Social Protests or Large-Scale Riots: What's Happening in France and How It's Affecting the Rest of Europe

Mass protests have once again swept across France, but this time, discontent with the government’s social policies has escalated into large-scale riots.

The demonstrations, which began with high school students’ complaints about the state of education in the country and the high cost of living, have turned into arson, looting, and violent clashes with the police. Now the consequences of this crisis have spread far beyond France’s borders, and the U.S. president is actively spreading claims of “treason” in coordination with online trolls and bots.

Channel 24 analyzed why the French have taken to the streets again, how social protests turned into riots and looting, and why footage of burning French cities could be a boon for populists on the eve of elections, both in France itself and in other European countries. Dmytro Korniyenko, founder of the analytical community Resurgram, helped assess the political dimension of the French protests.

From Education Issues to Riots: How the Protests in France Unfolded

It’s hard to surprise the French with mass protests. Demonstrations, nationwide strikes, and even clashes with the police have long been part of the country’s political life. Some consider them an indispensable hallmark of democracy. However, this time events unfolded very rapidly and quickly spiraled out of control.

It all began with protests by schoolchildren and students dissatisfied with the shortage of teachers, the quality of teaching following the implementation of educational reforms, the condition of educational institutions, and inequality in access to education. Ultimately, the problems that had been building up for years in the French education system became the catalyst for a broader outburst of public discontent.

French students and schoolchildren during a peaceful demonstration / Photo – Wikimedia

The youth were joined by labor unions, left-wing political forces, and French citizens who were far more concerned about their own salaries, pensions, and the constantly rising cost of living – especially housing and rent prices. Ultimately, people with quite different grievances against the government – ranging from the condition of school classrooms to a general disillusionment with the political elite – found themselves united under the same slogans. Dmytro Korniienko explains this diversity of protesters and their demands in an interview with Channel 24.

For France, this kind of escalation of protests is also nothing new. Back in 2018, the “Yellow Vests” movement began with what was almost an everyday outrage over fuel tax hikes and ended in a large-scale confrontation with Emmanuel Macron’s government. And back then, too, there were smashed storefronts and burning cars. There were also bot networks spreading “disinformation.”

Unrest on Place de la République in Paris / Photo – Wikimedia

But the current wave of protests has shown just how quickly social demands can get lost amid burning cities and continuous outbreaks of violence. While hundreds of thousands of French people took to the streets with political and economic grievances, some radical groups sought clashes with the police, and looters took advantage of the chaos to rob stores.

Before long, instead of posters demanding better education, the main images in French news reports became burning buildings, ransacked stores, and masked people carrying off other people’s property. The causes of public discontent hadn’t gone away; it’s just that now France had to answer a much more pressing question: Who is actually responsible for all this chaos?

If you think this is just a local French issue that has nothing to do with Ukraine or Ukrainians – you’re deeply mistaken. Read this article to the end to understand the scale of the problem and how it might affect you.

Thousands of arrests and a curfew: how French authorities are responding to the protests

Large-scale riots broke out almost instantly in several major French cities at once. In Paris, stores were smashed and supermarkets looted; in Lyon, a tourist office was set on fire; and in Limoges, a fire engulfed the historic town hall, which had stood there for over 100 years, survived both world wars, but collapsed under the onslaught of an aggressive, masked mob.

The events that unfolded in Bordeaux were particularly telling. There, the rioters did not limit themselves to looting stores. They stormed the Gironde Prefecture building, ransacked the premises, and set it on fire. Ultimately, the elite police special forces unit RAID – which typically deals with far more serious threats – had to be deployed to protect the government facility.

But while the burned-down historic buildings seem like the loss of something priceless, the shop owners – who likely bore the brunt of these riots – have been able to calculate their losses. The Carrefour grocery supermarket chain reported that as many as 50 of its locations were attacked during the riots. The cost of repairing the damaged property was estimated at more than 10 million euros.

And while for a large chain, a ransacked store means huge but manageable losses (which will be covered by insurance), for a small business owner, it can be a life-altering catastrophe. After all, behind the smashed storefronts and looted merchandise are not abstract corporations, but people who have invested years of work, all their energy, and their savings into their own businesses.

The French authorities had to urgently rectify the situation, and as a result, mass arrests began almost immediately. On October 17 and 18 alone, French law enforcement detained about 2,500 people. Moreover, as many as 1,000 police officers and gendarmes were injured during the riots, and, according to preliminary reports, seven of them are in serious condition.

Looters climb through a smashed store window / Photo – Wikimedia

Clearly, the police were unprepared for such a scale of violence (and this was true on both ends of the spectrum: in some places they acted too harshly, while in others – too leniently).

Meanwhile, separate groups of attackers moved quickly through the cities, targeting new locations and taking advantage of the fact that law enforcement was forced to contain dozens of outbreaks of mass unrest simultaneously. According to Le Monde, clashes in Paris took place just a few hundred meters from the Élysée Palace, and the Louvre even had to be closed for a short time.

Mass protests outside the Louvre – watch the video:

Ultimately, the riots escalated into a serious political crisis. French authorities had to explain not only the extent of the damage but also how law enforcement and intelligence agencies managed to miss such a large-scale outbreak of violence.

President Emmanuel Macron publicly condemned the rioters, promised to punish those responsible, and demanded an investigation into the police’s failures in preparedness. The government also raised the possibility of banning certain gatherings where there is a threat of further riots. In some cities, authorities plan to impose a curfew if the situation again approaches a critical point.

A true indication of the depth of the crisis was the attempted resignation of Interior Minister Laurent Nunié. He offered to step down, effectively acknowledging responsibility for the police’s failures, but Macron refused to accept his resignation.

