To think the French students are out of control?

That is a fair point - but they are posting directly on Mumsnet, so the Mumsnet moderators could verify them if there was any reason to doubt the veracity of their claims (which I don’t imagine there is)

I don’t think screenshots from X are helpful. Their posts can’t be verified.

LFI are certainly taking advantage, as I said and the movement is changing but the base of student protest was organic. Saturday was a bigger protest drawing in new groups.

The government have handled this very badly. I am not an LFI supporter, I think Mélechon is horrendous. The interior ministry is responsible for allowing police brutality against minors and Lecornu has been a disaster. I’m normally quite sympathetically to the government but this time they have totally failed.

Exactly.

Ok, well I had to look this up myself and he does indeed claim the violence is organised by far left groups, but adds that the rioting is done by delinquents who are not political.

"(...) a déploré le Premier ministre, pour qui "des groupes d’ultragauche ont organisé la violence dans plusieurs villes de France" tandis que "des délinquants s’(en) sont mêlés pour piller et détruire"."

I haven’t said I haven’t seen that destruction.

In fact, I said very clearly in my first post that I thought what began as legitimate protests had been hijacked by violent far left agitators.

Mindless rioters of the type taking part in the last London/English riots.

People are losing sight of the fact that neither side are "winning" in this, just Russia laughing it's head off...

Sure, there are organisers and there are some people who join in for other reasons. The organising and much of the violence is from the left.

I have got no reason to imagine posters are lying when they say they are in France. But if anyone had any reason to doubt them, I imagine they’d be reported and Mumsnet could verify them.

Mumsnet moderators can’t verify people posting on X. That’s why I don’t think screenshots from there are helpful sources. I don’t really understand what is controversial about that viewpoint.

I'm sympathetic to a lot of forign issues, I cant say Palistine is at the top of my list.

Irrelevant anyway. My point is, you really cant claim that none of the rioters were students. Im sure lots of people who just enjoy rioting joined in, of course they would, but its disingenuous to claim no 'protestors' were involved and its 2 strictly seperate groups. Thats just not how things work in reality, and in my opinion, a good portion of them were far left. Unless you have actual proof to the contrary, you'll have to accept people are allowed opinions that are different from yours.

"its disingenuous to claim no 'protestors' were involved and its 2 strictly seperate groups."

The rioters dress differently and arrive separately. It's not that a peaceful protestor suddenly starts looting a shop. Fighting with a police officer maybe, but you don't suddenly become a thief, do you?

I don’t think that’s the case. Crowd behaviour can be contagious.

I’m sure plenty of students were peaceful. But the looting was full on enough with many cheering it on.

My point wasn’t that the posters might actually be sitting in Bristol or Edinburgh, it was that we have no idea what their information is, who it comes from or what they want to believe.

So you think its impossible that someone who is a student and unhappy with conditions, might protest and then later join in with the riot because actually, they also enjoy a bit of anarchy?! You realise students can be violent, nasty thugs too, yes?

Agree. Tbh, the sudden outrage amongst young people about class sizes and substitute teachers reminds me a bit of the Fridays for Future demos.

Some kids certainly felt passionate about it, but many just tagged along, happy about getting a day off school (until their hero Greta jumped onto the next cause).

The rioters have their faces covered.
I guess it's not impossible that normal protesters might join them. I can imagine some destruction of the area around where they're protesting, but looting shops and attacking fire engines seems so far removed from what they went there to do.

"the sudden outrage amongst young people about class sizes and substitute teachers"

We protested about these kinds of education cuts 30 years ago when I was young.

No, this is French far left led coupled with simple thuggery.

Greta has popped over there now. Admonishing the police for violence.

Not sure she was at the town hall burning though.

She was in spirit!

I’ve been in France when the French were demonstrating about the cost of fuel. We were in Lyon and couldn’t get out. Demonstrators were everywhere waving flags and using loud hailers. All the fuel stations across France were shut. The French really know how to get their message across.

These types of demonstrations in France and the far right rising in Germany put me off wanting to rejoin the EU. Do we really want to be part of that?

I don’t think that part is visible.

My post was deleted for saying honestly that this has degenerated into an unholy alliance of three groups. I want to know which one is the one we are not allowed to say. Experiment below...ABC..

A..... anarchists

B...the far left