France is on fire again. For over a week, rioters in urban centers across the country have looted and torched stores, public buildings, and vehicles. French law enforcement has cracked down on the destruction, arresting thousands of the rioters.
The death of Algerian 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk triggered the riots, after police shot him. The corporate media have done their best to stress that Merzouk was a generally good kid who didn’t have a criminal record, liked to play rugby, and was studying to become an electrician. Yet he attended a school for troubled kids. The police knew him, and he had a history of driving away from traffic stops. Although neighbors attest that “he was never violent,” he also seemed to have a bad habit of skipping school and joyriding in other people’s cars.
The riots forced French President Emmanuel Macron to cancel his trip to Germany — though not before enjoying an Elton John concert. In his remarks, he seemed less interested in commenting on Merzouk’s death than in blaming social media for mobilizing the mob so quickly.
According to government spokesman Olivier Veran, these arsonists and looters “are generally laughing their heads off” as they film their vandalism, and he notes the “extremely young age of a number of perpetrators.” For this reason, Macron’s administration is working with social media companies to censor videos of the riots. As David Harsanyi notes in his book Eurotrash, freedom of speech has ceased to be a priority for Western Europeans.
