00:00I want to cut across to French journalist Phineas Rukert, who joins me on this story from France.
00:09Phineas Rukert, welcome. What's the current situation in France right now, sir? The French
00:15Prime Minister spoke of imposition of partial and localized curfew initially. There is a statement
00:22about possible need to impose emergency if the situation deteriorates. What's the situation right now?
00:35Hello? Can you hear me? Yes, I hear you now. Sorry, I cut off. Could you please repeat the question?
00:41Yes, what's the latest situation? Sure. So what's happening right now in France, in order to really
00:49understand it, you need to actually go back a month from today. A month from today, students in the
00:54northern suburbs of Paris started blockading their schools, essentially in protest of poor conditions
00:59students. Students I've spoken with talked about cockroaches in their schools, rats running
01:04across the floors, horrible heat in summer and horrible cold in winter, not enough teachers,
01:11not enough equipment. And this protest movement started from that. It started from a student
01:18protest against the conditions of their schools, which they say have gotten worse under the
01:22criminal administration. Now, however, what's happened is this student movement has grown
01:29into something much bigger. It's taken in other parts of French civil society, including doctors,
01:36health care workers, farmers even, who are also starting to express their discontent, not just
01:41with conditions of work, but also with the lack of pay power that they have, the lack of purchasing
01:48power that they have, and the sort of rising cost of living that only seems to be getting
01:52worse every year. And so that actually came to a head on Saturday in a big protest with around
01:58between 500,000 and 800,000 protesters on the streets of France across the country.
02:03So I want to understand from you, who is burning down town halls and looting shops? Are these students?
02:12Are these doctors? Are these nurses? Who are those who are looting shops in France?
02:18So it's hard to say at this point who is behind this. The government has announced a massive
02:23judicial investigation that they're going to launch starting today to try to ascertain who
02:28is behind the violence. What I can say is, in my experience as a reporter on the ground, is that
02:33really what happened on Saturday is that there were two different sort of movements within a movement.
02:40One was very peaceful with legitimate concerns, people marching from the Place de la République to
02:46different parts of the city along routes that had been granted access by the préfecture, so the
02:52authorities. And then sort of on the side of that, there was this looting and violence that was taking
02:58place. And I think it's important to highlight that this was not the main part of the protest. There was
03:04a very legitimate protest that took place. There was also some police violence at that protest, which should
03:10be also highlighted. But right now, it's not sure exactly who is behind this urban violence, and it's
03:18also being investigated by the government. So this will probably be coming out in the next few days.
03:24The government itself has blamed the quote-unquote far left, but without giving much more details of
03:30who that is. And politicians from across France's political spectrum have been very critical,
03:37actually, of the government response, the lack of protests, the lack of police that were sent in
03:42to these protests. The governments, the mayors of Paris, Marseille, and Lyon, who are three of the biggest,
03:49most affected cities, published an op-ed today where they questioned where were the police that had been,
03:55you know, that had been sent to be sent here to protect our cities. Why did this happen? Who's
04:01responsible? Because a 143-year-old town hall being set on fire, shops being looted, and what we see on
04:10our television screens. And now the Yellow West movement protesters are calling for Act 2 or Round 2 of
04:18these protests. So how worrisome is that from the point of view of the economy, of business, of
04:25safety, of people? Some of the images that we see from different parts of the world is very alarming.
04:32Yeah, it's a big question mark. And I think it's hard to say right now. There's an Act 2
04:37quote-unquote planned for Saturday. There's also a massive general strike that's being organized for
04:44early November by labor unions. So these are two, again, two different movements that are kind of
04:49taking place at once. There is certainly concern that the, you know, continued violence might occur.
04:57But like I said, I think it's important to highlight that for the most part in these sort of structured
05:02protests where people go from point A to point B, holding signs, shouting slogans,
05:10these have been able to, and I've covered many of these types of protests in France,
05:15usually these go off without a hitch. And it's only towards the end of the protest where, you know,
05:19some troublemakers will come in and will start to loot or to burn. But what was different about this
05:24Saturday is that this seemed to start happening from a much earlier time. And so the questions are,
05:31you know, you know, why was this allowed to happen, especially when certain areas were ostensibly
05:37blocked off so that it wouldn't be able to happen. And yet that is what exactly happened in the end.
