Protests and familiar responses to them

As various commentators have recalled recently, mass protests France have been a part of the European scene since at least 1789.

FRANCE 24 has this report from October 22 on the current European protests – which aren’t restricted to France (1):

The actress Pamela Anderson attracted attention eight years ago by speaking out on the “yellow vest” protests at that time:

The French protests first began as a response to President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed fuel tax increase, something he has said would help the country’s green initiatives. But they have since encompassed everything from the minimum wage and taxes to demands for the dissolution of parliament and Macron’s resignation.

“I despise violence … but what is the violence of all these people and burned luxurious cars, compared to the structural violence of the French – and global – elites?” Anderson tweeted on Monday.

The photos of the destruction in Paris made for captivating viewing, she said, but it was important to examine what the motivation behind the protests were.

“[It] came from the rising tensions between the metropolitan elite and rural poor, between the politics represented by Macron and the 99% who are fed up with inequality, not only in France, all over the world,” she added.

On her Pamela Anderson Foundation site she further elaborated the following day.

The yellow vest movement, she wrote, “is a revolt that has been simmering in France for years. A revolt by ordinary people against the current political system which – as in many other western countries – colludes with the elite and despises its own citizens.”

Despite what critics of the movement have said, she wrote, the average person in France is not opposed to environmental initiatives, they simply don’t think the burden of paying for it should fall on them while the wealthy are given tax breaks.

“When some protesters destroy cars and burn shops, they symbolically attack private property that is the basis of capitalism. When they attack police officers, they symbolically reject and challenge repressive state forces – forces that primarily protect the capital.” (1) [emphasis added] (2)

Lots of things are involved in political protests. People who are upset about something. There is a government or a company or some other entity they want to do something about it. There are streets and parks and bridges and buildings they use for their protest. Other people will be inspired by the protests. Police, administrators, schools and businesses and property owners will have opinions to express on the protests. Politicians, parties and political activists will try to use the protests somehow to their advantage. Some churches and religious groups may be sympathetic to the protests, others will consider them a revolt against God and basic decency. If the protests are large enough to rate “front page” coverage by urban newspapers – or top promotion by digital algorithms – there will be at least some minor vandalism in the form of broken windows or spray-painting or at least excessive trash on streets and sidewalks.

Far be it from me to throw shade on decisive actions by political leaders, like Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s famous “sternly worded letters” to President Trump. But public protests are also an essential part of democratic politics.

How public officials, particularly the police forces in places where the protests are occurring, is obviously very important. As are the responses by politicians. The reporting on recent protests in France suggest that the police have been fairly ham-handed in their responses in some cases. And the far right, notably including former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, part of the Peter Thiel’s stable of sponsored politicians, to rant about foreigners and Muslims causing all the trouble.

Le Monde/AFP reported on some of the events on Saturday:

French police fired tear gas on Saturday, October 24, to prevent protesters in several cities from advancing to their centers, in fresh nationwide demonstrations held a week after riots broke out, AFP journalists saw.

Police fired tear gas at protesters in Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Montpellier and Nantes, hours after Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez warned: "We will not tolerate any violence or any disturbance of public order."

Authorities deployed 70,000 security forces across the country for the new marches held against the cost of living, after ones a week ago degenerated into street violence that saw public buildings vandalized, hundreds of shops looted and 2,700 people arrested. …

Police said 110,000 people were taking part in a protest march in Paris, where shops were boarded up and the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay museums closed. Scores of riot police stood guard to prevent protesters getting onto the city's ring road.

The main demonstration in the capital, pushed to its southeast rim under a last-minute order by authorities, was held largely in a calm and festive manner, with some parents and their toddlers looking on from the sidelines.

But there was also widespread anger at President Emmanuel Macron for banning non-union demonstrations his government deemed "illegitimate" and keeping all protesters away from city centers. [emphasis added] (3)

A New York Times report summarized the recent French protests and related events with this introduction:

The nationwide unrest in France began with a handful of student demonstrations at high schools in suburban Paris last month.

Now, in cities across the country, antigovernment marchers are protesting expensive living conditions, high fuel prices and conditions in schools. Using the unrest as a smoke screen for vandalism, rioters and looters have also joined in.

With the protests in their second month, the police have arrested thousands, and politicians are divided over how to respond. (4)

In the late 1960s in the US, various mass protests around civil rights and the Vietnam War produced a lot of discussion often polarized around conservative “law-and-order” rhetoric, which has persisted on the right. Except, of course, in instances when rightwing gun nuts murder somebody and claim that hate a stand-your-ground right to do so. Republicans as a group were remarkably lacking in outrage after Donald Trump on January 6, 2026 knowingly sent an armed, violent, howling mob into the US Capitol to attack member of Congress and stage a coup. Republican legislators in Oklahoma passed a law in 2021 to allow drivers to legally ram their cars into protesters.

Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, signed HB 1674 on Wednesday, even as advocates excoriated their elected officials for undermining democracy. ...

Legislators passed HB 1674 following historic protests against police brutality and racial injustice last summer, both in Oklahoma and across the country. The mass demonstrations – most of which were peaceful – faced sharp criticism from Republicans, who decried property damage and violence by some protesters.

Meanwhile, cars have become a weapon among those hoping to disrupt demonstrations, or drivers who get flummoxed and enraged. People drove their vehicles into protests more than 100 times last summer, and at least two protesters were fatally struck, according to USA Today. [emphasis added] (5)

On the one hand, it’s ridiculous to see such organized mass protests as we’ve seen recently in France and elsewhere in Europe as just some kind of nihilist phenomenon, as their rightwing critics would prefer to have it. Seeing them as an Islamist uprising against Western civilization as xenophobic politicians would prefer to see it, is pretty much on the insane spectrum of opinion.

In the case of the French students and also with some of the large recent protests in other European countries, there are valid complaints, such as the seriously deficient funding for public school systems. France’s national government is directly responsible for schools, a more centralized structure than in other European countries where it’s more of a function of state/provincial governments than it is in France.

But austerity economics as practiced in the EU – particularly in the eurozone, the countries which have adopted the euro as their currency – has been causing deficiencies in public services from schools in France to maintaining the railway system in Germany, and much else. A central plank of austerity economics is to protect the wealthiest and most profitable countries and individuals as far as possible from requirements that they pair a fair share of taxes to support the countries and the communities who make their wealth and profits possible.

Notes:

(1) How far will youth-led protests go? <https://youtu.be/4v0G5lXPK_4?si=AnSAoKHtYAz4Y6KG> (Accessed: 2026-24-10).

(2) O'Neil, Luke (2018): Pamela Anderson's political activism – from French riots to broken capitalism. Guardian 12/06/2018. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/06/pamela-anderson-political-activism-is-no-flash-in-the-pan> (Accessed: 2026-24-10).

(3) Le Monde/AFP (2026): French police fire tear gas during fresh protests, say 110,000 marched in Paris. Le Monde English 10/24/2026. <https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2026/10/24/france-braces-for-new-protests-tightening-security-and-boarding-up-shops_6762835_7.html> (Accessed: 2026-24-10).

(4) Sands, Leo (2026): How a Small Student Protest Spread Across France. New York Times 10/24/2026. Gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/world/europe/france-protests-timeline.html?unlocked_article_code=1.LFE.Cwsh.20AT8u9z27fO&smid=url-share (Accessed: 2026-24-10).

(5) Villarreal, Alexandr (2021): New Oklahoma law targets protesters while protecting drivers who hit them. Guardian 04/22/2021. <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/22/oklahoma-law-protesters-drivers> (Accessed: 2026-24-10).