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"Is Paris Burning?"
The title of that 1960s movie came from a message Adolf Hitler sent to his commanding general in Paris in August 1944. He wanted Paris to burn if he couldn’t keep it.
Today, the call isn’t coming from the Führerbunker; it’s from inside the house. It’s not Nazis, but the French — and quasi-French — burning Paris and other French cities.
The Louvre museum in Paris, home to the Mona Lisa, closed Monday "due to a student social movement." That’s one way to describe the utter chaos overtaking French cities.
PHOTOS SHOW AFTERMATH OF RIOTS AS MASKED GROUPS CLASH WITH POLICE ACROSS FRANCE
In Limoges, rioters set fire to the town hall, destroying its iconic tower. In Marseille, they broke into city hall and vandalized the interior. In Paris, a video circulating online appeared to show young thugs shouting, "Wallah! Kill her!" and "Dirty whore!" [my translation] at a policewoman they chased and threw to the ground — all while trashing property and assaulting people on the streets.
What’s happening in France is both familiar and new. It’s familiar in that mass protests are endemic to France. They happen every few years when a feckless government tries to balance the books by reforming France’s ruinously generous public benefits. What’s new is the addition of foreign influence and the scale of the violence.
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The high-schoolers who kicked off this round of protests are angry about class sizes, dilapidated schools, and access to college. Retirees who joined them say state pensions aren’t enough to live on. Everyone complains about the high cost of living. They all want more state spending to cure their ills.
French protests often turn violent. Torched cars, vandalized property, and looting are common. What has added fuel to the fire this time is the "Casseurs" (breakers), looters, and violent thugs going beyond what was tacitly tolerated in the past. Many seem to be of migrant background, and some carry Palestinian flags or those of the North African countries they or their parents came from.
FRANCE ROCKED BY STUDENT RIOTS AS HUNDREDS ARRESTED, VIOLENCE SPREADS NATIONWIDE
Videos in French media showed streets of looted stores. Rue Paradis in Marseille has many high-end jewelry and fashion stores, but also many mom-and-pop shops whose owners work long hours for little profit. Dozens of these are now looted shells. Their metal shutters — designed to prevent windows from being broken and stores from being burglarized — lie torn off or broken.
Many of France’s major cities are run by socialists. Marseille’s mayor, Benoit Payan, blames the French government for failing to protect city hall — where his own office is — and local stores. He wants Paris to pay for all the damage. Once again, the French taxpayer is on the hook.
How does this end? Not quickly. The political left is well organized, galvanized, and funded — including with foreign money. We are likely to see more promises of increased spending from lame-duck President Emmanuel Macron, now in the last year of his two terms and unable to run again. He gave a speech condemning the violence on Sunday, but he’s been notably absent as it has unfolded. On Tuesday he stuck with his schedule and flew to the Gulf region.
France has presidential elections next April. Two leading contenders are Marine Le Pen of the right-wing National Rally (NR) and Jean-Luc Melenchon of the left-wing France Unbowed (LFI). Of the two, Le Pen promises to lower migration and limit welfare payments to migrants. Melenchon welcomes mass migration and opposes any reduction in benefits. Le Pen opposes illegal migration, but she hasn’t campaigned on reducing the bloated benefits bill.
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But France’s checkbook is tapped out. It hasn’t balanced a budget in 50 years, and this year’s deficit is over 5%. Economic growth is under 1%. Diesel costs about $10 a gallon. National debt is 120% of GDP, and the bond market is getting nervous.
Like other developed countries, France’s fertility rate is below replacement, and the country has allowed in millions of immigrants from its former colonies. On balance, these new arrivals and their children have a lower employment rate than native French, but they get the same social services. Those numbers don’t work, no matter how smart the president in Paris.
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Not only is France broke, but it has too few bodies to handle multiple riots at once. France’s national police handle the cities, while the gendarmes enforce the law in the countryside. Both are funded centrally by the French state. Towns have municipal police, but they aren’t equipped or trained for law enforcement, let alone riot control. France has specialized riot-control units, but only so many. The French military is probably Europe’s best, but it is not used for internal operations.
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Like France, some of our major cities, New York and Seattle, are now run by avowed socialists. Arguably, administrations in Boston and Los Angeles are also closely aligned with DSA values. And more cities will be in the future.
The DSA wants open borders, nationalized health care, curtailed law enforcement, and higher taxes. If we don’t take heed, France’s present could be our future.
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A McDonald's in Paris was left ransacked and heavily damaged after cost-of-living protests exploded into riots and widespread looting that also targeted restaurants, cafés and grocery stores across the French capital — with the city now issuing curfews in two places, The Associated Press reported.
The McDonald's on Boulevard de Magenta near Gare de l'Est suffered smashed windows and extensive damage inside, according to Le Monde.
Computer screens were damaged — while an ice cream machine continued spilling vanilla onto a ketchup-covered floor, the outlet reported.
MASSIVE FIRE DESTROYS 400-YEAR-OLD FOOD MARKET, LEAVING HISTORIC LANDMARK IN RUINS
Intruders even attempted to cook french fries before a man and his dog drove about 20 people from the restaurant, a security guard told the publication.
Fox News Digital reached out to McDonald's for comment about the vandalism.
The American-based fast-food chain was hardly the only food business to be caught up in the destruction.
A neighborhood café was burned out, a wine shop was destroyed and supermarkets were among the businesses targeted as unrest swept Paris.
Among the hardest hit was La Barrique, a neighborhood café near Place de la République that was burned out, according to Le Monde.
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The son of the café's owners told the outlet his mother was inside when the business was attacked and was later taken to a hospital with a head injury.
Grocery stores were hit hard as well.
The Franprix, Monoprix, Picard and Carrefour City locations were among the grocery retailers targeted during the unrest, according to French news agency AFP.
At a Franprix on Rue Beaurepaire near Place de la République, shelves were emptied and products were either stolen or crushed on the floor.
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Looters elsewhere were seen leaving supermarkets carrying bags filled with food, juice and alcohol, Le Monde reported.
An Intermarché Express on Boulevard de Magenta was also looted. A crew from Euronews said they were assaulted by masked individuals while reporting near the supermarket.
A Nicolas wine shop on Boulevard de Magenta was also destroyed — with shattered bottles and wine covering the area outside the store, according to Le Monde.
The destruction was part of widespread violence that followed demonstrations Saturday over the rising cost of living and other grievances.
French-born restaurateur Olivia Ostrow, who now operates Maison Ostrow in South Florida, told Fox News Digital the unrest reflects tensions extending far beyond the French capital.
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Ostrow, who was born in Paris and whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, expressed concern about what she described as rising antisemitism and the role of social media in fueling hostility.
She argued that some demonstrators have embraced political causes without fully understanding the history behind them.
"Those kids and most of those people couldn't point to Israel on the world map if it hit them in the face," she said.
Many on social media shared their dismay about what is happening in France.
"I have nothing but disgust for anyone trying to justify this," wrote one person. "Let me say it, the ones suffering the consequences are ordinary French people, not the government. It's ordinary citizens who will pay for this, whose cars were burned, whose businesses and homes were looted, and whose physical integrity were threatened."
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"These are not protests anymore," another person wrote.
Several European governments are now advising travelers to France to avoid large crowds and exercise caution during their stay, Reuters reported.
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