French Police Protect The Republic From Its Teenagers While Shops Learn What A Minority Can Do

The French state has responded to a wave of nationwide protests with its traditional blend of heavy policing and solemn presidential vocabulary. On Saturday some 550,000 people, according to the interior ministry, took to the streets, from secondary school pupils and students to trade unionists and veteran yellow vest activists, angry about rising living costs, fuel prices and a crumbling public education system. The movement began in September with school blockades in Créteil.

Most marched peacefully. Police nonetheless deployed tear gas and stun grenades, in some places before the marches had even started, and Human Rights Watch had already documented a 15 year old who reportedly lost a hand to a stun grenade and a 14 year old whose jaw was shattered by a tear gas canister. The police oversight body was investigating two dozen incidents before the weekend began.

A violent minority meanwhile set fires, attacked town halls, breached the one in Marseille and looted shops; around 1,500 businesses were damaged, more than 2,000 people were detained, hundreds of officers were injured and two protesters died in circumstances still under investigation. President Emmanuel Macron vowed that those who sought to bring down the Republic will be held responsible, in the polished tone of a head of state deeply disappointed by the manners of his citizens. The official narrative presents the state as a bastion of order holding back chaos. It is less talkative about why a movement for better schools ended up treating teenagers to orthopaedic surgery.