The rioters really are French

A lot has been written about the ongoing riots in France, but the best things I’ve seen have come from Megan McArdle and Daniel Davies. From Miss Jane Galt: Is it because Arabs/Muslims are a roiling repository of violent, seething hatred, ever threatening to bubble over onto unsuspecting victims in their path? Because the French ...

By , a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast.

A lot has been written about the ongoing riots in France, but the best things I've seen have come from Megan McArdle and Daniel Davies. From Miss Jane Galt:

A lot has been written about the ongoing riots in France, but the best things I’ve seen have come from Megan McArdle and Daniel Davies. From Miss Jane Galt:

Is it because Arabs/Muslims are a roiling repository of violent, seething hatred, ever threatening to bubble over onto unsuspecting victims in their path? Because the French are so damn mean? Let me suggest another possibility: Muslim youth are rioting in France because breaking windows and setting cars on fire is fun.

But Davies wins the prize here, pointing out the one way in which this is all so… French:

These young men have got a political grievance, and they’re expressing it by setting fire to things and smashing them up. What could be more stereotypically, characteristically French than that? Presumably they’re setting fire to cars because they don’t have any sheep and the nearest McDonalds is miles away. “French society is threatened by anarchy and lawlessness”. I mean really. Everyone would do well to remember that this is France we’re talking about, not Sweden or perhaps Canada.

Indeed. The only difference between these riots and prior action like this by, say, Air France employees is that by this point in the game the French government would have already capitulated.

Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner

Tag: Theory

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