Episode Transcript
Antifascist Dad Episode 52: Children Revolt in France
Guest: Danielle Duncan
Matthew Remski: Hello everyone, my name is Matthew Remski and this is Antifascist Dad podcast episode 52, Children Revolt in France with Danielle Duncan.
Michael Löwy: But I would like to add something about the movement in France. It started with the high school youth. Yeah, the children, if you want.
Then the students joined, the teachers joined, the school children parents associations joined, the unions joined. Yes, first the teachers unions, now the workers unions, the CGT.
So it became something really the whole society mobilized in solidarity with them, together with them. So this is what the government is really terrified.
Matthew Remski: That is not Danielle Duncan. That is veteran Marxist sociologist and philosopher and ecosocialist Michael Löwy, who I also interviewed this week. And that's on Patreon now, but it's going to be unlocked in a few days. Danielle Duncan is an American professor of Internet culture and English teaching in Paris.
Danielle Duncan: For all of the hate that Gen Alpha and Gen Z get from us being like, oh, you're addicted to your phones, you don't pay attention, you don't read.
In fact, they know how to mobilize. If we have not given them all the tools to be successful adults, we have made them a successful army.
Matthew Remski: You can find me on Bluesky and Instagram under my name. I'm YouTube and TikTok as antifascistdad. And the Patreon for this show is antifascistdadpodcast, where subscribers get early access to that second weekly episode.
And this week it's, you know, a really lucky thing that I was able to talk with the 88 year old scholar of revolutionary coalitions and who answered my random email on October 15, just two days after the initial nationwide surge of protests across France and two days before the events of October 17th.
Now, last week I said that this week would be Max Haiven's spot with me interviewing him on his brilliant book The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to 21st-Century Fascism. That interview is edited and all done. It's a great interview, but I'm bumping him back a bit because antifascist history making sometimes takes precedence over antifascist theory.
Last note, before I go on, please see the link to my own book in the show notes. It's called Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times.
And if you've got it, if you've read it, please leave a review or do whatever you can to boost it. I really appreciate it.
So I'm recording this introduction on October 20th for an interview with Danielle that I recorded on the 15th. So we'll have to do some timeline work. Up top here this mass movement in France, which many of you are very aware of now led by children and known as the manif or the manifestation. The manifestations began on Friday, September 18, 2026, when students at Lycée Saint-Exupéry in Créteil went on strike in solidarity with their teachers demanding new hires. That strike quickly spread to other Paris region high schools, mainly in Val-de-Marne and Seine-Saint-Denis. The union denounced staff shortages.
They called out dilapidated buildings.
They complained about overloaded classes and timetables.
By late that week, about 40 Île-de-France high schools were blockaded and the union was calling for the movement to spread nationwide.
And the demands began to increase and become more detailed.
They expanded to the demand to reform something called Parcoursup, which is an algorithmic placement lottery that forces kids to decide through a sort of black box process what their futures should be as early as age 15 and the addition of 250,000 new places at the country's universities. Now, I was marginally aware of this development, but it was when I got a Signal message from friend of the podcast Richard Gilman-Opalsky that I really started to dig in.
I've been obsessed with the French revolt of children, he wrote. That was enough for me. So I started looking into it. And pretty quickly the contours became clear because they're familiar across much of the global North.
Macron's ten year neoliberal reign began by facing off against les Gilets jaunes over fuel prices and other cost of living issues.
And now it's battered by high schoolers chucking tear gas canisters back at the police while busting out emotes.
And in that 10 years, he's offered really nothing to the social contract but austerity, militarization and privatization.
When the kids in the poorer suburbs complain about their schools, they're not being precious. They're talking about rats in the halls, water damage, choking and 40 degree humidity. They're talking about faculty shortages and still increasing scholastic pressure to comply with a narrowing employment opportunity window. And Danielle will break that down really clearly for us in our interview.
Now, this all looked familiar to me because 6,000km west here in Toronto, the conditions are similar, but just maybe a few years less advanced, because for decades, austerity governments here in the province of Ontario have battered teachers unions and starved the infrastructure that makes schooling happen, leaving century old buildings, which are also community centers, in decline.
And now it's becoming clearer why they're punting on repairs. Because teachers. Tina Yazdani at The Trillium has been reporting on how the provincial government's school board supervisor has been meeting with the real estate agency far more than with educators.
And this is a government that sells off anything it can to development firms run by private equity vultures. They're going to sell the real estate of the schools. It's happening in front of our eyes.
This is also a government that's pinched off student loans and shoveled public money into private schools.
And it's headed up by a nepo baby who literally says all career paths outside of construction and policing are just basket weaving.
So the distance between Paris and Toronto is really just, in my view, separated by a little patch of history which moves as fast as we make it move.
But back to the timeline. On Tuesday, October 13, close to 500,000 people took to the streets across France to face the militarized police to to stand their ground behind makeshift barricades and burning trash cans. Middle school students, high school students, union workers, firemen, everyone joined. The Union étudiante said 90% of France's roughly 70 universities were blocked or closed. The education ministry reported 214 schools closed. In Lyon, the first signs of rioting emerged. And in Paris, there were reports of a shop that was looted.
Matthew Remski: But.
Matthew Remski: But what the social feeds filled up with was a cascade of videos of overwhelming brutality meted out by a fully armed riot police force using stun grenades, one of which blew off the hand of a 14 year old boy. Another boy had his jaw smashed by another munition, and several children lost eyes to rubber bullets. There were endless scenes of flying tear gas canisters, the cops rushing in and clubbing people at will, and no real word from the government until Friday when they announced the concessions that they would lay off the stun grenades.
They wouldn't shoot stun grenades at children anymore. That's what they were going to offer. And also that they would hire 3,000 substitute teachers, which is not sufficient to the demands of the student unions.
By Thursday, there were over 1200 arrests, with 70% of detainees being minors.
On Saturday the 17th, the student movement converged with a previously planned reunion of the Gilets jaunes protesters that brought 800,000 to the streets that day, 110,000 in Paris.
All of the police brutality of the 13th was amplified and one starting point for the day, just to give you a sense of how it went, was the gathering of the Orchestra de Nouveau Monde, which is a company of about 100 symphony musicians. I think they come from all different orchestras and they set up to play at Place de la République at midday. This is a square that's traditionally a rallying point for the Paris left.
Now the police had granted permission for the gathering, but shortly after the musicians began to play.
They gassed them and they gassed the crowd and as they started running they kettled in the people by blocking the side streets.
Now really solid reporting on what followed that day, that evening is patchy, but there were reports of similar provocations and punishments from the police that poured in from all corners of the city and other parts of France.
