00:00France just had some of the worst public disorder in their modern history.
00:04But will it actually bring any change?
00:07Yesterday, after images of a damaged country went global,
00:11President Macron addressed the nation, asking how could French people do this to France?
00:16And while, yes, a whole wave of looting damaged or destroyed thousands of businesses,
00:22France also saw a deeper level of political violence targeting the symbols of the French
00:29Republic, like its historic town halls or famous monuments.
00:33However, this outrage didn't come out of nowhere.
00:36Polls say that over 85% believe that France is in decline,
00:41with nearly a third believing that decline is irreversible.
00:44Just 2% felt that France was satisfied and peaceful,
00:48while the number of people saying that they would leave France permanently
00:51if they had the opportunity more than doubled in a single year.
00:55And even if today the government promised to concede to the demands of the protesters,
01:00which are for better school conditions and a lower cost of living,
01:04it's kind of hard to see how they would follow through on that promise.
01:08Because if you didn't know, France is in huge amounts of debt.
01:12They owe roughly 3.6 trillion euros.
01:15In fact, the interest that they pay on that debt is now their number one expense,
01:20more than they spend on education and defense.
01:23And ironically, investors are pressuring the government to cut spending.
01:27But cuts to public services is exactly what people were protesting about in the first place.
01:32And you might say, well, maybe the protests will cause a change at the top.
01:36But that was already coming anyway.
01:37Macron can't run again.
01:38So he's considered a lame duck president for the next six months,
01:42and will be handing this whole mess to his prime minister.
01:45Who, interestingly, is actually the guy that served the shortest term in over a century,
01:51quitting after less than a month.
01:53But a plot twist.
01:54He got the job back, and he's now the guy in charge running things again.
01:58And with even more and bigger protests planned in France for the 5th of November,
02:03you start to ask not if these protests will change anything, but how.
