often a cause of anger. It was these people who supported the yellow vest protests”
Ainsi les romans de Michel Houellebecq, qui est à peu près le seul écrivain vivant que je puisse me résoudre à lire.

“There have been some attacks in city centres — notably around Les Halles, just north of Notre-Dame, which feels like a central Paris outpost of the banlieues, because a number of RER lines converge there.”
Les Halles is also a drugs market, although possibly not as intimidating as some of the streets around the Gare de L’Est.

My French communism sonnet, from the Odes, Epigrams, & Further Sonnets:-
XXIV
Sonnet Concerning a Banlieue
Ivry-sur-Seine is difficult to love.
The revolution’s curdled here; St Just
has loaned his name to the tabac. Above,
the chimneys belch their Promethean dust
into the cold hard blank November sky.
The matchstick men from Mali and Algiers
trudge past the concrete cake mix, and the pie
of unfinished apartment blocks. No tears
were shed for beauty, no Lautréamont
has milked this abscess for its clotted crème.
La France Soumise spunked dry for Mélenchon’s
bijou apartment in the 10ième:
Versailles’ most elegantly velvet fist
replaced the Marquis with a communist.

Berkeley’s population is greatly changed since Reagan’s day. UC Berkeley’s undergraduate population is made up of 42.2% Asian, 19.7% White, 4.4% Black, and 21% Hispanic students. Asians will soon dominate the Ivy Leagues as well as a result of last week’s Supreme Court ruling.

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