La tour Eiffel from l’Arc de triomphe, Oct. 30, 2026. Photo by JM Gregg.
When protests broke out in France a couple of weeks ago, it was disgusting how the right-wing media rushed in to write France’s obituary, probably for the forty-thousandth time. Did they bother to write obituaries for, say, Turkey, with its right-wing government since 2003, when millions took to the streets in 2013 but got little for it but brutal crowd control? Whereas France has already made substantial concessions to students, including 3,000 additional substitute teachers, 4 billion euros for school renovations, and 15,000 additional places in higher education.
The Spectator (as usual) was particularly vile: “Can we be surprised that France has descended into nihilism?” and “Will we always have Paris?” In an op-ed in the Jewish Journal: “Au Revoir, France.” The Washington Examiner blamed the protests on “scum” immigrants. Fox News told its viewers that France is burning and Europe is broke. Can you imagine a headline that says “Will we always have Turkey?”
Protest in France is an institution. The republic was founded by insurrection, and its national holiday commemorates storming a prison. Unlike authoritarian governments, France’s governments respond when the people are clearly discontented. Government concessions after the 2018 Yellow Vest protests cost the government 17 billion euros (which the government could ill afford).
As always, there is blind hypocrisy in right-wing criticism of the left. In 1968, hundreds of thousands of right-wing supporters of Charles de Gaulle took to the streets. In 1984, something like a million people took to the streets to defend Catholic private schools from being folded into the public school system. They got what they wanted. The right wing is perfectly fine with street protests in France as long as it’s the right wing doing it.
And just look at the difference between what the right has agitated for and what the left has agitated for. The left marches for paid vacation, a living wage, roofs on the schools. The right marched to keep Algeria French, to keep public money flowing to private schools, and to try to stop gay marriage.
News reports out of France when the student protests began led many people to believe that France would be a dangerous place to go. It happens that a friend in California had booked a trip to Paris many months in advance, arriving on October 23. Some of his friends and family, spooked by what they saw in the media, told him that he should cancel the trip. My advice was to go on to Paris, not to worry, and just to be aware of where and when protests were scheduled. After more than a week in Paris he reports that he has seen lots of police but no disorder.
It’s probably not hard to understand why right-wingers are so afraid of people in the streets. Sometimes it’s the only remaining way to bring down an authoritarian government. Hungary, just months ago, still had enough of its democracy left to change its government with an election. All too often, in the absence of a working democracy, only people in the streets can do it.
Note: Claude helped with the research for this post.