France Faces Weekend Violence Again as Cops Battle With “Protesters” in “Largely Peaceful” Marches
Rampaging “protesters” continued their march for mayhem and destruction in France during the weekend.
Cops arrested more than 1,000 people, and video that went viral today from the previous weekend’s rioting belies the claim that the protestors are “students” concerned about education, or dissatisfied Frenchmen worried about the cost of living.
The weekend’s march for lower prices and better education included fighting with cops, who seized AK-47 rifles and submachine guns.
The video shows destruction and looting, notably of a Rolex store in Marseilles.
“Large Peaceful Protests”
The New York Times and CBS News portrayed Saturday’s protests in rather anodyne language. The New York Post portrayed the event differently.
“Police made 1,314 arrests in nationwide protests in France, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said Sunday, after demonstrations over the high cost of living and the country’s education system earlier in the day remained largely peaceful,” the network reported:
Nuñez said 53 officers were hurt in marches. He said on Saturday marches “passed off well” in cities, but police officers found themselves confronted with “an extremely elevated level of violence” from “ultra-left” groups later in the day. Nuñez said some shops and businesses had been looted, but “the scale was far smaller” than a week earlier, when some 3,000 businesses were damaged or looted.
“Unrest Erupts Again in France, but This Time, With Less Property Damage,” the Times headline ran:
After largely peaceful marches on Saturday, clashes broke out in the evening. But a large-scale police presence, 1,000 arrests and the rerouting of protest routes kept a lid on wholesale vandalism.
“Protesters clashed with the police in cities across France again on Saturday evening, extending a cycle of social unrest that has gripped the country since last month,” the Times continued:
But unlike a week ago, the mass demonstrations did not devolve into a spectacle of arson, looting and other violence.…
For most of the day, these rallies, organized by a French labor union, were peaceful, despite their size. France’s interior ministry estimated that 410,000 people had joined marches across the country. The C.G.T., the union, claimed a turnout of 800,000 people.
As night fell and the police began dispersing the demonstrators, clashes broke out in some cities. Protesters hurled fireworks and police fired volleys of tear gas or torrents from water-cannon trucks. In Paris, officials blamed the skirmishes on a renegade group of roughly 500 rioters.…
In Marseille, clashes broke out between protesters and police near Porte d’Aix, an arch where a demonstration was supposed to conclude. Young men, many with their faces covered and some wearing gas or ski masks, dragged large sheets of metal into the street as barricades, while others threw rocks and bottles at riot police or set off fireworks in their direction.
The Times blamed violence in Nice on “100 far-right activists” who fought with the leftist protesters.
The Times also reported that cops seized weapons, including “fireworks launchers and, in one case, a samurai-style sword.”
Post Report
The Post omitted the description “largely peaceful,” which sounds similar to CNN’s chyron description of riots in Kenosha in 2020 as “mostly peaceful” while fires raged behind a reporter.
“Approximately 110,000 protesters gathered in rainy Paris, where clashes erupted at Porte de Vincennes, at the end of a march when some in the crowd threw bottles and rocks at police, who fired tear gas and used water cannons, injuring two,” the Post reported:
“Down with the state, the police and the fascists!” demonstrators shouted.
As well, the Post reported that the seized weapons included “fireworks, sling shots, steel balls and AK-47 rifles and Scorpion submachine guns.”
Cops also deployed blue Centaure vehicles, “14.5-ton trucks equipped with ballistic and explosive protection.”
That doesn’t sound largely peaceful.
Video in Lyon showed clashes with authorities.
Rolex Looting
More video wrecked the far-left media narrative that anger over education and high prices are driving the “protests.”
In Marseilles, the so-called students looted and destroyed a Rolex store.
“Macron’s ‘students’ needed a Rolex to help them study better. Marseille, Rolex and Louis Vuitton looted and destroyed by rioters,” Radio Genoa noted over video of wrecked outlet:
Look what they did to Marseille. Rolex and Louis Vuitton completely destroyed, windows broken, shelves empty, boxes on the floor. Everything stolen, everything destroyed by the rioters. And then they tell us it’s not the left’s fault. This is the France of the Left-Islam alliance. First they destroy everything and then they pretend nothing happened.
The Rolex store lost €3 million, or about $3.35 million, a report on X said. The Louis Vuitton store in Bordeaux lost €1.25 million, or about $1.4 million.
French President Emanuel Macron has confessed that the nation was completely unprepared for the rioting. A leftist burned down the historic town hall in Limoges, undoubtedly in another blow against high prices and subpar educational opportunities.
French authorities had a security file on suspect Hodei Ciarra Docampo, a ‘far-left activist likely to commit violent acts.’” Le Parisien reported.
That weekend’s violence invited nationwide curfews.
