France social protests and general strike, Digi Mart USA News (Paris, France): Reporting from the French capital ahead of the general strike set for Thursday, November 5, Aldo Cazzullo, an editorialist for the centrist Italian daily Corriere della Sera, shared his impressions of the city and the country. His assessment was far from optimistic.
In an account from the evening of Saturday, October 31, the most recent day of social mobilization in France, Cazzullo described Place de la République occupied by armored vehicles and police carrying submachine guns. He wrote that many establishments were closed or empty, that police sirens and helicopters filled the night, and that the Jardin des Vosges was closed while a sheet-metal wall topped with barbed wire had been put up to protect the Louvre.
Cazzullo said he did not sense a spirit of revolution but rather a dark and twilight atmosphere. He compared it with past social movements he had covered, including the large 1995 protests against reforms, which he said were the opposite of today’s mood.
“I had never seen Paris so empty and resigned during a crisis,” he said.
He also recalled the solidarity that followed the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks, when Parisians gathered with candles at Place de la République and filled bars. He asked what had become of that solidarity today.
According to Cazzullo, what troubled him most was not the violence, which he said had been nothing irreparable on Saturday, but the political context surrounding the movement. He argued that “if elections were held tomorrow, Marine Le Pen would triumphantly enter the Élysée,” and that disorder benefits the extremes.
He also said President Emmanuel Macron’s failure had become evident, claiming he had almost always said the right things but almost always made the wrong choices.
Cazzullo concluded by discussing Hamza, a teenager nicknamed “La Douane” who sprayed passersby with water along the Canal Saint-Martin this summer. He suggested that even such an innocent figure could contribute to an already deteriorated political climate, linking ambient racism with social decline.
He summarized the divide this way: a person with a good job and apartment would laugh at Hamza, while someone who had been left, evicted and laid off might vote for Le Pen. He said far more people in France now find themselves in the second situation.
