France's History of Unrest: Beyond the Headlines of 'Burning'

Recent international media coverage of France has been dominated by images of burning buildings and devastated streets, with headlines proclaiming "France is burning," "France in turmoil," and "Chaos in France." These narratives primarily focus on the violent aspects of what is, in essence, a peaceful student movement advocating for improved educational conditions. To comprehend the historical and contemporary roots of this phenomenon, it is crucial to first dissect the term "violence." In contemporary discourse, "violence" is often applied indiscriminately to describe anything from a broken shop window or a police officer injuring a demonstrator to a car set ablaze or shots fired at an unarmed crowd. This conflation inaccurately equates material damage and attacks on individuals with acts of revolt and their subsequent repression.

Drawing from the insights of Brazilian archbishop Dom Helder Camara, a proponent of liberation theology, we can distinguish three forms of violence: the violence of oppressive injustice, the violence of the revolt it engenders, and the violence of repression. I would add a fourth category: the violence inherent in inequality, discrimination, social humiliation, and precarious living conditions. A social order can be inherently violent, even when outwardly appearing tranquil.

French history offers a stark reminder of the recurring entanglement between revolts, the injustices that instigate them, and the repressions that follow. A pivotal event was the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, preceding the French Revolution. This act of armed insurrection by revolutionaries challenging an oppressive absolute monarchy saw the prison as a potent symbol of royal abuses. The fortress's defenders fired upon the assailants, resulting in approximately 100 deaths. Following their surrender, the Bastille's governor, Bernard-Rene Jourdan de Launay, was killed, his head later paraded on a pike through the streets. In the subsequent weeks, peasants began to seize and ransack aristocratic properties, destroying property deeds that represented their feudal subjugation.

Three years later, on August 10, 1792, revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace, leading to the deaths of hundreds of Swiss Guards. In September, amidst fears of foreign invasion, armed groups executed over 1,000 prisoners, including Catholic priests and individuals incarcerated for common crimes. These outbursts of popular anger were deeply rooted in the systemic violence of the ancien regime, characterized by birth privileges, feudal oppression, tax disparities, and arbitrary use of force and repression. Popular violence, therefore, cannot be divorced from the violence of a social order built on domination.

Throughout the 19th century, similar driving forces—fear and anger directed at those in power—continued to fuel collective violence. In February 1831, an anticlerical mob sacked the archbishop’s palace in Paris, destroying its contents and targeting the Church, which was associated with the deposed monarchy. In 1871, following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, thousands of disgruntled Parisians revolted, establishing the Paris Commune. They took hostages in an attempt to compel the government in Versailles to cease its bombardment. The tragic killing of these hostages occurred during "Bloody Week," when the Versailles army massacred thousands of Parisians.

However, social violence has not always manifested as spectacular insurrections and their suppression. It has also taken the form of labor mobilizations, targeting factories, machinery, and employer representatives. On January 26, 1886, in Decazeville, engineer Jules Watrin, deputy director of the local mines, was beaten and thrown from a window to his death by a crowd of miners incensed by poor working conditions. His name became the origin of the neologism "watrinade," referring to the killing of a manager or boss. In Armentieres, in 1903, a textile strike escalated into the ransacking of shops. In Limoges, three years later, demonstrators breached factory gates and destroyed porcelain in one plant. Two gun shops were looted, and an explosive device was detonated outside a director’s residence.

In 1968, a student-led protest for improved university conditions sparked a nationwide mobilization, involving millions of workers who went on strike. The barricades erected in the Latin Quarter of Paris were accompanied by overturned and torched cars, the throwing of cobblestones, and the use of Molotov cocktails. In Nantes, the director of Sud Aviation was held captive in his factory for several days. In the ensuing years, deindustrialization rendered workers increasingly precarious, triggering further waves of labor protests. In 1979, steelworkers in Longwy and Denain, facing massive layoffs, participated in mobilizations that resulted in broken doors and scattered files at the subprefecture of Briey, along with vehicles set ablaze and shop windows smashed.

In 2009, following the announcement of the Continental plant's closure in Clairoix, employees ransacked the subprefecture of Compiegne. In 2015, at Air France, two executives were assaulted during a protest against job cuts. In 2016, during demonstrations against labor law reforms that facilitated easier worker dismissals, storefronts were smashed, and police vehicles were attacked. Two years later, the "yellow vests" demonstrations, fueled by economic grievances, brought an unprecedented level of visibility to such actions. In December 2018, the Arc de Triomphe was defaced, and shops were looted. However, this movement was also marked by severe injuries inflicted upon numerous protesters by law enforcement.

Mobilizations by farmers and fishermen have also led to notable protest actions, often targeting state representatives and public buildings. In 1994, a demonstration by fishermen protesting the crisis in their sector devolved into clashes with law enforcement and a fire that devastated the Parliament of Brittany. In 1999, farmers ransacked the office of Environment Minister Dominique Voynet.

Not all collective violence, however, occurs within organized protest movements. Some erupt in the wake of tragic events, crystallizing accumulated anger and social tensions. In 2005, following the deaths of Zyed Benna and Bouna Traore, protests in Paris's working-class neighborhoods resulted in thousands of vehicles being set on fire and attacks on public buildings. In a grim parallel, 18 years later, after the death of Nahel Merzouk, killed by a police officer in Nanterre, a Paris suburb, vehicles and shops were attacked.

This extensive history demonstrates that popular violence is neither novel nor monolithic. From the destruction of feudal property archives to the sabotage of factory machinery, the ransacking of police prefectures, or the setting fire to shops, acts of violence can serve diverse objectives. However, material destruction frequently serves as a form of political communication directed at symbols of power perceived as unresponsive or unjust. The most dramatic acts are often perpetrated by a minority and cannot, in themselves, define mobilizations that are largely peaceful. Furthermore, the actions of demonstrators should not overshadow the pervasive violence within society itself.

Therefore, to assert that violence has suddenly emerged in an otherwise peaceful France is to fundamentally misunderstand a crucial aspect of its political and social history.