The Dispatch Podcast - France Riots, Explained

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

A deadly police shooting in Paris last week sparked days of riots across the country. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, joins Dispatch Executive Editor Adam O’Neal to explain what led to the violence and where France will go from here.Show Notes: -Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry's profile for at The Ethics and Public Police Center -Reuters: France riots: Shot teenager's grandmother says violence must stop Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This is Adam O'Neill, executive editor of The Dispatch. Today we have on the show Pascal Emmanuel Gobre to discuss the recent rioting and unrest in France. Pascal is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, but he's also lived in France's entire life. We hope you'll enjoy this one. Pascal, thanks for coming on. You're in Paris right now, correct? Yes, that's correct. As you can see behind me.

Yeah, the beautiful view of the Eiffel Tower. Beautiful closet. Yeah, and it's probably filled with baguettes and cigarettes or something like that, right? Yes, that is exactly what is inside there. But really, what we want to do is talk to you about what you've seen, how everything looks on the ground, and also get some context for our, uh, our listeners or viewers. Now, when we were talking before about originally recording this, you know, you said you'd

been doing quite a bit of rioting. So how many cars have you been able to light on fire in the past week? Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to meet my personal best. So, you know, my personal best is 12, which I achieved in 2005. And so I'm trying to, I'm trying to get there, you know. But I have to take it one at times. So, you know, when this ends, I'll let you know what the final score is. Okay, very good, very good.

No, but really, just to prevent you from being arrested or something, you are not partaking in the rioting, and I suspect you disapprove of a lot of the property damage and that sort of thing. I, in fact, disapprove of all of it. Well, a lot of our, a lot of folks here in America will, like, walk past the TV and be like, oh, some cars are on fire in Paris, or, oh, looks like an angry group of young men destroying a bank or something. or a supermarket. What started all of this? Because at this point, it's been going on for about a week.

What started it? What was the actual issue? And what was sort of the underlying, underlying issue that made it blow up like this? The trigger was the killing by police of a young man, a 17-year-old man named Nail, a young man of Algerian origin. And as so often in those cases, the video clip that first emerged, looked extremely damning to the cops.

It looked like a traffic stop and the cop shouting, I'm going to kill you and then shooting him in the head apparently for no reason. What later emerged was that there had been a chase and this was the second time he had been stopped.

And the audio was sort of unclear and today, the France Doe, which is the public news channel reported that if you clean up the audio, it actually sounds what the cops are saying are saying, you know, turn off the engine, put your hands on your head, comply, and not, you know, I'm going to shoot you. But this set off, this killing, it's been compared to George Floyd, it's set off. Let's just look at some numbers here about to give people a sense of the scale of what's happening. And then we can talk about sort of the underlying issue that drove this. You have in a country somewhere between the size, of California and Texas, 70 million people, 45,000 police and other security forces being mobilized across the country, thousands of cars burned, perhaps a thousand buildings burned

or damaged. And these numbers are going down, but it's still not exactly progress when I think Sunday night it was 259 cars were burned instead of a thousand a couple days before. And you have 157 arrests, I think a total, last night, more than 3,000 total. and I think the interior minister said the average age of the person being arrested is 17 and you're even having some incidents where a 12 year old is setting

a fire out there. Yeah, most of them are between 14 and 18. Right. And a mayor's home is attacked, his family is fleeing and fear this is some pretty serious chaos. What's driving this even if people had disinformation about the video or didn't understand

the full story? Why are these people so angry? Why are they taking to the streets like this? Right. I mean, there There's a sort of American thing, and I don't blame you guys. Oh, you know, the French are writing. It must be Tuesday. Again, I don't blame you. It's very embarrassing.

But protest culture is part of the culture in French for a bunch of historical reasons we can go into. This is very different. It's a different demographic. And it's basically the Arab and African immigrant demographic in the, well, it used to be the so-called Bonneux, but really now it's everywhere, in part because of a law that was passed after the previous riots. And the Bonnouls, the Bonneux for the people who don't speak French, that's sort of like a suburb, historically kind of marginalized groups or people separated from society

where in the Bonnus, but now you're saying it's not just in these like little segments, geographic segments, but throughout the country. Yes. So small towns, peaceful small towns, where towns. This is one of the things that were new, so the last big riots were in 2005, but they were big, but they were localized. Here you had people burn things down in the center of Paris, in the center of breast, in the center of everywhere. And all, well, not everywhere, but like major cities, anyhow. And you had, you know, small towns and places like that also getting attacked.