Some protesters responded to the riot police with cobblestone, throwing burning cars, smashing windows. There was a flood of footage of a few stores being looted. The total number was around 40.
The stores were a mix of high end but then also neighborhood grocery shops, but no police around to protect any of the stores.
I read social posts from people on the ground who said some looters were redistributing food to unhoused people. But that's unconfirmed. I wouldn't doubt it. There were also images of folks running off with new clothes.
And also the city hall at Limoges burned. There is one suspect in detention the that the right wing mayor has identified as an ultra leftist terrorist. But this is also not confirmed.
Now after I run this interview, I'll say a bit more about how reactionary centrists have seized on the property damage story as being the central story as of this moment. Cities across France have imposed curfews and are bracing for another round of street rebellion this coming Saturday.
But let's go back in the timeline a bit for this conversation which I recorded on the 15th with Danielle Duncan because she's able to fill us in on the background and the context for all of this. And very importantly, she's able to tell us about the memes.
Danielle Duncan, welcome to Antifascist Dad. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Danielle Duncan: Matthew, thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure to be here.
Matthew Remski: Okay, I'm going to ask you what I asked Michael Löwy first, which is can you hear the manif from where you are currently?
Danielle Duncan: So this is a great question. Usually I'm situated in Paris. I am right now visiting Rennes, which is just northwest by about an hour by train. And both times as I've been out through my day to day life, I'm running into the manif constantly. Like I just happen to be on the routes for these things and they're very, they're very loud, they're very intense, they're very passionate, but they're also in some cases, depending on where you are very joyful, very jubilant. And so, yes, the answer to that is yes. And it's very much part of a day to day trajectory for me.
Matthew Remski: So I don't know Rennes, but is it a small town? Is there a large police force there?
Are the students facing off against the police as they are in Paris, or no?
Danielle Duncan: This is an amazing question. So Rennes is kind of a traditional stronghold for security in the country. It's in Breton, like Brittany. And so this is where a large Celtic kind of presence is. It's very much one of the older parts of the country.
And because of this you are experiencing not only this kind of stronghold, we hold it down mentality, but it is also a focal point of cybersecurity for the country. So you have the digital version of this and the physical version of this, and therefore you're seeing a very different style of protest here for all of this. The arts are very well funded in Rennes. You can tell by the quality of the music of the placards that people have made. It's really funny, actually, how much that's gone up. And it's significantly smaller than Paris, around 230,000 people, as opposed to about 2 million in Paris proper.
So you're seeing just a bit of a different mentality. The first day here, things had kind of amped up, but they were not as severe as in Paris. And over the last few days you have seen everybody kind of backing off. Because when you consider the police force, the gendarmerie, the cybersecurity people, these are their children, their students. And so the police are maintaining much more distance. But you see in Paris we're getting more of a tête-à-tête situation. It's more confrontational and it's larger crowds.
So it's a very different atmosphere and different attitude. And depending also on how things are being cut, when the media is portraying the manif, it gives a completely different feel to what is otherwise happening. So it's dependent on who is portraying it and where.
Matthew Remski: And I think it's safe to say that throughout the global north, we're probably getting the most sort of inflamed moments of outright confrontation. But you're talking about like music and dancing and art in the streets. And like I've even seen whole high school bands or orchestras out. And they will start playing like the Imperial March as the cops walk up, or they'll have like orchestral jokes.
But then otherwise they're playing their curriculum music, I guess they are.
Danielle Duncan: And in fact, two days ago, Paris had a special orchestra that came out and played some of these tunes for the protesters. And so, yes, it's true. Even here in Rennes, they were playing Destiny's Child, Survivor, I'm a survivor up and down the street, which keeps a very jubilant attitude. People are generally, if you're out here, people are generally like kind of pleasantly walking. You might hear some Italian, everybody says, Siamo tutti antifascisti, which is like, we are all antifascist. That's very common here.
You'll hear ACAB, which is A-C-A-B. All cops are bastards. And especially when we pass the police, you see some 6-7s happening. I mean, it's really lovely. And yes, there are some confrontations if the police kind of pull forward and try to guide the crowd. But in reality you're finding the crowd is really guiding them. There's just the numbers are staggeringly in the protesters favor.
Matthew Remski: Yeah, I guess I'm wondering about the necessity for police confrontation in a smaller city because, I mean, in Paris, the university system and the lycées are so embedded within the infrastructure of the capital that I imagine that there's much more of an incentive for the administrators and the police to try to clear the obstructions.
Is there less pressure going on in Rennes?
Danielle Duncan: Yes, and in large part around the country. So you're seeing similar protests in Toulouse, in Marseille, in Brest. They're all over the country.
And there is, there is less necessity for this. But then you're also seeing like some of these schools are going up in flames. You're seeing people say, oh, we're going to send out these, these, I can't even call them cops. This is like the SWAT team, the French SWAT team, which is trained for tactical anti terrorist behavior. And so when you're seeing some of these people, there's a distinct difference between even the regular police and then the gendarmerie. It's a, it's a totally different monster and it's overwhelming. It's not necessary to put forth this kind of brutality, this kind of effort against these kinds of crowds. And we've seen some really disastrous results for kids. A couple kids have been hit in the face with flash grenades. One kid lost a hand. I saw that footage. That was brutal. Another one had his eye taken out and it's just gone on and on. So the parents are now becoming very involved because they're like, hey, this is our right. What are we doing here?
Matthew Remski: Do you think that it is obvious to the French public that the sheer expense of the overwhelming police response, because when I see the swarms of police, I'm looking at hundreds and hundreds of riot geared police officers. And now you're saying that SWAT teams are involved as well and each one of them is going to be paid 120 or €150,000 per year. And obviously the protest is over funding of school. And is that contradiction, is that becoming very clear to the public?
Danielle Duncan: It is. And I think this was a very critical mistake in terms of targeting the students because there were several other protests moving on in parallel. The French pompiers, the firefighters have been protesting their conditions and their lack of pay. The farmers have been protesting a fuel tax and again, increased inflation that they are not seeing benefits from.
And so all of these groups of people are starting to now rally behind the youth. Because regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum, you're the kids are our future. And this is a bad idea.
It's kind of blowing up in their faces to apply this much force. And I'm impressed at how people are coming together. We're seeing union workers, we're seeing teachers coming together and just abundant amounts of people going, hey, this is, this is enough. Enough is enough. So the French public is kind of getting there, but you wouldn't necessarily know that with some of the polling. Marine Le Pen, who is kind of the French Donald Trump, her family has a long line of similar Donald Trump activities.
