Oliver Bennett

This is Limoges city hall. On fire. Storming and setting fire to seats of democratic government is insurrectionary violence. No grievance gives anyone the right to do this. Students have legitimate grievances. This violence is burying them. The missing teachers, overcrowded classrooms and anxiety about the future disappear behind the destruction. For a politics built on permanent confrontation, that can be useful. Mélenchon’s strategy connects separate grievances into a single indictment of the system. The confrontation becomes the cause. And violence feeds on perceived weakness. When the state appears to have disappeared, people test its limits. Each retreat invites another challenge. A kind of madness takes hold: destroying the institutions we depend on comes to look like liberation. I wrote in June that democracy rests on a promise: that the state is strong enough to guarantee everyone the same protection, the same rights and the same rules. When that promise breaks, the consequences extend far beyond security. Fear spreads. People protect themselves because they no longer trust that they will be protected together. They retreat into their group, their community, their identity. Those promising order gain ground. Distrust replaces the confidence that makes a common life possible. And is exploited by all those, inside and outside the country, who want to see it burn!