The wave of Islamo-leftist unrest in France has apparently redounded to the benefit of National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, who is the only presidential candidate to see their poll numbers climb after the outburst of violence last weekend.
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Marine Le Pen diagnosed state power collapse observed in real time in France as govt fails to anticipate and confront left-wing violence.
The post Le Pen: The State is Collapsing, The Power is Dying and Can No Longer Maintain Control appeared first on Breitbart.
The head of France's leading leftist trade union has called for strikes to support the youth riots after the government refused to meet demands for minimum wage hikes and more spending on education.
The post Top Leftist Trade Union Calls for Strike in Support of French Youth Revolt appeared first on Breitbart.
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Se si votasse oggi in Francia per l’Eliseo, Marine Le Pen sarebbe presidente. È il risultato del sondaggio Ifop-Fiducial realizzato per Le Figaro dopo le violenze e i saccheggi che si sono verificati sabato scorso a Parigi e in altre città a margine della mobilitazione dei Gilet gialli per il carovita. La leader del Rassemblement national otterrebbe tra il 34% e il 38% dei voti al primo turno (+ 2 punti) e vincerebbe al ballottaggio chiunque fosse il suo avversario: con il 56% in un confronto con il centrista Édouard Philippe, con il 57% contro il socialdemocratico Raphaël Glucksmann, mentre arriverebbe al 68% contro Jean-Luc Mélenchon, candidato La France Insoumise. Che si arrivi al 2 maggio 2027 con un ballottaggio Le Pen-Mélenchon sembra l’ipotesi sempre più probabile: Mélenchon raccoglierebbe tra il 18% e il 20% dei voti al primo turno, più di tutti gli altri candidati, di centro e della sinistra. Dalla crisi di questi ultimi giorni è dunque l’estrema destra a uscire più forte. “Il governo ha perso il controllo di tutto”, ha dichiarato ieri Marine Le Pen a France Info.
Per la leader Rn la campagna entra davvero nel vivo il prossimo fine settimana, a Orléans, con il Congresso del partito (in cui Jordan Bardella dovrebbe essere rieletto presidente senza troppe difficoltà, malgrado le rivelazioni sul passato antisemita) e il primo grande meeting in vista del voto del 2027. Sono attesi a Orléans 10mila militanti. Sul posto le autorità si aspettano anche l’organizzazione di una contro-manifestazione con l’arrivo di “diverse decine di migliaia” di persone opposte all’estrema destra. Marine Le Pen si presenterà al meeting come la candidata dell’ordine, mentre il governo deve rendere conto delle falle nella gestione della sicurezza.
Una commissione parlamentare d’inchiesta per fare luce sulle violenze e i saccheggi di sabato e domenica scorsi è stata nominata ieri. I giudici hanno già emesso per direttissima 174 condanne di prigione. Ieri la prefettura di Parigi ha confermato la terza notte di coprifuoco tra la place de la République e Les Halles. I cortei degli studenti previsti per oggi sono stati vietati “di fronte ai rischi seri di turbativa dell’ordine pubblico”. Lo stesso divieto è stato preso anche dalla prefettura di Lione. Il 24, sabato prossimo, Parigi e numerose altre città francesi accoglieranno la seconda mobilitazione dei Gilet gialli contro il carovita e il carocarburante. Questa volta il governo dispiegherà anche i soldati della forza Sentinelle – creata nel 2015 dopo l’attentato terroristico alla redazione del giornale satirico Charlie Hebdo – per proteggere i luoghi più a rischio, come municipi e prefettura. Da Doha, in Qatar, dove ha concluso un breve tour nei Paesi del Golfo per negoziare l’approvvigionamento di carburante e gas alla Francia, Emmanuel Macron ha fatto sapere che oggi riunirà all’Eliseo i servizi di intelligence, insieme al premier Sébastien Lecornu e ai ministri interessati. Sulle ipotesi di ingerenze russe nell’organizzazione delle rivolte per destabilizzare l’Europa e i prossimi scrutini, evocate da alcuni responsabili politici (compreso il ministro della Difesa Guido Crosetto in Italia), il presidente francese ha invece smentito. Per Macron non è stata rilevata “alcuna ingerenza diretta straniera visibile”. Ha invece denunciato la “manipolazione straniera dell’informazione” e criticato dirigenti di altri Paesi che rilanciano falsi video e fake news: “Ci sono persone che fanno campagna elettorale sulle spalle della Francia -ha detto Macron -, che parlano di orde di migranti e di islamisti. È totalmente falso”.