She is polling really well right now because she is maintaining a very kind of neutral, generic stance. She's talking about things and saying, you know what, I love protesting, I love the right to liberty, but we're seeing too much violence. That's invalidated by violence. So we really have to figure out how to get all of this under control immediately. And the general, especially older conservative public really loves that.
So unfortunately, that is not going well.
Matthew Remski: It seems like the proto fascist or the fascist party has two options in this circumstance. They can either say, well, the liberals have lost control and we're the ones who can actually enforce. But then also they are probably aware that there is an element of populist anger at the, the liberal establishment that they can also mobilize themselves. So I think they have to almost hold their cards close to the chest, right?
Danielle Duncan: Yes, in a sense. And I mean, the way that things are trending right now, the Senate in France is a third of it is far right. The National Assembly, which is the French house, is also approximately a third far right. And so some of the motions that are coming out that are anti immigration, that are pro defense, that are pro. Do we want to get involved in a war? Are coming from these party members. And so this is very much coloring the way that people are seeing things. This is part of the maneuverings to adjust budgets that are further aggravating the situation. And so for them, they're noticing. Okay, well, we kind of have enough support if we just maintain the line we might be able to skirt across the elections next year in 2017.
Matthew Remski: Cross your fingers. Yeah, cross your fingers. Okay, well, speaking of funding, you're a university. Prof. You've been there for a couple of years. What are you hearing from your students and colleagues who weren't initially in the forefront of les manifs? Because it's really been driven by high school students. But are the university students also talking about the same probably unequal impacts of austerity as they're talking about in middle and high schools? Like, are the facilities also in various states of repair? Do they also need AC.
There's some high schools I was hearing about that didn't even have, like, furniture or desks.
Danielle Duncan: Yes. Okay, so this is where this gets really wild. So the French school system, the scholastic system, was largely founded on the church and on the Jesuit movement, the Jesuit sect of Catholicism. So that's very much about punition, about, like, flagellation, about self punishment, and about very rigorous standards. And so as we move into the kind of First Republic, you see people trying to figure out how do we make education not only.
Which is, like, laicized. Yes, yes, exactly. Thank you.
I'm like, it should be the same. It's nearly the same. Yes. But it's about making it secular, and then how do we also make it popular? So one of my favorite French people, the Marquis de Condorcet, he was one of the draftsmen and a mathematician behind the French constitution, the Rights of Man. He was kind of like the Bernie Sanders, I guess, of the First Republic. And he was very invested in, like, democratizing liberty and all sorts of things. So he really put France onto this concept of, like, lifelong learning. That was his big how do we make us all students? Which is wonderful. Right. We move into.
If we can move up to the 40s and 50s, where we're getting to the end of the Fourth Republic and the beginning of the Fifth Republic, which we're in now, you start to see, okay, we've got all these regions that we need to rebuild. We've got all of these systems we have to rebuild after the war.
Maybe we need to really standardize the school system and turn that into something that we can spread everywhere, not just within the country that speaks five or six different languages. But how do we standardize things for the colonies, the former colonies, the Outre-mer, so like Guadeloupe, Martinique, Antibes, those kinds of places, they are technically French. And so as you start to get into the school standardization system, we see a heavy handed approach to what is French, what is the French standard? And they kind of have a different approach than we English speakers would. There's this idea that in English cultures there is the standard. And then everybody who is privileged exists way beyond the standard, and they enjoy the riches of being privileged through their whiteness, through their masculinity, through their whatever it is, whatever their identification is here.
French white men exist right here at the very limit of the basic French. Right. And everybody else is under that. So it starts to kind of select and section off into subhumanity and sub human treatment. And a basis for that is language.
So part of how they come into this concept, through education, it's about being rigorous, standardized and completely correct.
Matthew Remski: This all emerges in the 40s and 50s, in the post war era.
Danielle Duncan: Yes.
Matthew Remski: Is this really where the prominence of the Académie française takes hold, that decides what language, what words are actually legally French and so on? Or is that earlier?
Danielle Duncan: No, we're in the right era. Yes. And so because this is happening, damn. People are saying, okay, well, we don't want to hear Breton, we don't want to hear Occitan, we don't want to hear any of this anymore because we are French, we speak Parisian French. And so that is where all of this starts to shift and change and to determine who again, is like very French and who is worthy of being heard and who receives the privileges. And so because of that, you then start to see the, again, you're kind of siphoning off. Well, you are maybe a second generation born French person. You might be a woman, you might be Islamic, you might be something else. And so therefore, unless you have absolutely pitch perfect French, unless you've been here for three generations, unless you can maneuver through the system beautifully, then we don't really consider you as French. And so you don't have the right to proper education. And so there's the way we see this is just a little bit backwards in our culture. But this is kind of how they siphon up. They're like, well, nobody gets everything they want.
Matthew Remski: Is it a way as well for France internally to recreate its colonial sort of self perception of dominance within the country now that it's actual, you know, it's overseas colonies are in withdrawal.
Danielle Duncan: Yes. Actually. So this is a funny thing. As you might say, in the US or at least in the US and Canada, slavery hasn't fully ever left.
The vestiges are still present in the way our societies function. Here it is feudalism. Feudalism was abolished during the First Republic, but it is still very clearly present. And then they sprinkle bits of capitalism on it when it suits, which is quite the cocktail. So when you get into the school system, you start to see certain groups of people, like, well, this neighborhood tends to be largely like Berber. This tends to be more like sub Saharan Africa.
We don't play with these people. So, you know, this is the banlieue, which we talk about that being the suburb, but really a better translation for that word is ghetto. And.
Matthew Remski: Oh, really?
Danielle Duncan: You know, we're less likely to use that. Yes, yes. That is more correct.
Matthew Remski: Right?
Danielle Duncan: Okay, that is more correct in terms of how we would understand it. And so when you see places that are starting to rise up about this, they're really saying, okay, if we are French, deserve a proper education. The school where I teach, the building is beautiful, and yet we still have issues with heating. We still have issues with stuff flooding. We still have issues with, like, technology not working.
And that's necessary in a school that does design and technology.
We've had windows that do not open.
Like, none of the windows in the buildings open. And so it's extremely difficult. Like, we've had kids almost pass out. The hours, again, are super long. And. And my kids, for the most part, are kids who can afford really great schooling. They're kids who have gone through the system and have been rigorously told, hey, if you want to be in the arts, if you want to do tech, that's a big risk. But our family is well off. We are bourgeoisie, so we can afford to do this. But even they suffer. And so there are places where I have done, like, I've gone to different schools. I've done juries and festivals and things like that. Some of them are missing furniture. Some of them have holes, holes in the building. Some of them, there's mold everywhere, like, and you just kind of have to survive it. And the kids are, in many cases, subjected to these crazy commutes. If you've ever had to deal with a Paris Metro, they are regularly canceling big lines. And sometimes it could be a delay of one to two hours. If you live one to two hours away, you're missing half the day. And so even in university, I remember especially the last, last fall, kids were struggling to get into class. They were struggling, especially during protests, like, to do what they had to do. But there were lots of shortages and delays, bad weather, things like that.