So this is also another way in which this is much bigger. And it's not a protest. There's no demand. It's not being organized by, or if it is, you know, not officially. And it is much more violent. Like French protests can sometimes turn violent, but it's a sort of controlled violence. And historically, they're sort of, you know, they're peaceful protests. Like my parents, they didn't go to protest because they were, you know, conservative.

But like the new people who did and, you know, it was like a festive event you went to with your friends and like you had a barbecue afterwards. This is not that. Yeah, I remember when I was living in Paris, it was during the first Macron pension reform push and they had shut down all of the trains and there were regular protests. And I remember walking near Republic, you know, where there are so many protests historically in France. There was a line of about 12 police vans.

and there were riot police inside of them eating their dinner before the protesting began. And I remember there was one cop walking down to each van and giving them a bunch of baguettes to go with their dinner. And it all just seemed very normal and planned. And like you said, and maybe a car would get lit on fire. Maybe there'd be some clashes between the protesters. But like you said, it didn't typically in pension reform, we know the French feel very strongly about that. But it didn't really spiral into violence. Yeah, that's a good example because they were, the protests themselves were very big and very recent, but the violence was very limited.

And one, one sort of difficulty with this, and it's something I learned while I was living there, and I've spoken to lots of French about, and there's sort of a debate within France about this is color blindness is sort of enshrined in French political life, in social, cultural life, where there are no hyphenated Frenchmen. And you're not in the same way that we have African Americans or Mexican Americans or Asian Americans, that's not something that's really, really kosher in France. How does that affect this debate and these groups, even if these young people out there on the street aren't making any demands, clearly there is a racial or ethnic element to what's happening here? How to explain that concept and that debate and how people think about that in France? This issue of color of colorblindness is that has been historically the French position and the sort of consensus across the political spectrum, but less and less so. And there is a sort of neo-colonial, there's a sort of colonial resentment element. So, you know, the people who came here are people from former French colonies.

and they consider themselves, they don't consider themselves French. Like, Le Monde did an article, you know, once, it was very controversial, but they did an article about anti-white racism in the Bon Leu. And in that world, the term French is a racial slur. So, and the article had a very touching, very sad story about the well-meaning teacher, like, explaining to

Abraham or whatever, no, no, you're French too. You're a citizen of France, this country of human rights, and he was saying, stop insulting me, like, stop calling me white. Because to them, the word Francais is a slur for a white person. That's the meaning of the word. And so they do not recognize themselves as belonging to the French community, and they're hostile to it. There's a sort of noxious mixture of Islamism and number one, just sort of like over-the-top masculinity, comfort with violence, and three, just sort of opposition to everything you would regard as French.

We could, I want to talk about the political angle, but there's also a tremendous hostility on behalf of the police toward the people that they say that they're at war with. You have police unions putting out statements saying, we're dealing with savage hordes. Some of them are using the word vermin, right? They're not holding back. They're not too worried about political correctness, the French police unions. This kind of rhetoric suggests that they're feeling abandoned by President Macron, who, if I recall, immediately condemned or at least made comments about the video shortly after it was released saying this was unacceptable or unjustified.

Explain to me the French political. reaction because kind of we're describing these seemingly intractable social dynamics, but across the spectrum, what are French politicians doing? How are they responding? Maybe we can start with the president himself. You're right. The first reaction from Macron was to blame the cop. The French National Assembly held a minute silence for Nail. The cop was thrown in preventive detention, which is not going beyond what the law would normally do for somebody who's only suspected. He hasn't been formally charged with anything,

and he's presumed innocent until a court. Randolph's a judgment that he's been thrown in jail anyway. And the minute's silence was very offensive to some people because the National Assembly refused to have a minute's silence for Lola, who was this little 12-year-old girl who was a... sexually assaulted and butchered by an Algerian illegal immigrant several months ago. And she was a co-celebrbe, and the National Raleigh tried to have the National Assembly have a minute's silence for her and their refutes.