L'articolo Francia, dopo le proteste Le Pen cresce nei sondaggi: si rafforza l’ipotesi di un ballottaggio con Mélenchon proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.
French intelligence services have identified the far-left as having been at the forefront of the violence that occurred during the riots across the country on Saturday.
The post Far-Left Antifa Groups at Forefront of Violent Riots, French Intelligence Report Finds appeared first on Breitbart.
A little over a month ago, at a high school on the outskirts of Paris, a group of students blocked their school to protest the condition of the facilities and the lack of teachers. Within days, students from other schools joined in, first in Paris and then across the country, complaining of leaks in classrooms and even cockroaches, and of walls that are cracking. They are cold in the winter and hot in the spring. That image of public schools — long considered a pillar of the French Republic, but gradually falling apart — also illustrates the economic decline of recent years.
© Christophe Ena (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)
Francia está asediada por las protestas y el vandalismo desatado tras las manifestaciones de las últimas semanas. Unas 800.000 personas salieron en unas 110 marchas a la calle el sábado. Después llegaron los saqueos y los incendios. Murió una persona, y los ayuntamientos de Limoges, Marsella y Lille sufrieron gravísimos daños. Hay más de 2.000 detenidos, y las grandes ciudades de Francia decretaron toques de queda por las noches. El Ejecutivo ha admitido haber perdido el control de la situación, el ministro del Interior presentó su dimisión, aunque fue rechazada por el presidente de la República, Emmanuel Macron. Pero antes de que se apagaran los primeros incendios, la clase política ya tenía un culpable: Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
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The far-right leader’s promise to restore order will appeal to many ahead of next year’s presidential elections – the stakes are suddenly much higher
There is only one clear winner so far from France’s chaos: Marine Le Pen. The violence and rioting that engulfed towns and cities across the country over the weekend, six months before a pivotal presidential election, is a godsend for the hard-right, Eurosceptical, anti-immigration candidate. As buildings burned, shops were looted and police attacked, the rioting largely drowned out peaceful mass protests over the dilapidated state of schools , fuel prices and the cost of living.
Across France and the rest of Europe, people are in shock at scenes of arson and pillage in city centres, the wrecking of symbols of the republic such as the 19th-century town hall in peaceful provincial Limoges and the bust of Marianne in Marseille’s city hall, and the looting of more than 2,000 shops.
Paul Taylor is a senior visiting fellow at the European Policy Centre
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© Photograph: Firas Abdullah/Anadolu/Getty Images
© Photograph: Firas Abdullah/Anadolu/Getty Images
© Photograph: Firas Abdullah/Anadolu/Getty Images
Francia afronta su particular otoño caliente, marcado por una fractura política y social, un elevado déficit y un coste de financiación que se encarece día a día. El país afronta la próxima primavera unas elecciones presidenciales, que según los sondeos ganará en primera vuelta la ultraderechista Marine Le Pen. Para entonces, el actual Ejecutivo de Sébastien Lecornu aspira a tener aprobados unos presupuestos de 2027 que incorporan recortes por 54.000 millones de euros y que acaban de llegar a una Asamblea Nacional más dividida que nunca. Una fractura que ya se ha instalado en las calles de decenas de ciudades, donde a las movilizaciones contra el encarecimiento del coste de la vida y la pérdida de poder adquisitivo se han sumado las protestas estudiantiles.
© Stephanie Lecocq (REUTERS)
The scenes of social unrest and violence at the weekend are an ominous portent, ahead of elections which may deliver a far-right presidency
In Emmanuel Macron’s book Revolution, published ahead of the 2017 presidential election that he went on to win, he promised to restore hope to a country that was losing faith in its future. As Mr Macron’s lame-duck second term enters its last phase against a quasi-insurrectionary backdrop of torched public buildings and looted shops, the failure of that political project appears total.
The worst scenes of urban violence for years overshadowed a weekend of protest that gravely undermined what is left of the French president’s authority. As police lost control of the streets, more than 2,000 shops were ransacked. Far-left groups targeted town halls and local buildings, and engaged in pitched battles with the police, whose disastrously heavy-handed response to last week’s high school protests has succeeded only in escalating tensions.