They really suffered, and they were suffering in their grades because attendance is also such a big thing. You have to really present your reasons. You can't be excused. It's very rigorous and the French system is about, again, precision. So if you don't show up correctly, if you're not perfect, people will remind you how useless and baseless this is.
Matthew Remski: I feel like I'm missing something. There's a key moment in which you're talking about the development of an extremely rigid class and racially based, almost caste system within the educational domain that is built, I think, in the post war era as part of a way of rebuilding the French national character.
It's rebuilding a sense of colonial purpose after colonialism or in the neocolonial era.
But at a certain point, all of these incredibly high demands are now not worthy of being funded by the public purse, because now we are in the era of neoliberalism. So is this what basically happens is that we have this incredibly high set of cultural standards for what we expect to, for kids, but then at a certain point, the financializers come in and they say, well, we actually don't want to pay for it. Fuck them.
Danielle Duncan: Well, I would be remiss to your very first point if I did not address the fact that the students that I'm speaking about are again, very, very privileged. A lot of them are white French kids, a lot of them are not immigrants. But when you consider over the 70s, the 90s, and fairly recently, we see waves of particularly Algerian people coming through, which after, after the wars, after the civil war, all of these things, like, you're seeing more and more people coming en masse because they need to find places for their future. You see Malian, Senegalese, Ghanaian people as well, Congolese. And part of the issue of people coming here is not that they're coming, they are all educated in the French system because again, if you are part of the Francophone, if you're part of this pseudo empire, then you're receiving all of the same rigorous educational standards and benefits. And in some cases you're excelling because you're like, I really have to get this right. My life will involve a journey to this place where the money is. And so all of these qualified people are coming in, all of these qualified students are coming in. And because of racism, because of poor conditions because of their families being basically victims of xenophobia. They have to settle in a neighborhood that they don't want, they can't advance in society. And so this is part of the issue that we're seeing here is that these. These kids who have this brightness, these brilliant futures, these great potentials, the system is telling them, hey, you're not really valuable to us because of where you reside, because of where you're from, because of where you were born, and all of that is still very alive and present. And so then you have the additional issue of the budgeting and being like, well, we would love to maybe work on some of this. We would love to get you guys more students, but, you know, we'd rather.
And look towards our defenses. The pressure of the Russian, Ukrainian war is really hanging heavy here. And so that is another facet of people being like, well, maybe we want to shift some budgets. The issue with French society is that things are, so we call it cadre, like, very square. You have to find your place and you have to remain in it. And so if you miss the boat in high school, when you were supposed to come up with all these answers, you're to. Supposed. Supposed to plan your trajectory. If you miss that, you might never end up in the proper place for your potential, whatever that could be. And so these kids are like, okay, well, my high school wasn't great. Maybe my university can be better. They're seeing similar experiences. And then they get into the workforce and they cannot find work because everything has kind of. It's like a really cursed domino effect that continues to topple. You have to be extremely certified to jump around for jobs here. You cannot just be like, well, I have work as a theater person. I can go be an artist. I can go get into technology. I can go have these different careers. Everything is treated like it must be certified. You must have a diploma. And if not, guess where you have to go if you can't find work in your field? You have to go back into the school system. So you do this all over again.
That's why the public here is so educated.
Matthew Remski: A turning point in the current manif explosion is really around the demand that high school students, even with reduced resources, with reduced teaching staff, with sort of a continual assault on just materials, the material condition that they need to learn in that they are also being expected to make some sort of concrete choice at the age of 15 or so as to where exactly they want to lay their bets in this uncertain future.
And how does that work? Like what do they give up by closing themselves off with their particular choices in terms of curriculum and their future at 15?
Danielle Duncan: It's such a great risk, it's such a risk to make these choices. And so therefore things that might not be so risky are considered risky.
For example, something that we're seeing here in the job market and trajectory people said, okay, well being a lawyer is safe. You can decide to be a lawyer, that will be an easy field. And then they get to this field after all of this work. Yeah, exactly. There are too many lawyers in France and so people are switching into software. But with the rise of AI, well,
Matthew Remski: not only that, the basic clerking is going to be done by AI within a couple of years anyway.
Danielle Duncan: Yes, exactly.
That's exactly it. So we're now seeing an additional issue of okay, well what will remain after this. And it's again just kind of like a pyramid of these tenuous circumstances. And it's so the fact that kids have to choose this. We don't really have trades happening here in the same way that they used to. So we have outsourced and exported a lot of things that could maybe have given a familial stability somewhere else.
It's very, very tenuous right now. And so people are extremely stressed.
They can't really live, they really can't live. And if you add in the ecological concerns, the socio political parts of just existing in this particular country at this moment, things are so stressful, they have no real future. When you start looking at all the places I could hang my hat and be happy, the list is so dwindling. I really feel we haven't given them a fair chance.
Matthew Remski: So recently in Spain, mass protests have kicked off over the eviction of I think a 90 year old woman from her home of 70 years who then died while in police custody.
The Arab Spring had a very distinct starting point.
Is there a moment that we can point to in early October where the high schoolers of Paris decided that they had had enough, that they were going to shut everything down? Was there an instigating incident or was there a final straw?
Danielle Duncan: I wouldn't say that's the case. I would say it was putting it on social media for all, for all of the hate that Gen Alpha and Gen Z get from us being like, oh, you're addicted to your phones, you don't pay attention, you don't read. In fact, they know how to mobilize. If we have not given them all the tools to be successful adults, we have made them a successful army and just the fact that some of these smaller ones started to, they started again in the banlieues, they started in the Outre-mer, in like these other colonial vestiges like Guadeloupe and Martinique and Antibes. They had started protesting this very loudly. And so all of these groups were starting to be heard from within and without.
And then some of the other students from wealthier areas were like, well, you know, we are also dealing with some of these things as well. We're going to raise hell, we're going to see if we can kind of give more credibility to all of this. And that's where it started booming. So it started really gaining speed I would say most on French TikTok and just how that has come together has been hilarious. And even watching I'm on French social media as well, which is such a treat because they are so funny, they're so clever and it functions a little bit differently from English speaking TikTok. They've started posting things from Snapchat like the police trying to infiltrate.
