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Macron betrays French police as country burns in George Floyd-style protests – LifeSite

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(LifeSiteNews) — A riot over the shooting of a French-Algerian has sparked civil disorder in France which the authorities seem unable to control. 

On the morning of Tuesday, June 27, a 17-year-old was shot dead by police at a traffic stop in the suburb of Nanterre, Paris. 

With the shooting of 17-year-old Nahel M, a wave of violence has erupted which has paralyzed the country amid scenes reminiscent of a war zone. 

More than 900 people have been arrested, with a reported 45,000 police mobilized nationally in response to the growing crisis. Thousands of fires rage, countless cars have been burned out and hundreds of public buildings set ablaze, with the largest public library in Marseille being torched. 

With the chaos mounting in intensity and scope, President Emmanuel Macron was initially nowhere to be seen. He spent Wednesday night, as Paris burned, at an Elton John concert. 

His statements on the collapse of law and order in France were initially supportive of the police. He has resiled this position, now siding with the victim, and he places the blame for the violence on “social media and video games.”

It has been announced that the French president will consider “all options,” having left a European Union meeting in Brussels to finally return and face the crisis this morning. 

As Reuters reports:

Large social media platforms like TikTok and Snapchat should co-operate with French authorities to calm down violence which has erupted this week following the killing of a 17-year old by a police officer, President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday.

‘Social media platforms play a significant role in the events of the past few days,’ Macron said in televised remarks from a government emergency meeting.

Citing TikTok and Snapchat (SNAP.N), he said social media help rioters organize themselves but also contributed to ‘mimicking’ behavior by some young people, who repeated what they saw online and lost track of reality.

‘It sometimes feels like some of them re-live in the streets the video games that have intoxicated them,’ he said.

The government will work with social networks towards withdrawing ‘the most sensitive types of content’ and is asking social media companies to disclose to French authorities the identities of ‘those who use these social networks to call for disorder and promote violence.’

Devastation across France

An impression of the devastation is rendered by this long video from Times Now, which shows hours of various – and often shocking – footage. 

All public transport has been shut down across France as rioting replaces law and order in the country. With armored vehicles moving to Lyon, and scenes of black smoke billowing over Marseille, the nation is engulfed in lawless violence on an unparalleled scale. 

An undercover policeman has been beaten to death. [WARNING: GRAPHIC]. Rioters have been filmed firing automatic weapons, with numerous instances of looting.  

A shopping center has been invaded by rioters in Creteil.

Police have rushed to contain the violence, using armored vehicles against gunfire and explosives. 

Even firemen and engines have been attacked by the rioters. 

Macron U-turn

The French President Emmanuel Macron has reversed his earlier position of support for the French Police, with his statement today now firmly critical of them. 

In an extraordinary move, the government has suggested that the police union be disbanded for supporting its own members during what seems to be crisis of public order that has escalated out of control. 

With the police isolated by their president, who described the shooting of Nahel as “inexcusable” on Wednesday, comparisons have been made in French newspaper Le Monde to the sensationalized death of George Floyd. 

The authorities – of the government and the media – have likewise already found the police guilty. 

As Le Monde writes:

Leaving aside the completely specific American racial context, the events are reminiscent of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man suffocated by a White Minneapolis police officer in May 2020. This act was committed by a law enforcement officer, was filmed and broadcast almost live and involved an emblematic representative of a socially discriminated category: a man from a working-class neighborhood. In the United States, it rekindled the Black Lives Matter movement.

This unprecedented French scenario of indisputable fatal police misconduct explains the unusual condemnation of police actions at the highest level of government. President Emmanuel Macron was right to declare that ‘nothing, nothing justifies the death of a young person.’ And so was Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne for noting that the incident in Nanterre ‘clearly does not appear to comply with the rules of engagement of our law enforcement agencies.’

With the situation worsening, this position is not one conducive to the restoration of even the tenuous order which prevailed in France before the outbreak of mass violence on Tuesday. 

A candidate for sanity

Yet there is one major politician who is willing to speak for France, and for law and order. Eric Zemmour, leader of the Reconquête (Reconquest) party, has called for the French people to show their personal support for their police – starting tomorrow on July 1. 

As Zimmour writes, translated by LifeSiteNews:

Dear members,

Is the government letting the police down? Reconquête! stands by them!

Darmanin, Borne, Macron: one by one, all the representatives of power have dropped our police officers in an attempt to appease the suburbs. They got dishonor and war.

We didn’t!

This morning, on Europe 1, I clearly stated our support for our police forces in the face of rioters from foreign enclaves.

Now it’s up to you to take up the baton and show our police, gendarmes and firefighters that the French are with them.

From tomorrow morning and for the next few days, we’re asking you to go to your nearest police station or fire station with a small gift (a word of support, morning pastries, chocolates, children’s drawings, whatever you can afford) and show your support for our brave protectors.

If you wish, and remembering to blur the police officers’ faces if necessary, don’t hesitate to post a small photo or video on social networks with the #SoutienFDO.

They protect us, they risk their lives every night, they are let down by those who should protect them: all together at Reconquête, let’s support them!

The violence has been described as the initial phase of a civil war in France. Zemmour spoke to Europe 1 today, June 30, to describe the violence as “a revolt – a manifestly ethnic revolt”  – complicated by looting, extortion and the demand for immunity from the law. 

Zemmour notes the comparison to similar riots in 2015, which led to the disbursement of 40 billion euros to improve the social conditions of the immigrant rioters.  

He notes that since then there has been an increase of up to four million more migrants from the global South, many of whom prefer the “regulation of Islam, of the criminal drug and trafficking gangs” to the morals, customs, laws and practices of France. 

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