By Athena Papakosta

France remains engulfed in the flames of social anger which, as it turns out, has been smoldering for months. Just read the numbers: 21 fatal shootings in random traffic checks from 2020 to date. All the victims were either black or of Arab descent. The police shooting that 17-year-old Nael M. received was just the last straw.

We read last Friday the UN’s call for France to get serious about the problems of racism and racial discrimination within law enforcement. However, on the same day, we also read the announcements of the country’s two largest police unions in which they characterized the protesters as “parasites” and, in fact, spoke of a “war” against the police.

For their part, the “parasites” against the French police are (mainly) the young people of France. In short, it is the next day of the country, its future, since it is either teenagers from 13 to 17 years old who, according to the French government, make up 30% of the thousands – since the beginning of the riots – arrested or for those who have recently come of age.

And they, in turn, also speak of war but of a war against the system since – according to sociologists – they judge that the fundamental values ​​of the French Revolution “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” in the case of the children of the suburbs cease to apply either by the French police and or even by the whole of French society.

Remarkably, the riots are not confined to the seedy suburbs of the French capital. Instead, they have spread across the country. Neither the town halls, nor the health centers, nor the libraries are spared from the protesters’ target. Yesterday, Sunday, it became known that even the residence of the mayor of L’Eil-le-Rose was attacked by unknown persons during which his wife was injured.

Nael’s grandmother appealed for calm and an end to the riots. “Nael is dead, he is dead. My daughter is lost… She has no life anymore,” he said, speaking to French television network BFMTV, and pointed out “don’t destroy the schools, don’t destroy the buses. There are other mothers who take these buses.’

According to the British The Guardian, the death of the 17-year-old by a police officer “resurrected” controversial questions in France regarding racial assimilation, secularization and “one identity for all”. In fact, the newspaper notes that the increasingly changing character of French society does not see how much it has been affected by the country’s colonial past, pointing out that the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening.

The Emmanuel Macron government is trying to control the situation with tough measures so that it does not get (further) out of control. For now, it has even gone so far as to warn parents to keep their children at home since, as the French Minister of Justice, Eric Dupont-Moretti, pointed out, “it is not the responsibility of the French state to… raise them”. At the same time, he even warned with an electronic manhunt stressing that “the French prosecutors will find the identities of the users of Social Networking Media” as “these constitute for young people a Means of communication and definition of the place, time and target of each attack”.

The fuse has now been lit and the outburst of rage seems capable of burning everything in its path. Already the German chancellor who would receive the president of France these days has expressed his concern about everything that is unfolding on French territory. But everyone’s eyes are on what Emmanuel Macron himself will say, who for the last 24 hours has publicly chosen silence.