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POLITICS

French politicians worry about surge in pre-election violence

The head of France's main political parties are among those concerned about a surge of violent incidents in the run up to April's presidential election. A poll in November showed that one in ten French people said they approved of violence towards lawmakers.

Some analysts claim that the radicalisation of the anti-vaccine movement in France is leading to a surge in political violence
Some analysts claim that the radicalisation of the anti-vaccine movement in France is leading to a surge in political violence (Photo by Geoffroy VAN DER HASSELT / AFP)

French ruling party lawmaker Pascal Bois was at home asleep a few days after Christmas when firefighters banged on his front door to tell him his garage was in flames.

Startled by the noise in the early hours of the morning, Bois stumbled out of bed and went to inspect the damage, seeing the outside structure consumed by fire with his electric vehicle inside.

“I realised very quickly that it was a deliberate act,” said the married father of two, who had been on alert after receiving a bullet in the post in November.

“There’s a moment of shock, of course, but I got over it fairly quickly and did my best to keep calm.”

As well as the fire, graffiti had been daubed on the outside wall of his home in Chambly, 35 kilometres (21 miles) from Paris, saying: “No to the pass” and “It’s going to explode”.

The attack came as parliament was debating legislation to create a mandatory “vaccine pass” that meant only people jabbed against Covid-19 could enter bars and restaurants.

Bois, along with other members of parliament from President Emmanuel Macron’s Republic on the Move party, was in favour.

With France less than three months from the first round of presidential elections, to be followed by parliamentary polls in June, concern is growing about an increase in attacks against elected figures, particularly ruling party lawmakers.

Explanations range from the radicalisation of the anti-vax movement and a long-term trend of declining faith in the French democratic system to Macron’s policies and personality.

Increased protection

Since the attack on Bois’ home and a separate assault on an overseas island lawmaker who was pelted with seaweed on his doorstep, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin has ordered greater police protection for parliamentarians.

In addition to the physical attacks, anonymous death threats in writing or over social media have exploded in numbers.

In the first 11 months of 2021, a total of 1,186 elected figures including 162 lawmakers lodged complaints for threats made against them, a rise of 47 percent compared with 2020, interior ministry figures show.

“Unfortunately over the last few years, there has been an increase in offences against elected figures,” Darmanin told RTL radio, adding that anti-vaxxers were lately responsible for “huge numbers of complaints about threats”.

A recent survey showed that, for a significant minority of French people, such offences were justified.

In a poll published by the Jean-Jaures Foundation think-tank in November, more than one in ten people said they approved of “violent behaviour towards lawmakers and their staff, at their offices or homes”.

A total of 40 percent of people thought that the directly elected lower house of parliament was of “little use” or “no use at all” — a huge increase from a comparable study in 1985 that showed only 13 percent felt this way.

Last Tuesday, all the heads of the main political parties in parliament entered together along with the speaker Richard Ferrand in a rare show of unity to denounce what they called “the rise in hatred.”

“When it comes to representatives of the people being assaulted on the basis of their opinions or their votes, it is the heart of democracy that is attacked,” they wrote in a public letter.

‘Yellow Vest’ movement

Isabelle Sommier, a specialist in political violence at Paris’ Sorbonne University, says attacks against elected figures have increased significantly since the election of Macron in 2017.

Some parliamentarians have had their office windows smashed, others have been victims of arson. In certain cases, they have arrived at work to find that protesters have bricked up their doors overnight.

Attacks on homes, like the one experienced by Pascal Bois on the morning of December 30, are still rare.

“We’re seeing an increase in the phenomenon in terms of absolute numbers but above all in the level of violence,” said Sommier, who co-authored the book “Political Violence in France” earlier this year.

“Over the last few months and weeks, it’s been accelerating.”

Part of the explanation can be found in the so-called “Yellow Vest” anti-government movement, composed mostly of protesters from rural areas and small towns, whose often violent demonstrations shook the country from 2018.

The anti-vax movement appears to overlap with the “Yellow Vests” in many respects, geographically and socio-economically, Sommier notes.

Sommier said that Macron had radicalised this fringe of the French population through his pro-business policies, as well as his highly centralised way of governing, and his abrasive personal style.

The 44-year-old leader, who was slapped in the face during an impromptu walkabout in southeast France in June, declared earlier this month that he wanted to “piss off” the unvaccinated.

Sommier emphasised that France is less violent than in the volatile post-war period that saw major social unrest, as well as several assassination attempts on former president Charles de Gaulle.

But after the murder of two lawmakers across the Channel in Britain since 2016, many French elected figures are feeling jittery.

“I’m a bit more watchful of things around me,” Bois told AFP.

“And I keep a look out to make sure I’m not being followed in my car. All of us have become used to doing the same thing.”

Member comments

  1. The “hatred” is not abstract, it is hatred for the pass vaccinale – and all that this oppressive measure implies. The French people are rightly angry about this… I do not ever advocate violence but I am not surprised by it. The media call it an “anti-vaxx” movement, but it is not, it’s an anti-pass and pro-freedom movement.

