When the adults in the room, including the government, are afraid, the mob takes over.
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It must be Paris burning again. So, what’s new? What are they burning the city over this time? Who is angry at whom?
Two things happen every year in France. First, everybody is on vacation in August. And second, there is some angry guy burning something over this or that.
The latest is that students started the fires this time. This is from Jeffrey Blehar:
The schools of France are currently in flames, with the nation several days into a national bout of student rioting: From the quasi-Belgian northern hub of Lille to the banlieus of Paris to the streets of Marseille, schools are burning, as high school students across the nation have blockaded and rampaged against their schools and anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the crossfire. I know what you’re thinking: Student rioting? In France of all places? The deuce you say!
But there are significantly darker undertones this time. The rioting has only escalated in the last two days. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has called an emergency meeting of the French cabinet and declared a national crisis — far too late, in the opinion of many. The immediate flashpoint for the rioting is still hazy — it seems to have spread via social media, quelle surprise — but the media is universally reporting it as an oh-so-French rebellion by “the kids” against having to work too hard at school.
Having to work too hard in school? Like having to do homework? I thought that working hard in school is how you trained the next generation to be successful and positive adults. I guess I must be old-fashioned to think like that.
This is from Blehar again:
There were also confrontations between children and police in Bordeaux, Rennes and Nantes in western France, and Marseille in the south. At the Lamartine lycée, in the north of Paris, students waved placards complaining they had exhausting timetables. One read: “8am-6pm. More hours of lessons than sleep.”
More hours of lessons than sleep? That’s weird. Don’t they sleep at home? How many hours of sleep does a student need?
Still confused. The best explanation is from Daniel Foubert:
It’s a long post (too long to reproduce here), but this part explains so much:
Authority becomes embarrassed to exercise authority. Rules exist, but nobody wants to enforce them. The majority understands that the situation is absurd, yet waits for somebody else to restore normality. A determined minority quickly learns that if it creates enough disruption, institutions will adapt themselves to the disruption rather than stop it.
And once that reflex becomes normal, it spreads far beyond schools.
You begin to get a society in which blocking roads, occupying universities, shutting down public buildings, preventing people from working or studying, and paralysing transport are treated not as exceptional breakdowns of normal life, but almost as recognised forms of political expression.
It is COWARDICE elevated into a social norm: the refusal to confront, to sanction, to impose limits, to say no. A whole culture of retreat in which passivity is mistaken for tolerance and fear of conflict for moral superiority.
France has become spineless, gregarious, barbarian.
Yes, we’ve seen this movie before. The insane are running the asylum. The criminals are running the streets. The teachers are scared of students. And so everything goes to heck. And what do the country’s leaders do? Nothing, because they’re scared of the mob too.
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