Sev Onyshkevych

France is burning today, and it’s not an accident. Saturday, October seventeenth. One hundred forty protests. Thirty three thousand people in the streets outside Paris alone. By nightfall, over two hundred seventy arrests. In Marseille, protesters stormed the town hall, overturned a bust, smashed furniture, spray painted an A for anarchy on the wall. In Lyon, a tourism office went up in flames. In Lille, they broke into the mayor’s office. In Paris, cars burned at Place de la République while masked figures threw fireworks and paving stones at riot police. The French Interior Ministry didn’t mince words. They called it targeted acts of violence by hooded individuals, and said the movement is marked by a very strong mobilization of far-left elements whose sole intent is to incite disorder. Here’s what they don’t lead with. This didn’t start as a cost of living protest. It started as a high school revolt in Seine Saint Denis, and within weeks it was flying Palestinian flags, hammer and sickle banners, and Antifa symbols. Greta Thunberg showed up wearing a keffiyeh. A leaked intelligence report described it as an operation organized by La France Insoumise, Mélenchon’s party. A Fox News investigation counted fifty organizations in the movement’s orbit. Only fifteen were student groups. The rest were unions, communist organizations, and Palestinian advocacy groups. Prime Minister Lecornu said it plainly. Members of France Insoumise are instrumentalizing the high school movement for their electoral advantage. Over six thousand six hundred arrests since September, mostly teenagers. Seven hundred fifteen police injured. Two hundred fifteen students hurt. A fourteen year old’s jaw shattered by a tear gas grenade. A fifteen-year-old lost a hand. And the timing? France votes in April twenty twenty-seven. Marine