France’s Riots Are a Warning for the West

France is no stranger to protests that degenerate into violence, but for years, pundits have offered a ready narrative to explain them.

Student demonstrations are provoked by budget cuts to education, they say. Economists connect protests in the poor banlieues of France’s big cities to economic inequality and state failure. Historians draw intricate analogies to May 1968 or to the French tradition of “Jacquerie,” the centuries-old peasant revolts against the ruling class.

This narrative is reassuring. It roots riots in material questions, all the easier to provide prepackaged material solutions. It offers politicians a ready template during election season: vow to hire more school staff and build more glitzy community centers in the banlieues. Police are ordered to let the street protests take place, only intervening when the protesters go home and professional agitators arrive to stir up trouble, then step aside to let the politicians take the limelight with their flashy promises. Protests are just the French national hobby. There is nothing new under the sun.

The events in France since September should shatter that narrative once and for all. These riots are different from those that have afflicted France in the past, exposing civilizational fractures within the country that threaten her very survival. And they reveal the status of our cold civil war, where only one side is allowed to fight.