The recent spate of riots that have caused billions in damages and injured thousands of police officers was a result of the failures of the national government to maintain law and order, French people believe while a majority fear that their nation is facing a “genuine crisis of the regime”.
What began as small-scale demonstrations in September at a few schools concerning funding and class sizes ballooned into a national revolt in which far-left agitators and their co-belligerents from activist groups, trade unions, and ethnic minority enclaves sowed destruction and violence. The violence, which caused damage worth upwards of $2 billion, with public building set on fire, nearly three thousand businesses looted or damaged, and over two thousand police officers and gendarmes injured, was felt nationwide.
According to the latest survey from Odoxa for Paris paper of record Le Figaro, 79 per cent of the French public put the blame for the federal government for failing to keep a lid on the chaos.
Perhaps more concerningly, the poll also found that nearly two-thirds (64 per cent) believe that the riots demonstrated a “genuine crisis of the regime”, compared to just 35 per cent who though the unrest was an issue of security and public order.
The opinion that the state itself is facing an emergency was held across the political spectrum, with 60 per cent of National Rally supporters agreeing with the sentiment, as well as 72 per cent of Socialists, and 82 per cent of supporters of far-left La France Insoumise (France in Rebellion/LFI) which has been accused of fomenting the unrest.
Although riots are certainly not unknown for the French, the president of Odoxa, Gaël Sliman, compared the latest round of riots to the student revolt — inspired Communist dictator Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China — which swept France in May of 1968, often held up as a pivotal moment for the French far-left, including by LFI presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who began his political career as a Bolshevik Trotskyist activist during the protests.
“Our fellow citizens are probably aware that, according to official figures, since the start of the movement at the end of September, more than 2,200 police officers and gendarmes have been injured, ten times more than the number of civilians: between 200 and 300 demonstrators, but also rioters and members of the Black Bloc, have been injured, and not necessarily by the police,” Sliman said.
“However, they probably don’t know that this also represents almost twice as many injuries among law enforcement as in May 1968… There were 1,233 injuries among law enforcement between May 3 and May 27, 1968, according to the count by the Ministry of the Interior at the time,” she added.
Following weeks of widely publicised footage and images of police coming under attack by radical leftists and youth hooligans, the vast majority of the public (85 per cent) have also come to the conclusion that police are not “sufficiently protected” when confronting “violent rioters”.
However, on this point, there is a significant divide between the left and right political factions, with left-leaning individuals being more likely to say that facing violent rioters is merely part of the role for police, while conservatives and centrists are more likely to view the risks as “not part of their job”.
Commenting on the violence experienced by officers week after week, deputy director of operational support for the specialised CRS anti-riot police, Sébastien Malzieu remarked: “The degree of violence is high and, above all, our units are facing a sharp increase in acts that increase tenfold with each demonstration.”
“If demonstrators threw paving stones in 1968, today we are arresting people equipped with hammers to break the cladding of buildings and stock up on heavy and sharp stones to target the police.”
The lack of provisioning for police has allegedly had significant consequences, with the Mayor of Limoges claiming last month that the infamous arson attack which burnt down the bell tower of the city’s 143-year-old City Hall came amid National Police officers literally running out of ammunition during the riots.
The Oxide survey found that the French public are broadly in favour of providing police and gendarmes with even supposedly controversial equipment to deal with rioters, including surveillance drones (85 per cent), armoured vehicles (76 per cent), crowd control grenades (62 per cent), and stun grenades (59 per cent).
Meanwhile, the public also appear willing to sacrifice liberties in order to contain the mob, including 70 per cent who said that they would be fine with authorities suspending social media services to prevent violent organising, and 64 per cent who approved of shutting down social media entirely in a given area to quell unrest.
The clear desire among the French for law and order has apparently been a boon to the campaign of National Rally presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, who has seen her poll numbers rise in recent weeks as she pledged to restore order to the streets of France. Conversely, President Emmanuel Macron, who has taken a soft, largely hands-off approach during the riots, has seen his support fall to the lowest of any modern French leader at just 13 per cent.