Street Protests In France Do Not Represent “An Invasion”, It Is The Other Way Around

The riots and widespread street protests across France, following the murder of an unarmed 17-year-old, Nahel Merzouk, at a traffic stop, has sent shockwaves throughout a nation that has already been struck by instability. However, the way that the unrest is being reported in many media outlets is misleading and refuses to give proper context to the issue, now turned into a tool with which immigrants and the Islamic faith are coming under an irrational attack.

France as a nation is perhaps one of the most well known countries on earth for its robust street protests and rioting. In November of 2018, the Yellow Vest movement was initiated, with rising fuel costs serving as a final straw to break the camels back. In February of 2019 I travelled to Paris to report upon these demonstrations, producing news packages and live news coverage of the events at play. It quickly became clear that despite the initial reasons behind the grass roots protest movement being fuel prices, that inequality, discrimination, and rising living prices were the fuel that kept the fire burning for the demonstrators.

Although the demonstrations were majority White French in their nature, there were also large contingents inside those protests that consisted of French Algerians — the largest minority population in the country — as well as groups from the Right and the Left. I personally witnessed agent provocateurs infiltrate the protests and begin inciting violence, in one case a man with a face-covering randomly punched a woman in the back of the head in close proximity to me. My fixer, who coordinated my trip to report on the Yellow Vests and helped me gain a greater understanding of the events unfolding, was a French Algerian woman, who at one point was sworn at by a group of demonstrators who told her to “get out of our country, why are you here?”. Nevertheless, I was struck by a mixed set of demonstrators with wide-ranging political beliefs, from bigoted French Nationalists, to Leftist Algerians holding up the Palestinian flag.

Why am I outlining my experience with the Yellow Vest protests, during which I saw the French Capital torn up, stores smashed, and the pavements torn up for bricks to throw at police? Because it is integral to understanding that France is a nation known for this sort of activity. Just back in April of this year, the streets of Paris were again filled with angry demonstrators, who burned down French President, Emmanuel Macron’s, favorite restaurant, littered a town hall with dead rats, and stormed the 2024 Olympic headquarters. The demonstrations and a general strike, which left the streets of Paris covered in litter and filth, forced major blockages at international airports, in addition to causing violent street confrontations between police and protesters, all happened ostensibly over the government’s pension reform plan.

Today’s Demonstrations

Back in May, the United Nations slammed France for its police violence and racial profiling. Human Rights Watch has also called on the French police to tackle racism that it found in their conduct. It is no secret that the French police are heavy handed with everyone, especially minority communities, and the murder of Nahel Merzouk — on June 27 — was not the first unjustified shooting of this kind by the authorities. What erupted into violent riots in some areas, with the looting of stores and even shootings reported, did not emerge out of nowhere and it was not just a protest of immigrants.

I have been reading nationalist, anti-Islam rhetoric all day, then I saw this from Minister of Interior in #France.

4000 people arrested, 90% FRENCH. 10% Foreigners. https://t.co/qYbLE2EVYd

— vanessa beeley (@VanessaBeeley) July 4, 2023

Nahel Merzouk was a French Algerian, the video of his murder is public for everyone to see and the teenager’s mother not only stated that she does not blame all police, but seeks justice and accountability for the officer who committed the clear cut crime. When statistics emerged a few days ago of those who had been arrested, roughly 90% were found to be French and only 10% immigrants. This statistic was rejected by Bruno Retailleau, the head of the mainstream right-wing Les Républicains party, who said that this is not “their identity“, meaning that despite them being French citizens, he only considers White French people as being truly French.

Right Wing Identity Politics And Western Snowflakes

From the civil unrest, which now seems to have dwindled down, what was uniquely different about it from past French street revolts? The general skin-tone and ethnic backgrounds belonging to those who participated in it. Despite many of the claims to the contrary, this was not limited to Middle Easterners and African’s, as there was — as is usually the case with such demonstrations — a large class component to the protests. So, for pundits in the West (who identify as being on the Right) who already have a set of preconceived notions about Muslims and immigrant background citizens, they have weaponized the events to fit their Western culture war narrative, where identity is the king of every single issue.

Unfortunately for these pundits who are obsessed with identity politics, just as much as their counterparts from the opposite end of the political spectrum, the situation on the ground in France does not match their ill-educated take.

France has FALLEN to African migrants and is now an Islamic caliphate.

White Christians are being publicly raped and murdered across the entire country.

French police and MSM cannot even keep track of which towns have been totally burned to the ground.

The French let in a… pic.twitter.com/EzkTdK31yj

— Stew Peters (@realstewpeters) June 30, 2023

To begin with, the 37-year-old French police officer who murdered Nahel Merzouk has been charged with voluntary manslaughter and is being held in police custody. He did commit a crime and is being dealt with for it, therefore the spark to these demonstrations was a criminal action against a minor from the French Algerian community (it is important to note that Nahel was not an immigrant but a French citizen from a family living in France for generations). On top of this, the French riot police are known for their brutality towards protesters, and the use of agent provocateurs is an accepted reality, as in all other riots/protests, and this is something that could also have been weaponized by bad-faith actors in order to exacerbate tensions at this time for political benefits.

Then we have the claim about immigrants. This in and of itself is proven false by the makeup of the demonstrations, whereby the French authorities admitted that only 10% of those arrested have been non-citizens. Therefore it is difficult to try and blame this on illegal migration, or newly settled immigrant populations, as this is clearly not the case.

Next are the claims about Islam and the protesters being Muslim. For this argument to hold up there would have to be some sort of evidence presented, beyond some protesters/rioters coming from Muslim households and claiming that as their faith. Aside from selective videos (which of course we have no way to verify) there is little evidence any of this had to do with the Muslim faith or an “Islamic invasion”. Where are the Islamic banners in the demonstrations? Where are the Islamic chants? What issues regarding the Muslim faith have come up and why would the death of a teenager and police reform be the main issue? With police reform as the primary objective for the genuine and organized segments of the protests?