    1. Eh? The pandemic problem is neither the vaccine nor the Pass, but the Virus!

      The Pass is massively popular, and has done much of what was intended (encourage most of the dubious and doubters to get vaccinated). Unfortunately, there is a still too-large residue (c.10% of adults) who can be vaccinated but refuse to, universally for no sensible or coherent reason at all. Some of them (and probably a handful of others) have resorted to using a fake “Pass”.

      The revised Pass builds on the success of the original: It increases the desirability (motivation) to get vaccinated, now with appropriate booster, tries to crack down on the fake “Pass”, and closes the testing loophole (with some exceptions, such as those who have a VALID medical reason they cannot be vaccinated).

      There IS one annoyance with the revised Pass: The MANAGER of an establishment who doubts the validity of the presented Pass can now ask for ID. That is very unfortunate, but it’s a case of the stooopid polluting the well: Those using a fake “Pass” (specifically, someone else’s Pass). Those eejits are in favour of the Virus, supporting the biohazard enemy, as are also the voluntarily vaccinated.

      However much anger or protests there are at the Pass — probably very little (especially by French standards) — it’s completely misplaced. The problem is the Virus. The enemy is the Virus. What should be attacked is the Virus. The supporters of the Virus (the voluntarily unvaccinated) are both unhelpful and deluded; their actions are why the Pass exists (both in its original and now revised form).

      1. (Typo correction, sorry!) Those eejits are in favour of the Virus, supporting the biohazard enemy, as are also the voluntarily vaccinated ⇒ …voluntarily UNvaccinated.

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POLITICS

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

President Emmanuel Macron warned that the policies of his far-right and hard-left opponents could lead to ‘civil war’, as France prepared for its most divisive election in decades.

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

French politics were plunged into turmoil when Macron called snap legislative elections after his centrist party was trounced by the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in a European vote earlier this month.

Weekend polls suggested the RN would win 35-36 percent in the first round on Sunday, ahead of a left-wing alliance on 27-29.5 percent and Macron’s centrists in third on 19.5-22 percent.

A second round of voting will follow on July 7th in constituencies where no candidate takes more than 50 percent in the first round.

Speaking on the podcast Generation Do It Yourself, Macron, 46, denounced both the RN as well as the hard-left France Unbowed party.

He said the far-right “divides and pushes towards civil war”, while the hard-left La France Insoumise, which is part of the Nouveau Front Populaire alliance, proposes “a form of communitarianism”, adding that “civil war follows on from that, too”.

Reacting to Macron’s comments, far-right leader Jordan Bardella told French news outlet M6: “A President of the Republic should not say that. I want to re-establish security for all French people.”

Bardella, the RN’s 28-year-old president, earlier Monday said his party was ready to govern as he pledged to curb immigration and tackle cost-of-living issues.

“In three words: we are ready,” Bardella told a news conference as he unveiled the RN’s programme.

READ ALSO What would a far-right prime minister mean for foreigners in France?

Bardella has urged voters to give the eurosceptic party an outright majority to allow it to implement its anti-immigration, law-and-order programme.

“Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country,” he said, vowing to boost purchasing power, “restore order” and change the law to make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

He reiterated plans to tighten borders and make it harder for children born in France to foreign parents to gain citizenship.

Bardella added that the RN would focus on “realistic” measures to curb inflation, primarily by cutting energy taxes.

He also promised a disciplinary ‘big bang’ in schools, including a ban on mobile phones and trialling the introduction of school uniforms, a proposal previously put forward by Macron.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of Macron’s Renaissance party poured scorn on the RN’s economic programme, telling Europe 1 radio the country was “headed straight for disaster” in the event of an RN victory.

On Tuesday, Attal will go head-to-head with Bardella and the leftist Manuel Bompard in a TV debate.

On foreign policy, Bardella said the RN opposed sending French troops and long-range missiles to Ukraine – as mooted by Macron – but would continue to provide logistical and material support.

He added that his party, which had close ties to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would be “extremely vigilant” in the face of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in French affairs.

Macron insisted that France would continue to support Ukraine over the long term as he met with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

“We will continue to mobilise to respond to Ukraine’s immediate needs,” he said alongside Stoltenberg at the Elysee Palace.

The election is shaping up as a showdown between the RN and the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire, which is dominated by the hard-left La France Insoumise.

Bardella claimed the RN, which mainstream parties have in the past united to block, was now the “patriotic and republican” choice faced with what he alleged was the anti-Semitism of Mélenchon’s party.

La France Insoumise, which opposes Israel’s war in Gaza and refused to label the October 7th Hamas attacks as ‘terrorism’, denies the charges of anti-Semitism.

In calling an election in just three weeks Macron hoped to trip up his opponents and catch them unprepared.

But analysts have warned the move could backfire if the deeply unpopular president is forced to share power with a prime minister from an opposing party.

RN powerhouse Marine Le Pen, who is bidding to succeed Macron as president, has called on him to step aside if he loses control of parliament.

Macron has insisted he will not resign before the end of his second term in 2027 but has vowed to heed voters’ concerns.

Speaking on Monday, Macron once again defended his choice to call snap elections.

“It’s very hard. I’m aware of it, and a lot of people are angry with me,” he said on the podcast. “But I did it because there is nothing greater and fairer in a democracy than trust in the people.”

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