Matthew Remski: Yeah, we'll get to Bismillah, that'd be great.
But I wanted to ask whether part of the rupture here is a break with the kind of propaganda that we get in North America around Gen Z and Gen Alpha are losers who are continually doom scrolling and they completely overwhelmed by their technology and they can't really do anything because they're screen addicted and so on. Is there a kind of digital panic amongst the French middle class around digital technology that this particular moment is exposing as well?
Danielle Duncan: Yes. Oh my God, there is, There is. So this is actually part of my specialty, what I teach. I teach digital experiences, English through the lens of the Internet and global typography. And those courses are very heavy on here's how the Internet functions, let's talk about AI and if you should be using it, et cetera. So it's very much a growing question of concern for parents.
Can my kid actually think there's a lot of use of AI? There's a lot of people trying to understand if being online in any way is a viable career and how much it's changing is really shaping the public perception and the concern around all of it. And so I think in some sense the kids are more aware. The kids are all right. First of all, I think they're really doing beautiful work and they're making the most of what little is being given to them. But I, I think the kids have a better perception of how this is moving than the adults do in many ways as you get into Gen X and boomers, they are not as literate with the Internet unless they spent time on it. And so it's harder for them to really read the landscape of the media.
Matthew Remski: It's not just about literacy, I don't think. There's also, I think amongst Gen X and certainly boomers, there is an allergy to the very premise that this is something that should be taken seriously as culture. That somehow it must be wasted time, that the memes don't mean anything, that somehow brain rot is exactly what the word means instead of a whole bunch of different things that can actually be cultural commentary as well. And so I think there's just a general antipathy towards the, I mean, there's always elder antipathy towards youth culture. Right. That's just a constant.
What are the kids doing? I hate what the kids are doing. I don't understand what the kids are doing. But this is very sharp.
Danielle Duncan: I think it is.
Matthew Remski: This is very particular.
It is. I really, really hate that you have carved out a completely incomprehensible world and I'm not willing to really learn about it.
Danielle Duncan: Correct. Well, I tell people that really those two generations ended up on the Internet begrudgingly because suddenly culture was found there. And so they're like, well, I'm not really curious about it. I am obligated to be here. And I think the same is.
Matthew Remski: That's not really my thing.
Danielle Duncan: Yes. And the same is largely true of French Internet, which you would find to be distinctly different from English Internet. For example, French culture still circulates largely around Facebook. People use it for everything and they use it to find apartments, to talk about businesses. They really are chronically using it at every generational touch point. I'm like, I don't, I haven't had an account in like seven years. So it's a very different way to think.
I know the kids are like begrudgingly on Instagram, but they're so curious about, okay, well, what's happening in different parts of the world on different parts of the Internet. They love English speaking Internet, they love Japanese Internet, they love those places. And so their curiosity for it has made it rich and vast and more connected. And so I think what makes this moment so fascinating is that you're not necessarily seeing kids being like, hi, I'm this person from this neighborhood. French Internet use is more anonymous. And so you're going to see kids being like, well, this isn't necessarily my page, but this is what I'm experiencing. Look, here we are running from the cops. Here we are with the Persian music running slow motion with our trays, which is such a funny meme, except they're running from the cops.
Matthew Remski: Oh, you mean they're carrying, like, tea or something?
Danielle Duncan: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's hilarious kind of ceremony. And so they have figured out ways to make this fun, to be silly, to be referential.
There was a very specific meme of a woman who was on somebody's shoulder. She was wearing a blue shirt, and she was in front of the Eiffel Tower during the fourth of July, and somebody went, lady in blue move.
They have started using that audio over videos of the cops who wear blue.
Matthew Remski: Oh, lady in blue move. So that I can see the Eiffel Tower so I can get my picture.
Danielle Duncan: Yes, yes, yes, exactly.
Matthew Remski: You're screwing up my selfie.
Danielle Duncan: Right, exactly. So they're being so clever about this use of, like, cops, get out of here. This is not for you. And. And I think it is.
I think Gen X and the boomer generations are resentful of this here because it's such a rich way to joke, to do parody, to just riff in a way that is so critically important.
The intellectual kind of sparring is so critical to French culture, and so that happens so richly in these places.
If anything, the generations are connecting on who has a viewpoint on the issue and who wants to argue about it. So in that regard, there has been more general camaraderie over, well, I choose this guy. This guy is on my side, and I prefer her. This guy thinks he's Robespierre. So it's funny how they use this. It's not really to solve things. It's more so to just kind of keep the gossip circle a little wider.
Matthew Remski: Well, also to really deliver some pointed attacks. And this is what I want to ask you about. Probably the most famous meme circulating at the moment. So we have a cop trying to infiltrate a Snapchat group to try to figure out where the kids are going to gather.
And he's made up a pseudonym. He's calling himself Amadou.
And in response to something, I don't know whether he's just sort of saying, hey, I'm here.
But he says, Bismillah, c'est les ténèbres. And, you know, as an English, I mean, I have some French.
I initially read that, and I was like, oh, that sounds plausible. And then I realize how the entire joke of the meme is that it's like, nobody in the world would ever say that. But what do you think the guy was trying to do with c'est les ténèbres or this is the darkness, or these are the shadows.
Danielle Duncan: Oh, my God, this is so funny. So this is the kind of greetings, fellow kids, the Steve Buscemi with the skateboard. It is the French.
Hello, fellow kids. It is me, Amadou. I am here to join the Snapchat group. It is time for us to break down all of the French people. Yeah. And the guy is like, are you from the neighborhood?
He's like, but of course I am. I love Algerian sauce.
Matthew Remski: I love Algerian sauce. Is that what he said?
Danielle Duncan: Yes, yes. He's like, I love Algerian sauce, please. But this is also a facet of French culture, is that first of all, scamming is like 10 years in the past, as we would conceive of it in English speaking circles. But the multiculturalism here is just so people, especially on the right and the far right, revile it. They hate that there are so many different kinds of people here. They don't like it being so cosmopolitan. And so when you hear people being racist, it almost sounds like it's coming out of a old timey cartoon.
It's just riddled with like obvious obviousness because these people live lives where they don't have to interact with or meet anybody from these groups. So they're like, ah, yes, I can cosplay being from North Africa today. I can cosplay being Arab and it doesn't work. And so it's been so funny because they're like, ah, yes, it is me.
Praise Allah for this moment.
Matthew Remski: Why is it, Danielle, that as a Canadian, I grew up with the impression it's almost like France did some sort of soft power propaganda throughout the world advertising themselves as like a super progressive culture or something like that.
I was completely in the dark as to how embedded, just sort of racist discomfort with newness and otherness is. Like, why did I have that impression? Like, I didn't have that impression about the English?
