Riots in France: disbelief and blame

Not far from Place de la République, residents are scraping a black mass off the street in which the remains of an e-bike can still be seen. They remove the traces of destruction as best they can.

Nicolas looks stunned at his regular café: set on fire and burned out. He condemns the violence but supports the social protests. The media only talks about the violence, he says. "And what happened is very bad." It is no longer an issue that people in many cities have demonstrated peacefully: "Demos where young people are fighting for their rights or the people who have been struggling enormously for ten years because of Emmanuel Macron's policies." For him, this is "a symbol of a society that is doing badly and is suffering," Nicolas continued.

Macron wants to take tough action against rioters

French President Emmanuel Macron made the comments in a televised speech last night. More reserved than one is used to from him. But clear when it comes to assigning responsibility: "Rebels from ultra-left groups - along with criminals - have committed unbridled violence in our cities. How could the French do something like that to France? Nothing can justify, explain or excuse it," said Macron.

He promised to take tough legal action against rioters. He did not make any specific concessions to the young people who have been taking to the streets for weeks to demand better learning conditions, but he did hold out the prospect of more say. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu is expected to bring student representatives, unions and employers' associations together starting next week to work on improvements.

With a view to the upcoming presidential election, Macron appealed for calm and respect. He warned against carrying out the election campaign on the streets. "Those who want to make you believe that there is an urgent need to demonstrate and cause unrest have only one goal: to hijack the debate and harm the Republic," he said to the French public.

Do the political extremes benefit?

This primarily refers to the radical left-wing party LFI, which Macron and the government repeatedly accuse of fomenting protests and violence in order to make political capital out of it. LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, in turn, blames the government for the escalation. Above all, he condemns the police's operational tactics.

"We have a choice between a people and their youth who are in a deep crisis - moral, psychological, economic - and a government that always relies on the same strategy: namely, watching the situation get worse and then using blind violence and scaring everyone," Mélenchon said on LCI.

A few hours before Macron's speech, Marine Le Pen released a video message - full of presidential symbolism, recorded in front of a bookshelf and with the French flag in the background. The country is caught between violence and powerlessness, said the presidential candidate of the right-wing National Rally.

On the one hand, there are "forces of destruction that trivialize violence, that target the police, institutions and representatives of the state and treat them like enemies that have to be crushed," said Le Pen. On the other hand, there are "Macron's power elite: exhausted, disoriented and only able to comment on their own powerlessness and their own decline."

Election campaign without nuances

After the escalation of violence, the political camps blame each other for responsibility. They fight for interpretations, interpretive sovereignty and narratives. The tone of the political debate leaves little room for nuance. But it will probably shape the coming months until the presidential election.