from RT:
The cause of unrest lies deeper than police crackdowns and social media censorship can reach
Dr. Karin Kneissl is the head of the GORKI (Geopolitical Observatory for Russia’s Key Issues) think tank and Austria’s former minister of foreign affairs. In June 2020, Dr. Kneissl published her book titled ‘Diplomacy Makes History – The Art of Dialogue in Uncertain Times’ (Olms Verlag, Hildesheim).
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The ‘banlieue’, as the French suburbs are called, has been set ablaze regularly during riots since the 1970s. Things became particularly violent during the anti-police unrest in the fall of 2005. Almost 20 years later, everyone involved, police and protesters alike, are more than willing to resort to violence.
The events are almost taken from the same script: In autumn 2005, two youngsters of Arab origin, were electrocuted while trying to escape arrest by the French police; today we have two police officers who shot a juvenile of Algerian origin as he tried to escape in a stolen car. The event was captured on video and went viral on social media, similar to the case of George Floyd in the US three years ago, leading to Black Lives Matter uprisings around the world.
In the hours that followed, tens of thousands of mostly young males, many of them minors, went on to launch violent riots in the suburbs of French cities, from Nantes in the north to Marseille in the south. Numerous cars were torched, public buildings including schools were attacked, shops were ransacked and hundreds of people were arrested. In some places, the perpetrators, most of whom are third and fourth generation descendants of migrants, are even said to have used firearms to harass the locals living mostly in social housing.
Blame TikTok
The government responded by deploying armored vehicles, while large public events such as concerts were canceled. In addition, President Emmanuel Macron, who, ironically, had to cut short his presence at a failed EU summit on migration, announced that social media networks, especially TikTok, were the root cause for the escalation of violence. Addressing the platforms directly, Macron demanded the removal of ‘sensitive content’ and more checks on the nature of published content.