I knew as a Canadian growing up that the English just hated everybody. They looked down on everybody they colonized.
Did I miss something or do you think there was an active sort of marketing of French culture and personality throughout the world that snow jobbed me.
Danielle Duncan: Well, I have written about this before. There is a distinct difference in the way that colonization occurred. So English speaking colonization saw the people that were in the places that were colonized and nuisance as pests. And so they were razed to the ground. Everything was kind of razed to the ground and someone new came in and started building and creating a society. Whereas with the French, they were like, well, we're moving in here. We're not gonna come live here with you necessarily. We're gonna treat you like a resource. You're a person. We're gonna treat you as a resource. And so we're gonna move the resources around.
Matthew Remski: Got it.
Danielle Duncan: So you're getting shipped to a different country. And so there was this idea that, like, no, you have, like, value, but not human value. Right.
Matthew Remski: Okay.
Danielle Duncan: And so there's.
Because we have this standard concept that to be perfectly French is to speak perfect French, to be here three generations deep, to be white and from a good family, then anything under that is some form of subhuman. It's not to be taken seriously. It's to be fetishized. It's to be treated with some sort of disdain. And the idea of being in your right place, well, you shouldn't be in my place. The capital city, the major city, the wherever it is that I want to be.
You should be wherever your place is with your tiny, terrible plot of land. So that's the concept.
And therefore, when you see the way that racism is built here, it is built in a society where people don't have to engage with it. And in fact, it is very unusual to see people engaging with it. Well, on television, in the radio, like, it's just not as common.
And even in some of the roundtable discussions that are being had, some by students, some by adults on this subject, they're not bringing in people to give a proper opinion about, hey, this might be why it is. They would prefer to talk around these individuals instead of asking them to contribute what is going on with them. They don't want to hear it. So it's a very strange part of French culture to be like, well, this conversation is closed and you'll hear about it in the open. And I think that's also why this is breaking through right now. These are issues that would be considered. Keeping it at home, keeping it in the French family. This is private discussion of the country. But these protests have become so amplified that now they have broken through into the public discourse where everybody outside of the House has heard about what's going on and is asking more questions.
Matthew Remski: I think that's a good place to pivot to political implications. Michael Löwy said that, as you did, that the clearest political rhetoric coming from. From the streets is antifascist. And that's because there's a great Italian song, in part, that's very identifiable.
But he did not say that there is strong pro communist or anti capitalist rhetoric that is in evidence. Is that what you've seen as well?
Danielle Duncan: Yes, almost everything is strictly antifascism. It is extremely antifascism. You will see antifascist rhetoric by communist groups, like some smaller communist groups are present at some of these protests. But ultimately it is, we don't want this. We don't want fascism in our country, we don't want it in our group. It's crippling our society. And honestly, that's, I think, the best way to handle it. And because France, it isn't really interested in again, being anti racist or having that kind of rhetoric. It is largely propped up on this concept of patriarchy. It is dabbling in capitalism. As far as Canada, the US, the UK is concerned, we would not necessarily consider them like a major capitalist. We would still consider them more socialist in the way that we view them, which isn't necessarily true.
Matthew Remski: No, it's not.
Danielle Duncan: No, exactly. Exactly.
The way it is sprinkling.
The way it is sprinkling capitalism on things, it's trying it out in a cruel way. So therefore antifascism speaks more directly to the very embedded, integral, primal urge to be engaged in politics. In France, that is the most consuming message for the greatest population.
Matthew Remski: Well, my question to Löwy was, does this imply that there's a displacement going on, that actually antifascist rhetoric directs itself overtly towards Marine Le Pen and towards those assholes, but the implication is not entirely, or the energy isn't entirely directed towards the state itself.
Danielle Duncan: There is energy directed towards the state. There are people who are very frustrated with the state, but they do sometimes couch this as this is Macron's France.
Matthew Remski: Yeah, right.
Danielle Duncan: They're wanting to see a removal from people like Éric Zemmour, from Marine Le Pen, from people who really espouse those values. And because of Macron and his kind of title as a centrist, but his really. Honestly, he functions as a center Republican or even worse.
Some of his policies have been atrocious. People are now saying, okay, well, we don't need Gabriel Attal. Because he's also basically the new Macron under the centrist party Renaissance. Like, they don't want to see any of that either. So I think if anything, this is pushing the window of tolerance in a completely different direction.
Matthew Remski: And Macron himself is somewhat MIA in this scene. I was reading that if it seems like the most response he's given was about being insulted by some meme that tells him to keep fucking his own prof. But not profs in general.
Danielle Duncan: Yes, exactly.
Matthew Remski: Is that fair? Is he just.
I mean, it's a very fragile response. But is he much of a presence in this?
Danielle Duncan: No. I mean, he really has. He generally doesn't do impromptu public demonstrations or press. He will do releases and formalized statements more often than not.
Right, exactly. So this is not in his wheelhouse for him to even discuss any of this. He was so angry about that placard being present during the news. I mean, and to be fair, people have just been like. It's been like arrows emptying the quiver on this man before he leaves.
Matthew Remski: Right.
Danielle Duncan: It has been one thing after another this year about him, about her, about potential affairs, all these things.
It's been so much. I love watching it. It's hilarious.
Matthew Remski: He's had 10 years and I think his skin should be thicker than that. I mean, come on. You would think it's really an own goal, my friend.
Danielle Duncan: Yes, exactly. And oh my God, he has such audacity. Like, he's such a hypocrite. I mean, I'm sure you are aware of the mayor from Saint-Denis, Bagayoko.
He obviously has been seen by so many people protecting students from the police force and from the SWAT teams here. And Macron actually, like, reprimanded him and said, you know what, if you are going to be an influencer, then we cannot be in business and discussion. If you want to be the mayor of Saint-Denis, then we are in discussion. And of course, Bagayoko clapped back. He's like, actually, I am the mayor of the mayor, so you do have
Matthew Remski: to talk to him.
Danielle Duncan: That's what the mayor does.
But of course, this is right after.
This is right around the same time that the for sure situation happened, where somebody heard Macron being like, you know, the country is not working as it should, for sure. And so the Internet took off with that and people were using it and he loved it. He ate it up. And so apparently you can be an influencer, but you still have to deal
Matthew Remski: with him going further into who actually is present. I mean, the government is doing the usual outside agitators, or this is all La France Insoumise. It's the fall of the far left.
First of all, do the French in general see through that? Because they realize, oh, it was actually kids who went out onto the street.
And how is their tolerance with watching kids get beaten and lose eyes while the conflict is being blamed on a political party that didn't start it.
