The rioting across France is a symptom of a much larger public and political crisis

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“We have a mess on our hands, to put it bluntly,” French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Monday.

If anything, he might be guilty of understatement. After widespread rioting at the weekend – estimated to have cost several hundred million dollars in property damage and theft – France faces a toxic mix of urban rebellion, political drift and economic crisis.

The disorder at the weekend occurred in major cities across the country, leading Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez to offer his resignation because of the police’s failure to contain the rioting.

There was rampant looting in Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux and other cities, while the city hall in Limoges, which survived two world wars, was badly damaged by fire and its clock spire collapsed.

The violence at the weekend, which led to some 2,400 arrests, followed weeks of protests by French students angry about crumbling schools, a lack of teachers and dismal job prospects. More than 6,000 arrests were made during the school protests that began at the start of the fall term and more than 100 schools were damaged.

More demonstrations are scheduled for next weekend. In November, labor unions plan to strike.

France faces a winter of discontent in the run-up to a presidential election next spring. The far-right candidate Marine Le Pen is leading in the polls.

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In a national televised address Sunday, President Emmanuel Macron condemned the violence but did not set out ideas to deal with it or seize the initiative. Instead, he warned of politicians seizing on the chaos for political gain – before leaving France for a three-day visit to the Gulf states.

Lecornu similarly deployed the blame game. After far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon accused the government of “opening the door to chaos” with its policing tactics, Lecornu shot back: “You cannot call for an end to the violence while providing excuses to those who commit it. This is YOUR political responsibility.”

Le Pen, who is standing in the presidential election for the far-right National Rally party, has sought to inject the issue of migration into the debate, blaming the violence on delinquents from France’s banlieues , poor urban areas where much of the country’s migrant population lives.

Buildings torched after protests descend into rioting across France

“Our country is caught in a vice…between violence and powerlessness,” she said, suggesting only her firm hand could restore order amid Macron’s “chaos.”

The president of her National Rally party, Jordan Bardella, poured fuel on the fire, demanding that “Antifa militias, far-left extremist groups and Black Bloc groups” be designated as terrorist organisations.”

Black Bloc groups wear matching or similar black clothing along with face masks during protests to hide their identity.

Analysts say this political fragmentation, which led to the paralysis of parliament after snap elections called by Macron in 2024 backfired, is likely to persist – and is at the core of France’s deepening crisis.

The political center in France has evaporated, allowing the National Rally and Mélenchon’s far-left France Unbowed party to harvest growing public exasperation, while Macron’s successive prime ministers have been unable to pass a budget through Parliament.

The multitude of candidates in the center, “most with relatively few supporters, will ultimately help secure the second-round election for one of the two contenders who represent the greatest danger to democracy in France,” wrote Robert Zaretsky, a professor of modern French history at the University of Houston, in an essay for the Atlantic.

The current crisis has polarized an already deeply divided society. Besides the shock and anger at the weekend’s mayhem, there is an air of defeatism. In a recent Ipsos-BVA poll , 85% of respondents said that France was in decline, and 98% were dissatisfied with the present state of the country.

Whoever governs France next will have shrinking room for maneuver, even if they can stitch together a stable coalition.

The French economy is stagnating. Farmers were hit by an extremely hot and dry summer, while global energy prices stoked inflation.

Tourism remains a strong earner for France, but the videos of violence on the streets circling the globe in the past two days may deter some travelers.

French businesses are wary of the drift and indecision. Investment has fallen about 1% in the first half of this year amid climbing interest rates.

Above all, there is the debt.

“France carries one of the highest government debt burdens in Europe, and political deadlock means we expect its debt level to continue rising,” researchers at Oxford Economics said in July.

France will have to issue a record high of €340 billion in medium- and long-term bonds next year, according to analysts . Its debt as a proportion of gross domestic product (GDP) rose to 119% in the second quarter of this year, double the European Union’s target.

Jittery investors sent the country’s 10-year government bond yield up to 4.9% on Monday.

Its reputation in bond markets is not helped by Mélenchon’s plan to freeze or wipe away the French sovereign bonds held by the Bank of France.

“Political fragmentation may persist well after the 2027 elections, meaning that France’s next government will continue to kick the public-finance can down the road,” said Oxford Economics. This would “prolong the existing climate of high uncertainty, weighing on confidence and domestic demand.”

The man most revered by the French, General Charles de Gaulle, once declared that “France cannot be France without grandeur. ” De Gaulle had soaring ambitions for the country’s global role and independence.

But during his long presidency he also told an aide: “I keep the theater going as long as I can and then, after me, have no illusion, things will go back to where they were.”

De Gaulle stepped down a year after the 1968 riots that shook France – events that some commentators are likening to today’s shock.

When he became president, Macron was seen as the antidote to what the French call déclinisme (a word that first appeared in the French Larousse dictionary in 2016.)

“He delivers an extremely positive, constructive message, full of hope for the future. He shows that there is also another France,” wrote one commentator.

A decade later, Macron’s approval rating is hovering at about 15 to 17%, according to multiple polls Déclinisme is still very much on the lips of a citizenry that is demanding more from a beleaguered state that has less.