So that's how it started for Macron. That's where his reflexes are. And then as the violence sort of got bigger and bigger, he had a very bizarre, frankly, press conference where he blamed the violence on social networks and video games and said that the answer was to ban people who shared those violent videos on social networks. Seems a bit insufficient, given the gravity of the problem. Well, I mean, the sad thing is that it's probably smart politics because his electoral base are well-of-people who are over 60,

And a lot of them probably do think that the cause of violence is social networks and video games. But I agree that given the scale of the civic violence, it's somewhat underwhelming. Not long ago, I saw someone go through a sudden loss, and it was a stark reminder of how quickly life can change and why protecting the people you love is so important. Knowing you can take steps to help protect your loved ones and give them that extra layer of security brings real peace of mind. The truth is, the consequences of not having life insurance can be seen. serious. That kind of financial strain, on top of everything else, is why life insurance indeed matters. Ethos is an online platform that makes getting life insurance fast and easy to protect your family's future in minutes, not months. Ethos keeps it simple. It's 100% online,

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use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. you know in the u.s we always divide i'm thinking about the george floyd riots the fault lines were drawn very the post-george floyd uh riots uh throughout the the summer of 2020 very quickly you had a dividing line in american politics mccrone is sort of a weird figure uh in terms of confounding left and right often sort of bouncing between the two uh but in the traditional left you're thinking I'm thinking Jean-Luc Melanchon, guys like that, how are they responding to this?

And we could talk about the right in a second. But are there any significant French political figures who are, if not defending, at least excusing or saying, no, this is understandable. This is the cry of the oppressed, that sort of thing. Oh, so the Menorson and his accolites. Like the story of Menorshan could be, you know, like a book or a novel because he's a philosophy professor.

who used to be a man of the traditional Enlightenment left. He, you know, he said thing, like, you know, race doesn't exist. It's not true to say that, you know, France was a colonial oppressor because his parents were working class whites in Algeria and his true, like the

poor white people in Algeria, French colonists, were very poor and poorer than poor white people in France. And he used, and he has completely transformed into this race baiter, gone from this very secular figure to this quasi-Islamist figure because that's his

electoral base, that's his electoral base, that's the electoral base of the far left in France now. It's the so-called Islamal leftism. And so he has been, you know, he has explicitly said, I will not call for peace. he tweeted that sentence and several of his elected said

no peace but justice and like you know posting clips of Martin Luther King saying riots or the language of the unheard and all that stuff I mean it's really you know if you want to talk about insurrections and like supporting insurrections

I mean it's very very frightening and from my perspective just completely unconscionable And on the right, you mentioned before National Rally seeking that the National Rally Party is led by, not anymore, but for quite some time by the Le Pen family, who many of our listeners are certainly familiar with who've looked at the right, the far right. I'm always uncomfortable because it's such a grab bag of politics, but generally considered on the right in some fashion, despite complicated domestic politics. populist fright. Right. And they clearly have taken an anti-immigrant stance in the past, you know, and with people not necessarily entering French society in ways. And like you said, remaining apart, not considering themselves French, whatever their passport says. What's interesting to me about Le Pen is she had steadily gained more and more support over years from being this rare fringe party that shocked France by making it to a runoff 20 years. ago to, she's still lost fairly decisively to Macron last year, but

yeah, she has a block that's basically 40% of the country that will vote for her no matter what. Could you see a scenario where some of these voices who had once been considered fringe and while some people might consider her policies fringe, she, politically, her support is not

necessarily fringe anymore. Like you said, a very large chunk of the country is willing to support her, even look past things that they may find, not not to their liking. Is this the kind of thing that changes French political culture and resets people's perceptions and what they might allow? I know we're still four years out from the next presidential election, but how does

this affect French politics and the right in France? I'm honestly curious. I don't really know. my general sense is this is very cynical is that everybody has made up their mind a long time ago

and they believe what they believe and like if you want to believe that the riots are just like a sad but understandable response to systemic racism or if you want to believe that the riots are you know yet another example of

the errors of mass immigration, you're going to believe that. If you believe, you know, I just don't want to think too hard about these issues, which is probably the position of many people. Unless, you know, unless it's literally your car that's getting burned,

