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Protesters in cities across France are torching cars and looting stores after a video went viral showing a police officer shooting a 17-year-old boy of North African descent during a traffic stop. Police have deployed 40,000 officers and armored vehicles to stop the widespread unrest.
Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan has a positive outlook for France’s future, as long as it resolves the long-standing racial tensions that exist in France today.
Excerpted from Peter’s June 30 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:
Riots have broken out in France after police killed a 17-year-old kid. When a similar situation occurred in ’05, there were weeks of riots. We can’t be sure if the same will happen here, but it’s worth looking into based on France’s unique demographic situation.
The US is no stranger to issues of race, but there are constant conversations on the topic, and members of most minorities are represented throughout all levels of government. The French haven’t quite figured that out yet.
France deemed their ethnic conflict so extreme they had to redefine what “being French” meant. So whether you were Catalan, Basque, from Paris or Marseille…you were now just French. This made tracking and collecting ethnic data illegal and unconstitutional. So France doesn’t even know how big their racial problem is…
They’ve essentially institutionalized racism and created massive divides between urban centers and marginalized areas where these “2nd class citizens” live. Lacking a proper understanding of the situation has made allocating resources outside of law enforcement a non-starter, further dividing the groups and adding tension to an already unstable situation.
Despite this vulnerability, I remain optimistic about France’s future. Given its self-reliant economic system and strong demographic picture, they should be just fine…they’ll have to sort this other stuff out ASAP though.