Danielle Duncan: I think this is really the source of such great rage because again, regardless of where you come from, you have children. If you have had a child in France, if you've been through the education system if you've worked in it, you know how grueling this is and how difficult and the pressure. You don't really have time to be a kid when you are in school and it's supposed to be a relief to leave. And so everybody is aware of how intensive this can be. And there's very little padding, cushioning and calling the right person that can absolve you of this experience here. And so that has given rise to, okay, let's put fuel on this thing. But then you also have this added pressure of like, okay, well, what is. We love protesting, but what about the property damage? And so that is always a far right, like, rhetoric point of, well, we don't like things being set on fire. We don't like things being messed up. And so, of course, the news is conveniently skipping where the kids, after they've made a barricade, they will put it all back. They're putting back all of the furniture on the terrasse, they're putting back the trash cans.
Matthew Remski: They tidy up.
Danielle Duncan: They do, they tidy up after themselves. What I would like people to know is French students are so capable, they're self motivated, they are determined, and a lot of them are brilliant. And the way that, you know, this is going sideways is that even the brilliant ones are suffering. Even the brilliant ones are having to quit school from stress or being committed to the hospital, like everyone. So if the ones that are struggling are having much less of an experience, that experience is abysmal and they have every right to be doing this. And so I think the public is steadfastly being like, hey, we gotta get out here. Because again, the kids are our future and they are aware of that.
Matthew Remski: I am very moved to see there was another sort of montage of protest images that included obviously parents and teachers and a woman holding up a sign that said Maman Solidaire. And I have to say that that has to be incredibly influential.
Do you have friends and colleagues who are in that situation who are caregivers? They have children who are on the street.
Danielle Duncan: Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God, yeah. And I mean, it's just they are doing what they have to. They stand with their kids, and oftentimes they will stand behind them and let the kids really lead. So when you see a protest, it will often be, okay, here's the high schoolers out front. This is their thing. Then, like the older students, like the university kids in the back. And then you'll see more adults and then parents at the end. So they're very much trying to be like, you are learning these skills. We are sharpening these muscles. We are doing this. But it is heartbreaking. There are so many signs also of, like, you injured my daughter. Like, at what point is this enough? Like, why does violence need to. Why does progress need to come from violence? Like, that is a chronic cry here. You can see it on all of the placards coming through. And it is.
It is just so much. But I find it interesting that historically, women have led the revolution response here. Mothers have led. In fact, when we talk about the first French Revolution and people marching on Versailles to go grab the king and queen and bring them back to Paris, that was organized by women who were the wives of the fishmongers and.
Matthew Remski: Right.
And then it was then the French. Then the Paris Commune was women as well.
Danielle Duncan: Yes, exactly.
Matthew Remski: Telling the army, you're not taking those cannons away.
Danielle Duncan: Right?
Matthew Remski: You're not taking the cannons away.
Danielle Duncan: Yes. That is the really wonderful thing about Paris history. I mean, even back to the legend of St. Genevieve. Like, oh, my gosh, St. Genevieve. Sorry. Even when you're sorry, my brain is getting crossed.
Her myth and legend about her pleading with the soldiers, please stay and protect our city. They were all ready to flee. They were all ready to retreat. And she's like, you must. You must stay here and fight for us. You must do what is right. I'm begging you to do this. They stay, they fight, they win. And ultimately, she's considered the patron saint of Paris. Like, that is really this kind of beautiful allegory of what French history has always done. It's really built these movements off the back of mothers and women.
Matthew Remski: So history moves forward, and there are people ready to grasp it. And I'm wondering particularly about whether La France Insoumise, even though they're being blamed for this, whether somebody like Mélenchon is able to speak into this moment, into an effective way and provide a supportive role. Because, you know, the key question with popular uprisings is always, you know, how focused or strategic can they be in relation to whatever levers of power remain to be grasped? And so I'm wondering if you have a view on that. Like, it's a very volatile moment, and there's a lot of energy that's embodied in the street.
And the question is, where is it going to go?
Danielle Duncan: Well, it's interesting. I have been asking myself, who is speaking to this moment? There are 30 candidates up for president in 2027. Like, where are they? And the most obvious one is Mélenchon.
He is in the street with the cameras, with the students, he's talking with them. He's making these really illustrious claims of, like, we've retaken the Bastille. Like, let's get onto liberty.
Matthew Remski: He knows how to milk it. Right?
Danielle Duncan: He really does. But he's also like, hey, let's get this fixed for the students. He's speaking to the older people too. Like, hey, let's lower the retirement age from 62 to 60. Like, let's really do this up. Let's make sure all of these issues are addressed. He's like, let's say absolutely no to the far right. Let's say absolutely no to external wars. He is in a position right now. I mean, again, he really does kind of sound a bit like a Bernie, or maybe more so, like Abdul El-Sayed, perhaps, like, who's not elected yet. But he's got the same kind of
Matthew Remski: charisma, I would say a Bernie who has spent probably 40 years building up an infrastructure around him.
Danielle Duncan: Correct.
Matthew Remski: Because Bernie really is.
And independent in the truest sense of the word. He had a large populist movement, but he was the individual at the head of it. And I think that what I've heard about Mélenchon is that he has a number of proxies that speak for him, that there's a whole sort of almost like apostles surrounding him that can go on the news shows and can deliver the goods.
And so there seems to be a sense of vanguard that is alive in La France Insoumise. And yeah, I'm just wondering, can he do the memes?
Danielle Duncan: Yeah, actually, I think that is such.
I get the very strongest sense that he is in charge of his own X account.
When you start to look at how the memes are flowing out, it feels like a man who has spent time with the people is using them and no one is trying to take those keys away from him. So, like, this is someone who very much has a young at heart vibe, but is taking this role very seriously and is actually listening to the kids and platforming certain kids who are showing themselves to have the rhetoric, the capability and the determination to express themselves, which I really, really love. So it's a movement that he is kind of spearheading and all of these other people are filing behind. We're seeing other people try to kind of speak to this, but they're not doing it well. For example, Gabriel Attal, again, he's a centrist. He's the youngest senator in history. He's also gay. And he really is kind of comparable to Pete Buttigieg. Okay. He is speaking to these things. He's been on a couple television shows, but it feels more sterile, strategic and removed. Like he did a 2,000 person rally. But it was obviously political people. It wasn't necessarily like the people, the proletariat. And he said, if our republic cannot capture and absorb the ambitions of the youth, it will wither. And it's like, okay, well that's great, but what are you going to do about it? So he's very eloquent, but he's not
Matthew Remski: maybe really well regulated. Pride parades, maybe. I mean, who knows Exactly.