It may be difficult for people in the West to accept this, due to 20+ years of brainwashing used to justify wars of aggression against the Middle East and Africa, but it is possible for Muslims to not have every action they commit be motivated simply by faith. Just as Christians can come from a household that identifies with said denomination, even wearing a cross and claiming belief in God, but then acting completely independent of their belief system in their daily lives. 

Unfortunately, for a Western world that has so much to say about Muslims, who have witnessed movies and TV shows about Muslims, where every other news bulletin has a story connected to something happening in the Muslim world for years, they still do not have the most basic grasp of what Islam is. Think about it rationally for a moment, despite non-stop public discussions about Islam, Muslims, Islamic terrorism, Muslim migration and integration, why can most Westerners not name the 5 pillars of Islam? Why can they not name the differences between Sunni and Shia? Why do they not know anything about the development of the religion, its role in history, or even in the birth of modern Western civilization as we know it? This is because we have been deliberately lied to and misled, as with most topics important for a government agenda.

Next we have the most obvious element that comes into play here, the idea that non-White people have taken over France. Despite attempts to avoid saying this outright, it comes back to the idea that Joseph Borrell, the EU’s foreign policy chief, espoused last year, that “Europe is a garden” and that most of the rest of the world is “a jungle” and that we can’t let the jungle invade the garden. Although this part may not be said explicitly, this is implicit in the online commentary from the identity politics-obsessed contingent of right-wing commentators.

Although we do not have a precise ethnic breakdown of the demonstrators, it can be presumed from the video evidence at hand that a large portion of them were of Algerian background — which makes sense considering an Algerian youth was murdered. Algerians are the largest minority community in France, numbering at around 900,000 in total. However, Algerians did not recently enter France, as the largest minority group inside the nation, nor was it originally even their idea to go to France. From 1830 to 1962 (after which Algeria won its independence) the French not only ruled over the North African nation, but actively considered it to be part of France itself. During the span of time it suffered under foreign domination, Algeria officially claims that some 5,630,000 of its people died due to French colonial rule. The massacres visited upon the Algerian people, both by European settlers and the French colonialist authorities still linger in the collective conscience of its people, France has never formally apologized. Even if numbers may be disputed, the amount of lives lost were in the millions, yet the so-called leadership seems content to pretend it never happened. 

Algerians were given French citizenship during the period of colonization, however, they were quite literally second class citizens. When Algeria won its long war of independence against France, Paris gave the option to Algerians who had their citizenship as to whether they wanted to be French or Algerian. One thing that cannot be said about Algerians, is that they have “invaded” or “taken over” France, such statements lack any historical depth and the scares of the past were not only the wrongdoings of France, but they also had nothing to do with Islam-motivated violence.

The French Algerians, that were at the centre stage of the protests, also happen to come from economically disadvantaged communities. Many of them live in the French housing projects, which began post-World War 2, but which later began to be looked upon as undesirable areas that are located on the peripheries of cities. In the 1980’s, as economic growth slowed inside the country, these areas containing high concentrations of immigrant populations began to suffer and the people living there were unable to improve their prospects for moving elsewhere.

In France, there is a deteriorating economic condition for all people, but especially for those who were already disenfranchised and of the poorer classes. When people from the low income areas protest and riot, there is a higher propensity for more extreme outbursts of violence towards authorities, in many cases this includes looting. There is no evidence to suggest that someone being Muslim, or of a certain racial/ethnic background, is the reason behind some of the more violent protest tactics. In addition to this it has to be considered that communities with long felt inter-generational grievances, who also live in poverty and suffer race based persecution, will inevitably come to a breaking point, especially when they are living in a country that hosts some of the most animated street protests the world has seen. There is nothing more French that violent street protests.

Simultaneously, the nation’s President, Emmanuel Macron, starts flirting with the idea of severely curtailing online freedom and privacy, even threatening an internet blackout, but Macron’s race or religion never seems to get brought into the mix when it comes to criticism of him. Another concerning element here, is that the police officer responsible for sparking these riots received an enormous amount of praise for his actions in France. In fact, there were two fundraisers set up following the shooting of the 17-year-old, one for the victim and one for the police officer, with the fund for the killer cop raising almost four times the amount that was raised for the slain teenager Nahel Merzouk. Around 85,000 people had donated to the police officer, while only 21,000 contributed to support Nahel, which tells you all you need to know about how racism really factors into this case on a public level. This idea that racism doesn’t exist in this case, that France has been invaded by the Algerians that it colonized and then systematically disenfranchised, that this is a war between the White French angels and the bad brown Muslim migrants, is simply lunacy.

Many of these right-wing pundits that espouse the beliefs that I have outlined above, do so in line with their own hardcore identity politics. The term “identity politics” has been primarily used to describe liberals who are parading around with Joe Biden badges, colorful hair, and believe that the biggest problem in the world is trans-women being able to compete in women’s sports. However, on the other side of this coin one will find the equally ridiculous identity politics of the Right. France is an actual invading power, a nation that has a track record of some of the worst policy practices during slavery, had slaughtered innocent people from Algeria to Vietnam, but more recently participated in the destruction of both Libya and Syria (and is currently involved in Ukraine) which is the real reason for the migrant crisis of today, not to mention their meddling throughout the African continent. This idea of white identity politics from the Right, is just the other side of the same ridiculous coin, whereby the oppressed working masses are all pitted against each other while the elitists who are destroying ALL of our lives are laughing as they run to the bank.