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© Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP
© Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP
© Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP
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France’s latest wave of unrest has developed into one of the most serious domestic crises of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency. More than 550,000 people participated in demonstrations on 17 October, according to official estimates, before violence spread through Paris and other major cities. Shops were looted, police confronted rioters, and the historic town hall in Limoges was largely destroyed by fire.
The scale of the destruction prompted emergency government consultations and a televised presidential address. Macron promised to prosecute those responsible, while stopping short of declaring a state of emergency. Yet the immediate security challenge conceals a more difficult political question: why have protests that began with relatively specific demands over education become a confrontation involving such different sections of French society?
The movement originated among secondary-school students demanding better facilities, more teachers and improvements in educational standards. Their complaints subsequently attracted trade unions, workers, farmers and elements of the Gilets Jaunes, the Yellow Vest movement that challenged Macron’s government in 2018.
The resulting coalition has no coherent political programme. Students protesting overcrowded classrooms share demonstrations with workers concerned about purchasing power and motorists angered by fuel prices. Their interests are not necessarily compatible, but they reflect a common dissatisfaction with the government’s ability to deliver functioning public services while containing living costs.
This distinction matters. The presence of masked rioters and organised groups engaged in violence does not establish that the hundreds of thousands who demonstrated peacefully supported their actions. Equally, the destruction of public buildings, attacks on police and widespread looting raise legitimate questions about the state’s capacity to maintain public order.
At the centre of the discontent lies a structural problem that successive French governments have struggled to confront: the distribution of public expenditure between an ageing population and the services required by younger generations.
A French government budget assessment published in October revealed that pension obligations accounted for approximately 32 per cent of the education ministry’s budget, including €28.5 billion in pension expenditure. These obligations restrict the resources available for other departmental priorities.
France nevertheless remains a substantial spender on education. According to official figures, expenditure reached €199.2 billion in 2025, equivalent to 6.7 per cent of GDP. However, after inflation, the annual increase was only 0.1 per cent.
The issue is therefore not simply how much France spends, but how efficiently resources are allocated and whether expenditure meets changing educational needs.
The OECD’s 2025 PISA assessment found that French pupils’ performance in mathematics and reading had declined compared with 2022. Results were among the country’s lowest recorded, although broadly comparable with the OECD average.
These figures give the student protests a significance extending beyond the immediate condition of classrooms. They raise questions about France’s longer-term economic competitiveness and its capacity to provide younger generations with opportunities comparable to those enjoyed by their predecessors.
Macron entered office in 2017 promising to modernise the French economy and overcome the traditional division between left and right. Nearly a decade later, his administration faces a fragmented parliament, constrained public finances and growing resistance to further structural reforms.
The suspension of his pension reform illustrated the difficulty. Raising the retirement age was intended to reduce pressure on the pension system, but parliamentary opposition forced the government to defer the measure until after the presidential election.
The underlying financial pressures have not disappeared. Nor can they be resolved easily through additional spending when public debt, borrowing costs and budgetary obligations already restrict the government’s room for manoeuvre.
This creates an uncomfortable political reality: the state is expected to provide better services, greater purchasing-power protection and stronger security, while the available resources remain limited.
The unrest comes approximately six months before the presidential election, with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed competing to establish themselves as alternatives to Macron’s political centre.
Le Pen has sought to combine support for economic grievances with demands for tougher policing. That position may attract voters concerned by the violence, but it also exposes tensions within a movement that previously supported the Yellow Vest protests.
Mélenchon faces a different difficulty. Supporting demonstrations against government policy is consistent with his political programme, but the involvement of violent groups risks shifting public attention from social demands towards questions of security.
A recent presidential opinion poll even suggested that Le Pen and Mélenchon could contest the final round, illustrating the weakening position of more conventional political alternatives.
Neither, however, can escape the fiscal constraints that have frustrated Macron’s government. A change of president would not automatically provide the resources required to expand public services, reform pensions and reduce the deficit simultaneously.
President Donald Trump has attributed the French unrest to immigration, although the movement’s documented origins lie principally in education, living costs and dissatisfaction with public services. Without established evidence about those responsible for individual acts of violence, broader claims about the demonstrators’ backgrounds remain speculative.