Danielle Duncan: Like, that's maybe more his speed. And then of course, you have Éric Zemmour, which is such a bizarre person from the far right. He has been very confrontational and said some audacious things. Like he really said, we see the two Frances in the street. Here they are the two sides. And this guy is Kabyle. Like, his parents are Jewish and Algerian, but he was French born. But he hates immigrants. So I compare him to Marco Rubio. He's the Marco Rubio of France. And so the vibe there is just. It's not there. It's not well, but there are people who go, yes, yes, thank you, sir. Oh, this is so like, this is so poetic. Thank you. So he will rail on about the injustice in this very old fashioned, kind of reserved way. So everybody's trying to have an opinion, but the way that it's playing, it's like so few of them are actually in the streets with the people raising the issues, hearing them. Really the big thing in this culture, it's not about seeing what's going on, it's about hearing what's going on. And if you allow someone to speak to you and you're actively listening, that is the biggest compliment and that is the biggest indicator that something could change.
Matthew Remski: Well, on that point, I just wanted to ask one last thing about Mélenchon is that there is a leftism in France that has not really addressed its own racism. And then there is an internationalist leftism in France that goes back a long way that has tried to do with those things. And I'm wondering whether Mélenchon and La France Insoumise is actually some sort of. Is making an integrated space.
Danielle Duncan: This is the tricky thing about the left in general, you know, because sometimes trying to integrate a space is better than trying to find the perfect space, trying to find the perfect person to fit that spot. And so there's a bit of like, that's counter French in a sense. Like they want everybody in line in the right place at the right time.
It's very. So it's a complicated.
And you also see the international community is really taking a global perspective. That can be really helpful. But a lot of times you'll see, like, French leftists or liberals being like, you can't possibly understand this. And it's like, that's actually not true. But I do understand why there are not a lot of, like, correspondents from elsewhere that are speaking on these things. You guys are just nuts. So it's a very odd place and time to be. I think Mélenchon has the capacity to bring people. He's. He's doing a great job. He's doing a great job. He's very popular amongst the youth. And especially he knows this because he's trying to drop the age of voting to, I believe it's 16.
Matthew Remski: No brainer.
Danielle Duncan: Right, Exactly. So, I mean, this is a fascinating time to be here and to watch. And it's really a question of are they going to be able to rally in this direction right now?
Who can say? We made a miraculous push last year with the left and the center really trying to defeat the far right when the government was dissolved by Macron and it happened, but then it also collapsed. So, I mean, these efforts, we'll see if these efforts can be rekindled, but only time will tell. And really, the big issue is tomorrow. Tomorrow is October 17th. This is a major day of national protest, and it goes back to some of the Algerian protests here, and some of which ended very badly. So this has been a continuous time of, like, the French really giving their full force together as a. As a Francophone community, as a country, and absolutely as the pinpoint city of Paris. So it's going to be really interesting and potentially dangerous.
Matthew Remski: Well, Danielle, I hope that you're able to continue to follow with such sensitivity and I'll probably check in with you again. This is going to be published after the 17th. So I think in the introduction I'll do a little sort of recap of the latest news. But I really, really think thank you for watching and being able to convey some of these scenarios with such sensitivity and empathy.
It's a real service because I think that it seems to be a really extraordinary moment that everybody in the world should be informed about.
Danielle Duncan: Thank you. And it's true. I mean, this is inspiring movements all over Europe and South America and it's really something. Even India we're seeing everywhere. People are like, hey, we should actually rise up for this. And I would really love to see some North American movement, but, you know, who can say, yeah.
Matthew Remski: Who can say, thank you, Danielle. Keep safe.
Danielle Duncan: Yeah, thank you, Matthew. You do the same.
Matthew Remski: So I really appreciate that Danielle was able to put together that background so quickly, because the truth is that our media cycle is set up for reactionary centrists to seize control of stories about social movements through misinformation and shame.
Now, this is happening already at the governmental level, with ministers describing the movement as a maneuver organized by La France Insoumise and its ultraleft proxies.
On October 15, Prime Minister Lecornu called it a mouvement de violences urbaines, or just, you know, street violence in the city, as though that's all that was going on. Justice Minister Darmanin asked prosecutors to make parents pay for damage done by their children. That's a good one.
And after October 17, the President, the Prime Minister and the Interior Minister, basically everybody blamed the ultra left, including Marine Le Pen and her fascist party.
Now, down among the plebs, there's a lot of social media commentary that completely omits or ignores the basic context for the uprising to spin a tale of idiotic young people just fucking shit up for the laughs.
As I mentioned at the top, I learned about the manif from Richard, with whom I often discuss how to study and pay attention to organic uprisings, to understand them and how we might support them and how their conditions compare to our own, or don't.
And that takes some work. I'm even brushing up on my French to better listen to things directly.
But your typical liberal doesn't know or care about any of the background to the crisis of the day.
Social movements are just not their thing, because things are, you know, fine. I guess they're not paying attention when parents and then university students and then unions and firefighters come to support the children and the people connect their grievances together. And because that happens, the police repression grows.
But with the background, you can understand why the clashes escalate and why, out of an overflow of rage or vengeance against the police blowing off the hands or fracturing the jaws of children, or out of revolutionary nihilism or reckless nihilism, a minority gets into burning cars and buildings and some other people will loot.
This is where the liberal becomes a reactionary, because abnormal property damage that follows normalized state violence becomes the thing to focus on.
So to them, the protesters en masse must be stupid. We see this story over and over again. It's the same reaction that many of them had to the encampment protesters.
The context is avoided. Basic questions of context are just bypassed, like why? Out of protests that drew up to 800, the several hundred who engaged in looting dominate their media feeds.
Why were the police gassing and kettling people playing violins in Place de la République instead of protecting the shopkeepers?
A story about structural injustice meeting its own crisis is overwhelmed by pious moralizing. And this does the fascists work for them?
Matthew Remski: Them?
Matthew Remski: My approach and I think my advice for other people doing work in this area or just talking to your kids about this is just to not take the bait. Like, you don't have to defend the intelligence or dignity of the children or other protesters because they know who they are and that's why they did what they did.
Liberal voices will always outnumber solid analysis because all of liberal culture must now join the police line with the task of enforcing a kind of emotional repression. And it is a fool's task to argue with bullshit.
What will remain important, in my view, is to continue the task that Richard is talking to me about, learning about and platforming resources that help people understand how something like this happens, how children protesting rats in their schools can spark social movements that draw in every existential concern and animate so many otherwise fearful people.
Remember now up on Patreon, Marxist elder Michael Löwy on his analysis of the manif.
Take care of each other.
