(07-05-2023, 08:17 AM)F2d5thCav Wrote: Read one (informed) opinion that French society is a power struggle between three factions now.

The immigrants, the left leaning Paris elite, and "ordinary France" -- those who live in smaller cities and the countryside.

The elite play the police, praising them when they bash heads of people like the working people protesting the arbitrary increase in the pension age, and castigating them when there is an incident with an immigrant youth who had already been in court 15 times.

The elite aren't large in number but still control the police, the army, the media, and various powers among the commercial sector.  Lets them get away with a lot.

Cheers

Quote:Children as young as 12 or 13 have been detained for attacking law enforcement and setting fires during six nights of violence after the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk in suburban Paris.

The average age of the 3,354 people arrested over the past week was 17, the interior minister Gerald Darmanin said.

In all, 99 town halls have been attacked during the unrest, including an attempt to ram a burning vehicle into the home of l’Hay-les-Les Roses mayor Vincent Jeanbrun. His wife and one of his young children were injured during the attack, which began at the weekend while they slept.

“We saw the real face of the rioters, that of assassins,” Mr Jeanbrun said in an emotional speech. France and “democracy itself” were being attacked in the days of rioting, he said.

Attack on mayor’s home prompts support for local governments


Monday 3 July 2023 16:00 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

A car packed with explosives struck the home of the mayor of the Paris suburb of L’Hay-les-Roses over the weekend, an unusually personal attack that authorities said would be prosecuted as an attempted homicide.
The attack prompted an outpouring of support for local governments in many towns where the city hall is often literally central to public life.


L’Hay-les-Roses Mayor Vincent Jeanbrun said his wife and one of his children were injured and criticized the government for doing too little, too late — and said blaming social media or parents was papering over a bigger problem.

Quote: Hundreds of protesters defied a ban on Saturday to march in central Paris against police violence, a week after riots sparked by the killing of a teenager in a Parisian suburb.

Police dispersed the crowd from Paris's huge Place de la Republique, sending several hundred people towards the wide Boulevard Magenta, where they were seen marching peacefully. Two people were arrested, Paris police said after the demonstration.

The Paris police department said in a decision published on its website that it had banned the planned demonstration, citing a "context of tensions".


"We still enjoy freedom of expression in France, but freedom of assembly, in particular, is under threat", said Felix Bouvarel, a health worker who came to the gathering in spite of the ban which he called "shocking."
Authorities also banned a demonstration in the northern city of Lille on Saturday, while a march in Marseille took place with a changed trajectory, ordered out of the city centre.


Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said this week that more than 3,000 people, mostly teenagers, had been arrested in six nights of riots that ended a week ago. Some 2,500 buildings were damaged.