“They’re just thugs”
I’ve seen plenty of comments blaming people from the banlieues, immigrants and their children.
And here again, I think it’s worth resisting the easy answer.
You can condemn someone for smashing a shop window. I sure do.
And you can still ask why on earth they are doing it.
Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
Why does France repeatedly experience this kind of violence around demonstrations and major gatherings?
There isn’t one simple answer.
But if you start asking that question, you quickly encounter poverty, social inequality, segregation and a complicated relationship between certain communities and the French state. In both directions.
And if you keep going back, you eventually reach immigration and France’s colonial history.
France’s relationship with Algeria matters.
Colonialism matters.
Slavery matters.
The way the banlieues developed matters.
The relationship between some communities and the police matters.
None of that means colonialism made someone burn a trash can in Paris in 2026.
And none of it excuses violence.
Understanding something isn’t the same as justifying it.
And maybe it’s worth considering whether coming into central Paris and trashing luxury stores on the Champs-Élysées can sometimes be understood as a form of protest too.
That doesn’t make it right.
But saying “they’re just bad people” doesn’t help us understand very much.
And dismissing an entire student movement for better conditions because of violence committed partly by other groups doesn’t make much sense either.
