Can France plunge into civilian war?

20 October 2026 by Alex Krainer tkp-at/koennete-frankreich-in-einen-buergerkrieg-abgleiten

On Saturday, October 17, demonstrations in France took a violent turn. The authorities estimated the number of participants nationwide to be around 550 000, but the organizers claimed that as many as 800,000 demonstrators participated in the protests.

Action Day October 17 was clearly presented as a fugitive from a period of traffic student with a wider rebellion against maintenance costs and government austerity programmes, including parents, teachers and union members. The organizers included student organizations specified as Union Syndicale Lycéenne (USL), trade unions and remnants of the Yellow Kamizelek (Gilets Jaunes) movement.

Student protests began as early as mid-September due to the miserable state of the education strategy in France. another groups joined the protests due to expanding maintenance costs, deteriorating levels of public services and felt indifference of the government.

As frequently happens, these mostly peaceful protests gave aggressive groups, rebels and looters the chance to infiltrate demonstrators. The riots appeared crowded, attacking government buildings, shops and police. They set fire to a large degree historic town hall in Limoges , looted hundreds of shops across France and made many French cities It looked like war zones.

Spontaneous or organized violence?

Although these protests may seem a spontaneous social consequence to deteriorating surviving conditions in France, there is ample evidence that mass protests are usually organised by the safety services of a "deep state" and intentionally infiltrated by elements applying violence.

On the weekend, any tips appeared in France: rioters appeared uniformly in black hoods and masks on their faces, and someone made certain that the riots would appear carefully and professionally packed pallets of glass bottles(video recording at link). If street gangs organized this action, it would be an awesome logistical and organizational feat.

If force was organized, the question arises: who He organized it, and for what purpose? I believe that the typical suspects are intelligence agencies and many NGOs, many of which have been founded and generously funded for this purpose.

Let's remember: France had already experienced violent riots in the summertime of 2023. June 28, 2023, day after police killing 17-year-old Nahela Merzouka In the suburbs of Paris, Nanterre, riots broke out all over the country. There was a riot in many cities, including Paris, Marseille, Lille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Grenoble, and Brussels, Belgium. any rioters were armed, and any of the cities later resembled war zones.

According to any reports , arms handed over to Ukraine hit Hands of protesters through the black market, who then utilized it to shoot police. The government sent 45,000 policemen and gendarmes to effort to contain the situation, but force lasted six days with immense intensity. president Emmanuel Macron he was under force – not only from rioters and opposition, but, more worryingly, from his own police and the military.

And then it all ended as abruptly as it started. Although protests in France usually last for weeks and months, the riots in 2023 ended after only six days. It was so different for France that an explanation had to be found: the media spread information that riots were interrupted by drug traffickers who disrupted their business.

This led to a violent, spontaneous outbreak of outrage demanding justice for the young Nahel Merzouk But only drug dealers In any way They urged protesters to halt their activities due to the fact that they harmed their drug interests, the inflamed youths spontaneously recognized that the profits of traders were more crucial than justice. The word ‘ Weird’ does not quit the full communicative that ended the riot in 2023.

What's behind this?

As I wrote then, the program could be directed against French president EmmanuelMacron , which began to break out of the ranks of the West: 2 months earlier he led a large delegation of French companies to Beijing and flirted with the thought of France joining BRICS. He besides advocated negotiations with Russia and taking into account its safety concerns. After the riots, however, he abandoned these ideas and they have not been touched since.

We can only speculate what today's program might be like. I fishy his aim is to make a pretext for a more authoritative approach to civilian liberties, tightening censorship, and possibly even introducing a curfew, but time will show. In specified situations, social unrest organisers hope that society will request the return of law and order, and people will voluntarily quit their civilian liberties and welcome the harsh repression of dissidents, as well as the restoration of order and stability.

This could all turn against us...

However, this calculation can have the other effect if the public divides the contempt of demonstrators for the authorities, which is mostly what is presently happening in France. In 2023, the same state institutions that were called upon to suppress the riots were 1 step distant from turning against the government. Then French police unions wrote to president Macron threatening to rebel: “ Today the police are fighting due to the fact that we are at war. next day we will defy and the government should be aware of this It’s okay. ”

A akin attitude prevailed in military circles: General Pierre Villiers , highly respected among French military commanders, stated That the army should be loyal to the people, not Emmanuel Macron. It is almost certain that the police, the gendarmerie and much of the army are even more inclined to disobey the government and turn against it. This could lead to a civilian war in France, the consequences of which are, from today's perspective, completely unpredictable.

The fallout of the “collective West”

The political instability in France has further highlighted the deficiency of unity and the division of the "common west". Yesterday President Trump He launched a crushing attack on president Macron on TruthSocial:

France It's burning! The immigration of people from a completely different world, people with hatred in their hearts, destroyed this erstwhile large country. Close the borders and take control before it's besides late! president Donald J.Trump

Macron, in turn, made a message to the nation, indirectly blaming Trump for the riots “We should never confuse peaceful demonstrators with robbers and rioters due to the fact that there are people who rightly believe that fuel prices are rising besides rapidly. It is due to the war on Iran.”

Faced with expanding social, economical and geopolitical adversities, Western powers and their leaders are increasingly confused and incapable to reconstruct order, let alone economical recovery. Their only “real North Pole” appears to be war, and the start of a serious war with Russia, their appointed external enemy, is their last hope of restoring social cohesion and public support to the authorities. At least it seems highly improbable for the moment, especially in France.

Saturday in 1 city (I could not find which) The protesters were guillotined . It was just a model., but shows the direction in which the winds of social rebellion blow. In Paris protesters chanted “ We guillotined Louis XVI Macron, Macron, we'll do it again."
Social sentiments are clearly moving towards a wider rebellion and a stronger request for accountability and justice. However, the question remains whether protesters this time will be as knowing of drug traffickers as they were 3 years ago.

This Article appeared originally in English in TrendCompass Alex Krainer . Reprint in German with the approval of the author.