Furthermore, despite all the pressure from right-wing politicians, Macron refused to resort to extreme measures or declare a state of emergency. Instead, he is trying to balance a tough response to looting with a search for solutions to the protesters’ initial demands, inviting educators, union representatives, political figures, and business leaders to engage in dialogue.

However, after thousands of arrests, government buildings set on fire, and stores looted, calls for dialogue now ring hollow. The French have seen that the government can lose control of the streets even in the heart of its own capital. And when citizens stop believing in the state’s ability to ensure their safety, trust in existing institutions gradually erodes. The weaker today’s system appears, the more appealing politicians who promise simple yet radical solutions become to the public.

A Gift for the Far Right: How European Populists Are Exploiting the Protests in France

While Emmanuel Macron is trying to restore the French people’s faith in the state’s ability to solve problems and ensure citizens’ safety, his political opponents have already received nearly perfect fodder for the 2027 election campaign. After all, for right-wing populists, there is no better propaganda than footage of riots – against which they can promise voters to restore order with a strong hand.

The French far-right “National Rally” was particularly quick to capitalize on this. Even on the eve of the large-scale riots, its leader, Jordan Bardella, was contrasting “the France of labor” – that is, law-abiding workers and taxpayers, against “France of Chaos,” embodied by radical rioters and far-left agitators. Later, Bardella also accused Macron’s government of failing to protect its own citizens.

Marine Le Pen went even further and emphasized that the legitimate social demands of the French people had been held hostage by the far left and the rhetoric of her key opponent from the left – Jean-Luc Mélenchon. She directly accused Mélenchon and his “Unbowed France” of justifying violence and deliberately fomenting chaos (the far left did indeed support the protests by high school students, and Mélenchon personally participated in the protests, though he distanced himself from the violence into which they later devolved – Channel 24).

Moreover, Le Pen’s party did not limit itself to statements. The “National Rally” team edited footage of the riots into an entire campaign video with a rather telling message – essentially a critique of Macron’s decade in power, which today “is ending in chaos.” According to the French right, the blame, of course, lies with radical leftists, while Macron’s supporters have become their accomplices. The party summed this up with its main call to action: to vote.

According to analyst Dmytro Korniyenko, it is precisely this escalation of the situation that creates a particularly favorable political environment for Marine Le Pen, as the violence in the streets simultaneously damages the reputations of her two main political opponents.

This is hardly surprising, given that the French will elect a new president as early as April 18, 2027, and the far right was already among the favorites in this race even before the riots. Now they have the opportunity to push discussions about the economy and social protections into the background, replacing them with a much simpler question:“Who will protect the French from violence?”

Even more interesting is that politicians far beyond France’s borders are already making full use of footage of burning French cities. And here, the issue of migration comes to the forefront.

• For example, the leader of Germany’s “Alternative for Germany” (Alice Weidel) called the French riots a consequence of mass migration and open borders;

• Santiago Abascal, leader of the Spanish far-right party Vox, saw the riots as a threat from “Islamo-leftism”;

• Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini spoke of an alliance between the far left and Islamic fanatics;

• British populist Nigel Farage even warned that without stricter border controls, a similar future awaits his country as well.

• U.S. President Trump linked the large-scale protests in France to migration and called on the country to close its borders.

It is worth noting separately that all these politicians do not merely condemn the riots; they use them as evidence to support their long-standing argument that European migration policy has failed. Moreover, the direct link between the immigration status of those involved in the riots and the scale of the unrest still needs to be confirmed, since many of those detained held French citizenship.

Dmytro Kornienko recalls a long-standing axiom: there are no simple solutions to complex problems. And the migration crisis is precisely such a case.

But for sensational political rhetoric, none of this matters. All it takes is a few images of people in masks, burning buildings, and looted stores to declare all of this a consequence of uncontrolled migration. And for some voters, such images prove far more convincing than any other real reasons.

The problem for European politics is that a real electoral marathon lies ahead. Already, early parliamentary elections will be held in Spain on November 29, 2026, where Vox had the opportunity to exploit the French riots right in the middle of its election campaign. And in 2027, France will hold presidential elections, while Italy and Poland will hold parliamentary elections.

In all these countries, right-wing forces are seeking to strengthen their influence, and the issues of migration, crime, and security have long been part of their political platforms.

Donald Trump, the son of immigrants, blamed immigrants for the riots in France / Screenshot

What consequences will the events in France have for Ukraine?

For Ukraine, this is far from a distant issue, as there are currently more than 4.43 million Ukrainians in the EU with temporary protection status. They could potentially become the next target of collective moral panic regarding migrants. At the very least, certain hostile forces are trying to stir up this issue.

Furthermore, a shift in the political balance in leading EU countries could complicate agreements on funding for Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, and the EU’s further expansion. And while by no means all European right-wingers oppose support for Kyiv, among the most vocal advocates of strict migration controls are political forces that openly promote pro-Russian sentiments and call for an end to aid for Ukraine.

Dmytro Korniienko also points out that the danger for Ukraine lies not only in the potential strengthening of pro-Russian forces in Europe, but also in the fact that European states are increasingly forced to focus on their own domestic problems.

So the main danger of the riots in France lies not only in the burned-down buildings and looted stores. Sooner or later, the streets of Paris will be cleaned up, the damaged stores will be repaired, and at least some of those responsible for the violent attacks will be punished according to the law.

The political consequences, however, may stay with us for a long time, because the rioters – whatever their motivation – may well help bring to power those who have for years promised to save Europe from these very same rioters. And that won’t do anyone any good.