05:42So the US president, you know, Phineas is blaming outsiders or illegal immigrants, you know,
05:50and he says, I told you France should close its borders. But is there any evidence to suggest
05:56that there was this red-green ecosystem? You know, red being ultra-left. There are some who
06:03are saying anarchists also took over. Green, you know, outsiders, perhaps, or radical Islamists,
06:12that some intelligence report seemed to indicate. Is there anything to suggest that this was a red-green
06:18ecosystem action? From my vantage point here in Paris and from having spoken with a number of
06:26organizers and students themselves who were in attendance on Saturday, this is not very credible.
06:33I think part of what's happening is that a lot of political leaders are sort of jumping on the
06:44bandwagon and trying to use these acts of violence to push forward a message that they were already
06:50pushing forward before. So the head of the far-right national rally in France, Jordan Daudela, just gave
06:55a speech earlier today in which he essentially blamed, you know, mass migration on what's going on.
07:02I think it's oversimplifying to say that that's what's happening here. There's a lot of discontent
07:08in France that's been boiling for a long time. We think back to the Yellow Vest protesters. Why were
07:12the Yellow Vest protesters so angry? It's because of essentially rising fuel costs. And now with the war
07:18in Iran, with various other geopolitical factors, these issues have only gotten worse. So that anger
07:25has been boiling up for actually years, if not decades, in France. And it sort of seems to be
07:30spilling out now. But again, I think that it's too simple to say that this is, you know, outside
07:36agitators or any types of, you know, foreign forces that wanted to spark chaos in France.
07:44In France, is it considered acceptable to loot shops, burn down town halls or historical buildings?
07:52Is that seen as a legitimate form of protest?
07:56It's, it's, of course, it depends on who you ask. It's, it's a complicated question. But I would say
08:01overall, the wide majority of what the French call the Republican political parties do not believe
08:08that this is the appropriate way to express anger. And I think that it's, you know, a very small
08:15proportion actually of the, of the people who were there. I think about 800,000 people were,
08:20were across France protesting this weekend. The large majority of them do not want to break
08:26storefronts, do not want to cause damage to, to buildings, and do not want to, to injure
08:32bystanders. I, you know, I think there's a small groups that will get involved and will say,
08:38this is an opportunity for us to, to basically, you know, spur on the chaos. There's, of course,
08:44you know, some groups who have in the past, you know, promoted violent protests. But if you look at
08:51the responses from the left parties in France, um, the, the La France Insoumise, the France Unbowed,
08:58the Socialists, the Greens, um, they've all come out and either criticized, um, the, the,
09:04the violence, uh, responded by saying this violence is unacceptable, or in cases also question the
09:09government's response, um, questioning whether they... Stay with me for a moment. Now, how is this
09:14expected to impact the presidential elections in France? Because right now, uh, the centrist
09:20government is in the line of fire from both sides. But in your view and your reading of the
09:27situation, will this benefit, uh, you know, Marine Le Pen and the National Rally Party? Are the left
09:33parties also, uh, you know, facing the brunt of what's happening? So, of course, the, the National
09:41Rally Party has tried already, as I mentioned, to take advantage of these protests, to use them as sort of,
09:46uh, uh, you know, uh, uh, uh, uh, a way to, to, to push forward their issues. Um, and, um,
09:55I think,
09:56you know, the, the left parties, uh, have benefited in a certain sense from the massive mobilization,
10:02because, um, many of the, you know, young people out there are just people who are just turning 18,
10:07who are 19, who are 20. They're expressing an anger and a frustration with this government,
10:11but they're also expressing an anger and a frustration with the far right. Um, so it's,
10:16it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the question is whether that bump, um, will benefit the left,
10:22you know, the people being out in the streets and the people showing their, their frustration,
10:25or will it benefit the right with, uh, a clampdown happening and, uh, um, and the far right saying,
10:32this is why we need to re-instill order in France.
10:35Phineas Rukat, for joining me here on India Today, many thanks and stay safe.
