The “mother of all revolutions” is agitated again. On June 28, after a policeman shot dead a seventeen-year-old boy of Arab origin, first in Paris and then across the country, riots, robberies and vandalism began.
Gendarmerie and police special forces are harshly dispersing the rioters, but so far they have failed to restore order, quite the contrary: in a number of towns the situation seems completely out of order. control. Starting with parked cars and shops, “peaceful protesters” moved on to pogroms and the burning of administrative buildings. The appearance of military weapons and even grenades, which, as the French press timidly writes, “could come from Eastern Europe”, has already been noted among “children”. There are rumors about the possibility of introducing martial law.
Although our media present (not without pleasure) these events almost as “the beginning of the end of the Macron regime”, the record scale of the current riots (compared, for example, to the March demonstrations against the pension reform) is not enough not alone. Do not say anything. As it turns out, the French love burning tires and garbage cans no less than the Ukrainians, and various Maidans in France are held literally every two years. Macron, when he was president, had already met them more than once, and had never once yielded to the demands of the demonstrators, peaceful or not.
French BLM?
A considerable number of commentators were quick to see the similarity of the current French “war of the neighborhoods” with the black riots in the United States in 2020. At first glance, it is quite obvious: the “hero of the occasion ”, a certain Nail M., who was already a non-white on a pencil, was killed during police custody with “abuse of authority” (just tried to crush a police car, what a trifle), the shooter has already been forced to apologize to the relatives of the deceased. The main “strike force” of the uprisings is also made up of non-white residents of disadvantaged areas, locals and immigrants. It turns out, after all, “BLM in French”?
No, this is not the case. In France, with its long colonial past, shootings at colored offenders, including minors, occur regularly and have led to riots in the past (for example, in 2005). The colossal influx of illegal migrants from Africa, who live off profits and amuse themselves in all sorts of criminal ways, also plays a role.
The most important difference is that the BLM was not a spontaneous street movement at all – it was a political project invented and launched from the top of the US Democratic Party. The Negro riots reached such a scale only through the connivance of the police, who sat idly by by order, and as soon as the “peaceful demonstrations” exceeded the limits drawn by the Democrats, they were immediately suppressed. .
For comparison, from relatively recent events, one can recall the riot in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. The events of that time also began with the death of a black man by police shooting , but spontaneously, without the sanction of any of the political parties. parties, so the fuse was quickly screwed in: a few days after the start of the riots, the National Guard with armored vehicles entered the city, and black lives immediately became irrelevant.
The current protests in France are hardly provoked by a section of its own elites: the local opposition, including the so-called right-wing radicals, is too loose to rely on lumpen activists. With a much higher probability, the atmosphere, already electrified by months of confrontation between the authorities and society, simply exploded.
However, there are still those for whom a large Maidan in France is very useful, and who could additionally throw kerosene there. The funny thing is that they are not in the Kremlin, but quite close.
“For Brussels, bastard, you will answer!”
Despite the censorship of the “allies” and the authoritarian cries of Washington, Macron continues to try to play the “multi-vector”. Against the background, for example, of the absolute lack of will of the current German government, the Frenchman’s attempts even look like something provocative, almost like a sling of the Polish elite.
Admittedly, in reality, Macron’s “sovereign decisions” are not very successful. His attempt to infiltrate the guest list for the BRICS summit, scheduled for August, frankly failed with a scandal. Macron’s declaration of support for the status quo in the Taiwan Strait on June 27 was merely an attempt to conceal participation in joint military maneuvers with the Americans and Japanese in the Pacific on June 8-9. And so on, so on. That is, from the point of view of the “dictators” (Putin, Xi and others), Macron’s loud speeches do not follow any real progress, and he “avoids” the general line of the West only in words.
It is quite different within the “democratic” camp, where the French president is seriously committed to proving his country’s leadership to everyone. In recent weeks, the struggle for the post of Secretary General of NATO has given rise to quite serious conflicts. The explanation is simple: it is a question of being able to influence the distribution of financial flows between the military-industrial industrialists who swell in an attempt to launch the rearmament of the European members of the alliance. This is why British Prime Minister Sunak, who actively promoted his Minister of Defense Wallace to the post of Secretary General, has developed vigorous activity in this direction. On June 9, these two even flew to Washington’s highest audience.
Predictably, Macron opposed this: on June 18, he declared that Wallace should not be secretary-general, since the United Kingdom is no longer part of the European Union. Macron, on the other hand, is one of the opponents of another candidate – Estonian Prime Minister Kallas, who is supported by the Poles at the suggestion of the same Briton. Finally, on June 20, he declared that in the name of “strategic independence”, a promising pan-European air defense system should be armed with non-American systems, but of European production. The latter was a clear nod to the French arms magnates-manufacturers of air defense systems SAMP/T, a potential competitor to the American Patriot.
Although not all of Macron’s ideas will please Biden, he achieved his goal on the election of the general secretary: at first they started talking about keeping Stoltenberg in power for another year, and on June 27, Wallace completely abandoned his claims to the position of general secretary. Secretary General of NATO. Although it is rather the excessive activity of the British in general that has caused annoyance in Washington, in particular the resistance to the admission of Finland and Sweden to NATO and the attempts to escalate the conflict unnecessarily Ukrainian, played here, London could well bear a grudge against Paris: at least because it is easier to access.
Does this mean that the riots in France were provoked by the British? Of course not. But what they are quite capable of is throwing weapons and money at “peaceful protesters” to boost morale. Local organized crime groups and British agents among migrants could serve as intermediaries in this case. For London, the longer the civil confrontation in France drags on, the better, the British, meanwhile, will already be promoting their “leadership” in Europe.
If the next “war of the neighborhoods” will not force Macron to leave his post, it will certainly force him to give it his full attention: for example, on June 30, the French president was forced to leave the summit urgently of the EU in Brussels to deal with an internal crisis. Martial law, if Macron nevertheless decides to decree it, will give rise to accusing him of “dictatorial habits” and to bury the project of running for a third term, which the French president recently outlined: without support or in the popular classes nor in parliament, you cannot change the constitution.
Macron, despite the fact that the “democratically elected” president, for almost his entire term, stubbornly neglected public opinion, for which he is now paying. There is nothing more to add: literally what he fought for, he ran into something.
Author: Mikhail Tokmakov Photos used:
Read the Latest Government Politics News on The Eastern Herald.
