To think the French students are out of control?

This was posted earlier.

I expressed myself badly I think.

I do agree that violence is not the answer but, I also think it is the only thing that gets an answer. States have all the power, but surely rule by consent? When rules, regulations, and tax law favours the few rather than the many, what can be done? There have been peaceful protests for quite some time.

Can the State hit back? Well - it does so the question is moot. Can one complain about the excessive use of power, an imbalanced fight, unfair tactics? Yes. Should the state hit back is a different question and one I do not know how to answer. I am thinking the miners strike for example.

All these problems across the western world is the long tail of the 2008 banking crisis, we are all living through a fiscal crisis of the state, they have all spent too much money, since then and covid and are stuck. If you listened to the news recently the IMF stated that government's have to start paying down the debt, but more austerity will cause more problems, more far right, the next decade is going to be very choppy...

I saw a news programme in France about Calais. Not the camps, but the social housing blocks. My god, it was horrific. Lawless youths robbing people in broad daylight.

(Half) my family live in Italy and the second-generation immigrants not first generation are presenting a problem, like in Sweden. Disaffected, not interested in education, forming gangs.

The left don't behave like this, please don't buy into Russia's lies.

Even the Guardian headlines are bad

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/18/french-government-crisis-talks-violent-unrest-policing-macron

In Marseille, where masked groups stormed the city hall and a police station, the Socialist mayor, Benoît Payan, told BFMTV: “I have no words … I never thought I’d ever live through something like this. Hordes of rioters and looters attacked our common [state] buildings … with no real demands, but with the sole aim to wreck the demands of those who had demonstrated legitimately.”

Sorry? You think the right is rioting and stirring up trouble on the streets in France?

There are other forces at work here who are agitating, creating chaos and mayhem to undermine the French government Right wing commentators and X tweets are pumping out disinformation . With Le Pen waiting in the wings. This has gone way beyond a student protest.

The rioters dress differently and arrive separately. It's not that a peaceful protestor suddenly starts looting a shop.

Have the peaceful protesters attempted to stop the rioters? The peaceful ones must realise that the rioting and destruction are not doing their cause any good.

Ps ... this isn't about French students moaning about their classrooms. Stop watching the BBC and get your information elsewhere and get a grip on the real situation this is astonishing and embarrassing

France is alarmingly close to crashing the Eurozone. The ECB couldn’t bail them out. But the French wouldn’t accept massive state cuts.

We’d better hope it doesn’t happen because we’d be caught in the hurricane.

Mass migration has made France an amazing country and one that people the world over love to visit. I genuinely don't see what you are seeing with these protests, if anything they are a model example of multiculturalism because I see people of all ethnicities coming together to fight for their right to a decent education.

A lot of the destruction can be attributed to the far right who seem to be capitalising on genuine resentment in order to make the left look bad. That's what I'm hearing from people I know who are French.

Yes I saw that on IG. Really sad. The people who did that are responsible for her distress.

Over to you Ms Le Pen!

She's already done her (concerned, serious face on) address to the nation..some of the TV networks carried it this PM.

We get Melenchon later on at least one of the major rolling news channels...

It's election season........

The President addresses the nation at 2000 tonight.

What is France to do. Mass migration and a violent far left movement has left them out of options. Borrowing to buy off the left has run out of road. The state is broke and the economy is on the rocks. No jobs for them and the benefits train is out of gas. What a mess!

Over to you Ms Le Pen!

So basically then you are saying that rioting, looting and arson is acceptable if done by the Islamo-leftists but to be thoroughly condemned if done by anyone on the right.

And it's for that very reason that ordinary people who wouldn't normally vote for Marine Le Pen will vote for her in droves in 2027.

I’m getting the hang of it now. 👏

Yep.

There was a Parisien Tabac owner interviewed on French TV earlier.

Yesterday evening her shop was ransacked by looters with her still in it (she was trying to secure the grill when the mob forced their way in).

She's been left with nil stock and sporting a black eye.

I spoke to a relative earlier who lives in one of the Frnch cities that's been in the news..person on person violence,.no, not really, but some of the more upmarket stores have been trashed, lots of shopfronts gone in general.

TBH Some posters need to knock off it off with "poor protesting students" spin....that may have been the case some places last week but it's gone way beyond that now.....and the reallynsad thing is it's probably massive vote winner for the RN.

Its not FRENCH students.

Probably a huge vote for Le Pen next May

Then they have lost my sympathy then. How selfish can these shop owners be? Do they not understand that students will be the next generation of potential customers for their business if they had a decent living to be able to look forward to?

Just saw a shop-owner speaking to the Maire of Bordeaux basically saying those who work/working France have had enough.

probably a huge vote for Le Pen next May.

I don’t know if people are arsonists and looters because of some noble cause. What principle is behind someone going on the rob for Jordans, jewellery etc.?

Oh come on, you are making them sound like the far right. These people have a cause that they believe in, nobody listens to them, but now people are taking notice. I've been saying for years now that the establishment need to stop tarnishing people as far left for having genuine opinions about issues, and now they can have no complaints when people have finally had enough of being labelled as monsters.

@ITVXsponsoredbyDominoes You really think the thugs in balaclavas are anything to do with the students’ peaceful protests?

They are disaffected youth mostly from the deprived city outskirts who have been brought up without direction or protection by their parents.

I agree that an attack is unlikely for the reasons you give. But it’s a possibility all the same. The economics of it is what Putin would hesitate at. But if he really wants to test NATO resolve I can see it happening.

My hope would be that Russian forces are destroyed very quickly and he slinks off. We do now know that the Russian military is crap. The full-on war in Ukraine has lasted longer than WWI - and the conflict has been longer than both world wars combined if you time it from the illegal annexation of Crimea and fighting in the east of Ukraine!