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“坦白地说，我们现在面临着一团糟，”法国总理塞巴斯蒂安·勒科尔努周一表示。

如果说他有什么失言的话，那或许是轻描淡写了。周末爆发的大规模骚乱——据估计造成数亿美元的财产损失和盗窃——使法国面临着城市暴乱、政治动荡和经济危机交织的棘手局面。

周末的骚乱发生在全国各大城市，由于警方未能控制骚乱，内政部长洛朗·努涅斯提出辞职。

巴黎、马赛、波尔多等城市发生了猖獗的抢劫事件，而经历了两次世界大战的利摩日市政厅则被大火严重损毁，其钟楼尖顶倒塌。

周末发生的暴力事件导致约2400人被捕，此前数周，法国学生一直在举行抗议活动，他们对学校破败不堪、师资短缺和就业前景黯淡感到愤怒。自秋季学期开始以来，学校抗议活动已导致6000多人被捕，100多所学校遭到破坏。

下周末还将举行更多示威活动。11月，工会计划举行罢工。

法国在明年春季总统大选前夕，将面临一个充满不满情绪的冬季。极右翼候选人玛丽娜·勒庞在民调中领先。

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周日，法国总统马克龙发表全国电视讲话，谴责暴力事件，但并未提出应对措施或采取主动行动。相反，他警告政客们不要利用混乱局势谋取政治利益——随后他启程前往海湾国家进行为期三天的访问。

勒科尔努也采用了类似的指责策略。在极左翼总统候选人让-吕克·梅朗雄指责政府的警务策略“打开了混乱之门”后，勒科尔努反驳道：“你不能一边呼吁结束暴力，一边又为施暴者开脱。这是你们的政治责任。”

代表极右翼政党国民联盟参加总统选举的勒庞试图将移民问题引入辩论，将暴力事件归咎于法国郊区（banlieues）的犯罪分子，这些贫困的城市地区居住着该国大部分移民人口。

法国各地抗议活动演变为骚乱，多处建筑物被纵火焚烧。

“我们的国家陷入了暴力和无力之间的困境，”她说，暗示只有她强有力的手段才能在马克龙造成的“混乱”中恢复秩序。

她的全国联盟党主席乔丹·巴尔德拉火上浇油，要求将“反法西斯民兵、极左极端主义团体和黑衣集团”指定为恐怖组织。

黑衣集团成员在抗议活动中身穿统一或相似的黑色服装，并佩戴口罩以隐藏身份。

分析人士表示，这种政治分裂导致了马克龙在 2024 年提前举行大选后议会瘫痪，而且这种分裂很可能会持续下去——这是法国日益加深的危机的核心。

法国的政治中心已经消失，使得国民联盟和梅朗雄的极左翼政党“不屈法国”得以利用公众日益增长的不满情绪，而马克龙的历任总理都未能让预算案在议会获得通过。

休斯顿大学现代法国历史教授罗伯特·扎雷茨基在为《大西洋月刊》撰写的一篇文章中写道，中间派的众多候选人“大多支持者相对较少，最终将帮助确保两位对法国民主构成最大威胁的候选人之一赢得第二轮选举”。

当前的危机加剧了本已严重分裂的社会。除了周末骚乱带来的震惊和愤怒之外，一种失败主义情绪也弥漫在人们心中。益普索-BVA最近的一项民意调查显示，85%的受访者认为法国正在衰落，98%的受访者对国家现状感到不满。

即使能够组建稳定的联合政府，下一任法国领导人的回旋余地也会越来越小。

法国经济停滞不前。农民们遭受了极端炎热干燥夏季的打击，而全球能源价格上涨加剧了通货膨胀。

旅游业仍然是法国的重要收入来源，但过去两天里传遍全球的街头暴力视频可能会让一些游客望而却步。

法国企业对这种摇摆不定和犹豫不决的局面感到担忧。受利率攀升的影响，今年上半年投资下降了约1%。

最重要的是债务问题。

牛津经济研究院的研究人员在7月份表示：“法国是欧洲政府债务负担最重的国家之一，政治僵局意味着我们预计其债务水平将继续上升。”

分析人士称，法国明年将不得不发行创纪录的3400亿欧元中长期债券。今年第二季度，法国债务占国内生产总值（GDP）的比例升至119%，是欧盟目标的两倍。

周一，紧张的投资者将该国 10 年期政府债券收益率推高至 4.9%。

梅朗雄计划冻结或取消法国央行持有的法国主权债券，这不利于其在债券市场的声誉。

牛津经济研究院表示：“政治分裂局面可能会在2027年大选后持续很长时间，这意味着法国下一届政府将继续拖延公共财政问题。”这将“延长目前高度不确定的局面，抑制市场信心和国内需求。”

法国人最敬仰的人物，戴高乐将军曾宣称：“没有宏伟，法国就不是法国。”戴高乐对法国的全球地位和独立抱有远大的抱负。

但在他漫长的总统任期内，他也曾对一位助手说：“我会尽我所能维持现状，然后，在我之后，不要抱有任何幻想，一切都会回到从前。”

戴高乐在 1968 年震惊法国的骚乱发生一年后辞职——一些评论员将当时的事件与今天的震惊相提并论。

马克龙当选总统后，被视为对抗法国人所说的“衰落”（déclinisme）的解药（该词于 2016 年首次出现在法国拉鲁斯词典中）。

一位评论员写道：“他传递了极其积极、富有建设性的信息，充满了对未来的希望。他表明，法国还有另一面。”

十年后，根据多项民意调查，马克龙的支持率徘徊在 15% 到 17% 左右。“衰落主义”仍然是民众热议的话题，他们对这个资源匮乏、处境艰难的国家提出了更高的要求。