For the European Union, France’s instability carries consequences beyond its domestic political debate. France is central to European defence, fiscal negotiations and support for Ukraine. Sustained political paralysis would complicate its ability to negotiate and implement decisions requiring substantial public expenditure.
The immediate task for Macron’s government is to restore security without allowing the legitimate grievances of peaceful demonstrators to disappear from political consideration. The more difficult task will fall to whoever enters the Élysée in 2027.
France’s crisis is not simply a repetition of the Yellow Vest movement. It reflects a growing conflict over public resources, expectations of the state and the ability of established political institutions to reconcile competing demands.
The violence may subside, but the economic contradictions that brought such different groups onto the streets will remain. The presidential election will determine who inherits them, rather than whether they exist.
© Benoit Tessier/Reuters
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Tassare i super-ricchi per favorire la ridistribuzione delle ricchezze e recuperare risorse per finanziare gli investimenti pubblici. Il celebre economista Thomas Piketty propone un referendum per introdurre una “tassa di solidarietà nazionale” in due misure: la prima è un contributo straordinario del 50% sull’incremento di patrimonio accumulato nell’ultimo decennio; la seconda è un’imposta permanente del 10% l’anno sui patrimoni che superano i 100 milioni di euro. Questa la prima soglia. Piketty non esclude però ulteriori interventi: “A questo stadio bisogna cominciare dai patrimoni superiori a 100 milioni di euro. In seguito, si potrebbe discutere se partire da 10 milioni, applicando aliquote più basse”. Non si tratta quindi di “vietare” i miliardari, ma di farli contribuire in proporzione alla propria ricchezza: “Quando c’erano meno miliardari e la concentrazione della ricchezza era inferiore, abbiamo avuto più prosperità, crescita e produttività -, ha dichiarato l’economista intervenendo stamattina su BFM Tv -. La Francia non è mai stata così ricca in termini di ricchezza prodotta, ma il problema è la sua distribuzione”.
Secondo i dati citati da Piketty, tra il 2017 e il 2026 il patrimonio complessivo dei più ricchi sarebbe passato da 200 a 1.000 miliardi di euro, quintuplicando in dieci anni. Le entrate della nuova tassa potrebbero contribuire inoltre alla creazione di un “fondo sovrano” destinato a “finanziare gli investimenti e a rafforzare il controllo della Francia sulle proprie scelte economiche”. Per evitare che i grandi patrimoni si sottraggano al prelievo trasferendosi all’estero, Piketty propone inoltre di mantenere una tassazione anche dopo il trasferimento di residenza: “Quando ci si è arricchiti utilizzando le strutture della Francia – afferma -, si deve pagare la tassa, che si vada all’estero oppure no”.
La tassazione dei più ricchi è anche al centro del programma economico presentato ieri da Jean-Luc Mélenchon, che dice di voler “rimettere ordine nei conti pubblici”. Il candidato della France insoumise all’Eliseo – che negli ultimi sondaggi ottiene fino al 18% delle intenzioni di voto al primo turno del 18 aprile 2027, qualificandosi al ballottaggio contro Marine Le Pen (in testa col 34-35%) – punta a raccogliere oltre 106 miliardi di euro di entrate aggiuntive, destinandone 81,7 a nuove spese e circa 25 alla riduzione del deficit. “I governi da Sarkozy in poi – ha accusato Mélenchon – hanno organizzato l’impoverimento metodico e organizzato dello Stato”. Tra le sue principali misure figura la tassa Zucman, sostenuta anche da Piketty – che prevede un’imposta minima annua del 2% sui super ricchi con capitali superiori ai 100 milioni di euro. Secondo Mélenchon permetterebbe di fare entrare nelle casse dello Stato fino a 15 miliardi di euro. Altri 10 miliardi arriverebbero dall’introduzione di “tassa climatica” e 9 miliardi dalla soppressione della flat tax sui redditi da capitale. Mélenchon propone inoltre l’abrogazione della riforma delle pensioni, che costerebbe circa 9 miliardi di euro: l’età pensionabile scenderebbe in un primo tempo a 62 anni, poi a 60.
L'articolo Francia, l’economista Piketty lancia il referendum sulla “tassa per i super-ricchi” proviene da Il Fatto Quotidiano.
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