Violent protests have become a common sight across France and are unlikely to cease in the near future. The horror will return in another form and another place. The protestors that turned violent asked for justice and not to be tranquillized. Since 2017, the French police have been heavily militarised in the name of serving the public but it has made the secular republic a republic of fear, at least for the people of colour concerned. The 17-year black African teenager, Nehal M, was from the town of Nanterre to the west of Paris. The only child of a single mother was a rugby enthusiast and had no criminal past — it truly mirrors the George Floyd moment that created havoc across the US and its treatment of citizens of colour.
But the turn of events of violent protests caught by mob culture looting eateries to Yamaha bikes and to the dismay, even burning libraries, caught attention across the world. Irrespective of emotive logic, this was another assault on the meaning of logical expression of protests and helping any immediate possibility of such repetitions. At times, protests often fail logic and its central concern is if protesters have been dehumanised in a so-called civilised world. France is definitely at a crossroads, its colonial past is haunting its present policies and failing to integrate its citizens who were migrants and once sufferers of French colonialism. Protests have been a profound feature of the French Republic and most of the social movements and nature of protests across the world draw its logic and expression from 1968 new social movements.
The very core idea of protest is to bring the state to its senses that people matter, whether they are under authoritarian regimes or democracies. The cultural production of grievances signifies the collective meaning of protests and France has been the hallmark of such protest culture; the only difference is the mob culture that has brought certain anarchy to its streets and fails to justify the value attached to protests. It rather deepens the structural problem and further trivializes the question of racism, dehumanisation and lack of political will for integration.
In recent history, France has seen myriads of such events. The headscarves issues, the Charlie Hebdo moment and its aftermath, the usual sights of lone wolves’ knife attacks, and the killing of teachers on alleged charges of hurting religious sentiments have previously challenged the French government and its aggressive secular narratives. In 2005, a series of events brought the French state to call for a national emergency and in recent events, whether the Yellow Vests movement or nationwide strikes by unions and other concerned institutions on passing pension bills through extra-constitutional mechanisms. Different protests have different reasons and despite being harrowingly violent at times, the coverage of black people and their Arab identity invite a communal tone calling it a ‘Muslim Phenomenon’. Such absurdities won’t comfort the truth that France has serious problems of social, economic and political integration.
The arming of French police in 2017 defied the logic of protection of people on the street, rather it has given the police complete impunity against its own crime, more so when it comes to dehumanising black French citizens. In 2022, such events occurred on many occasions but the French police were never cautioned and no authentic justice was served. Police have been allowed to feed themselves with this act of violence on their own people in the name of secularisation and securitisation. If crimes don’t meet justice, then response won’t stop until you become a republic of fear.
The chaos is much deeper in France and the racism question has been a structural challenge. Despite the violent responses on the streets that can’t be justified in the name of any cause, this won’t stop. Anarchy is unacceptable in a civilised society but the state also can’t remain in Hobbesian logic over the monopoly of violence. For some form or reason, it will catch another suburb sooner or later. And that is exactly the burning streets across France and the responses post Nehal events that have been sending messages.
Emmanuel Macron’s second term is full of miscalculations, its policies under a no-majority government have invited major challenges back home but it has been giving more attention to foreign policies than to domestic challenges. Macron’s logic of first implementing the policy and then creating consensus has brought more chaos inside France. With rising populism in France, the recent proclaims of police unions of giving the protest a civil war situation would further trivialize the matter and might deepen the existing structural problems of integrations.
Half-baked narratives such as giving it a religious, racial and cultural angle won’t provide any solution to burning streets in France nor the policymakers if still they believe the logic of surveillance can cover the schism in the society. The UN has raised alarm and cautioned the French government and so have the political opponents of Macron who might be ready to use the hate industry to further feed its populism politics but such regressive thinking won’t help the French Republic and its secular logic. On the contrary, the violence on the streets will further damage the needy applicants who wish to come to France for their future.
This is a flux and a dead end and in the long run, only people will suffer more. Macron’s logic of inexcusable and unjustifiable over violent protests can only help his party and the republic if he addresses the structural problems with consensus across political ideologies. There is an economic cost to anarchy which would damage the state, society and citizens. The Olympic games are going to be held next year in France and this would be the test of whether the government can prevent such episodic turmoil which is costing its image and capability.
Aggressive secularism and failures of social integrations under the infrastructure of colonial logic will bleed France more than any war outside. Nelson Mandela once wrote “Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all” and that could help Macron and the French Republic to address those grievances that, at times, fall into anarchy on the street.
The author is a former Assistant Professor at Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi and a PhD in International Studies from JNU, New Delhi. He can be reached at [email protected]. Views expressed are personal.
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