I may be wrong about that, you know, because they are an order of magnitude larger. They are more geographically spread. So my joke about it being literally your car that's getting burnt, less of a joke. The short answer is that

politically, of course, it's good for the national rally. And it's bad for Macron because it happened under his watch, and for two or three days, he just sort of watched it happen. So all else equal, yes, but is it going to

completely shift French politics instead of like moving Le Pen up by two points send Macon down by two points. I wouldn't bet on it. Anything's possible, but I wouldn't bet on it.

The ones who really be clown themselves are the so-called Republicans who are the moderate center-right party, who is now a run with rural France for 40 years. And they, you know, they essentially talked about how

this was like the product of systemic racism and how the answer was to spend more money on the value, which is, you know, regardless of the merits, the exact opposite of what their voters, or in most cases, former voters believe. So, you know, you understand why it went from, you know, the default party of government in France to a party that's got like 20 members of parliament. This is sort of a pretty common trend throughout Europe. You see it in Spain with people going from Partido Popular to Vox, where they, there are people who traditionally were always voting for the center right, but things get bad in one way or another, and they're starting

to consider the, it's like, ah, yeah, you know, national rally, kind of some anti-Semitism here and there, but man, those riots are bad, and I guess we'll roll the dice. And honestly, I mean, the anti-Semitism stuff was 20 years ago. Right, that was more the dad than the daughter, right? But I'm just saying, like, that's their thinking is like that label is attached to there and they don't want to touch it, but suddenly they're considering other options. I guess the, the last, question um the last question is is there anything else but uh the my last question for you is is there and maybe this is just my american problem solution mentality but legislatively is there anything coming i mean i understand now it's about restoring order and dealing with the security

situation but in the wake of this do you see any any legislation moving through the national Assembly. I know it's tricky because Macron doesn't have a majority, but what could possibly be done? Is there any solution? Or is this just one of those intractable societal conflicts that we have to wait and see and we don't know? So in terms of what will happen, they've already said they're going to spend more money on the Bonnier. So that's going to be coming in the National Assembly. In terms of what could be done, I mean, you know, burning cars is already illegal in France, so the problem is not the law.

Burning down somebody's house is already, you know. And in terms of immigration law, I mean, this is one of the problems with the French debate around immigration, is there's nothing legislation can do because most of it is written either by courts or by EU treaties. And so there is nothing the legislator can do. One reason why immigration has been so bad in France is that most of it is done through what's known in the U.S. is chain migration, so you bring over somebody from your relative and they can bring over their relative and so on and so on, which means there's no like criteria for do you have a degree, are you, you know, not an Islamic prodigal, you know, zero, none. most of the people coming here are coming here through chain migration, and chain migration

has been entrenched as a constitutional right by the Conseil d'Etat with no textual basis, like literally none. This is why the main demand of those sort of right-wing parties is a referendum on immigration, because a referendum would allow to amend the Constitution, which is the only way to go over, to overturn a Supreme Court decision. And how do you get a referendum in France? Does it start in the legislature? Or how do you? So there's two ways.

There's Article 11 of the Constitution where the president does it. And then there's Article 8, 9, where there has to be a vote by the parliament and then a referendum. It doesn't sound like Macron is eager to hold a resolution. referendum on immigration, or maybe he is, I don't know. I mean, he definitely isn't. If he did, he would become the most popular politician in my lifetime, certainly. He would become the most popular French politician in. I mean, it's one of the mysteries of the age we live in. It's that politicians could do all these things, which, whether or not they would be good or bad, they would be extremely popular. And, you know, politicians are supposed to want to be more popular and they

want to do them. So if Macon changed nothing about his agenda and just became very anti-immigration, or not even very anti-immigration, just, you know, let's stop family migration from Africa, just that. He would be, he would like double his approval ratings at least. Pascal, thanks for your time. Thank you. I'm going to be able to be.