Radical youth movements are mobilising across the nation
While France’s week of violent riots at first seems a retread of the banlieue uprising of 2005, in one respect it has displayed a new development, under-discussed in Anglophone media, which was absent a generation ago. Namely, the first evidence of a Right-wing counter-mobilisation against the rioters. In provincial cities like Lyon, Angers and Chambéry, groups of masked and hooded youths have appeared, dressed in black and armed with batons and pepper spray, to confront the rioters and the Left-wing demonstrators supporting them.
I saw a couple of videos purporting to show such activity but was unable to vet them. The military has launched an investigation after “rumours” began to circulate that soldiers from a nearby base masked up and delivered bound rioters to the police in Lorient – Riots: the army opens an investigation into the supposed help of marine commandos to the police in Lorient
