France in the Midst of Riots - Alain de Benoist

A little over a week after the outbreak of the riots, Alain de Benoist draws up their genealogy. French specificity, anteriority of mass immigration, culture of denial, occultation of ethnic realities, individualism… everything contributed, more than elsewhere, to setting fire. This interview first appeared in Italy in “Il Giornale”.

Alain de Benoist

July 7, 2023

IL GIORNALE: The demonstrations these days bear witness to the failure of multiculturalism. How did we get here ?

ALAIN DE BENOIST. They manifest of course a failure of multiculturalism, but to stop there would be simplistic. The violent urban riots we are witnessing at the moment also testify to a country divided and fragmented, not because of immigrants, but because of a dominant ideology which has substituted, in the general population, the law of profit for moral rules. . In a society dominated by market values, which structurally create the conditions for fragmentation and social unbundling, it is not surprising that no one cares about the common good.

In these riots, the left mainly saw a social revolt (against discrimination, exclusion, unemployment, etc.), while the right spoke of an ethnic revolt heralding a civil war. There is some truth in both interpretations, but they are both short-sighted. For forty years, tens of billions of euros have been invested in “urban policy” and the rehabilitation of “difficult neighborhoods” without any results. On the other hand, an urban guerrilla is not a civil war. In a civil war, two armed fractions of the population clash, the police and the army being equally divided, which is not the case here.

Generally speaking, it is strictly political interpretations that prove incapable of taking the full measure of the problem. The current urban riots have no political character. The rioters have no claims to make. They only want to destroy and plunder. When representatives of the left or the extreme left go to the estates to make it known that they "understand the anger" of the rioters, they are expelled or spit in their faces!

IL GIORNALE: To what extent does the crisis of French and European identity influence the demonstrations?

ALAIN DE BENOIST: The French population today has lost all feeling of belonging to a community. The rioters have one – or believe they have one. The crisis of French identity has ancient roots. It is the result of the influence of an ideology that is both individualist and universalist, which believes that men are “everywhere the same”, and that ethnocultural factors are not important. No society can solve its problems by the mere addition of the legal contract and the mercantile exchange.

IL GIORNALE: Is the French state challenged because many immigrants do not recognize the authority of French institutions?

ALAIN DE BENOIST: The rioters don't care about the French state, which is indifferent to them. When they attack the police with fireworks, when they set town halls or fire stations on fire, it is less because they see them as representatives of authority than because they perceive them as intruders . They reason in terms of territory (the “invisible border”), in a purely tribal way. They also attack schools, bookstores, grocery stores, shops and cars. They look at each other as a gang attacked by a rival gang.

It would be another mistake to believe that the rioters do not want to know any rules. On the contrary, there are rules that they respect very well: their own! Most of them come from clan-like family cultures and societies, and they continue to behave in a clan-like manner. If one of them is a victim of “police violence”, all consider themselves victims too. This is what the public authorities, prisoners of their ideology, fail to understand: the mother of a child killed after committing an armed robbery will never say that her son behaved badly. She will say that through him, the whole clan was attacked. This is the very principle of clan tribalism: mine are always right because they are mine.

IL GIORNALE: Why are the second and third generations more radicalized than the previous ones?

ALAIN DE BENOIST: They are more radicalized because they suffer from a much more marked identity deficit. Such riots are never the work of first-generation immigrants, who came to settle in France voluntarily while retaining a clear awareness of their origins, and therefore of their identity. The second, third or fourth generation consider themselves to be Algerian, Malian, Moroccan, Senegalese, etc., even when they have French nationality, but they know practically nothing of the countries from which their parents or grandparents came. They do not feel French, but have only an artificial or fantasized alternative identity. Their frustration is total. They can no longer express what they are except through violence and destruction.

IL GIORNALE: In this context, did the French judicial system, often accused of being too lax with regard to immigrants who commit crimes, play a role in your opinion?

ALAIN DE BENOIST: The laxity of the judicial system is very real. The rioters know well that basically they do not risk much, because the law is not applied. A refusal to comply with a hit and run can theoretically be worth up to ten years in prison, but such sentences have never been imposed. Moreover, there are no more places in the prisons! This contributes to the demoralization of the police.

IL GIORNALE: Already in 2005, serious demonstrations took place in France. What has changed compared to the situation almost twenty years ago? Has the situation gotten worse?

ALAIN DE BENOIST: Between 2005 and 2023, there are differences. The greater scale of the riots, which in five days have already done more damage than those of 2005 which had lasted three weeks, is explained firstly by the simple fact that the immigrant populations from which the rioters come are many more today. The predominant role of social networks today should also be taken into account. In 2005, the riots were concentrated in the big cities, they affect today the small towns. The rioters are also much younger (a third of those arrested are between 13 and 15 years old and were unknown to the police) and much more violent. In the estates, a culture of gratuitous violence has developed: it is no longer just to steal something that we resort to violence, but for a "bad look", for a refusal of a cigarette or quite simply for nothing – if not for pleasure. And we quickly go to extremes: we continue to strike who is already on the ground, we do not hesitate to kill. In France, according to an INSEE survey, there is a gratuitous attack every 44 seconds...

IL GIORNALE: The problem of immigration does not only concern France, but also other major European nations such as Germany where, however, phenomena of this magnitude have never occurred. What went wrong with the French immigration model?

ALAIN DE BENOIST: This is precisely the proof that multiculturalism alone is not enough to explain the riots. What is special about France is that it was a pioneer in terms of immigration: the problem was already there when immigration was just beginning in countries like Italy, Germany, Spain or the UK. There is also the fact that immigration to France remains associated with the memory of the colonial period, which gave rise to resentments that have not been extinguished. Finally, it cannot be ruled out that certain policing techniques which have proved to be the most effective elsewhere are not always used by the French police. The relentless denial of problems for decades has had explosive consequences.

IL GIORNALE: Will the protests these days also have political consequences in view of next year's European elections by strengthening the right?

ALAIN DE BENOIST: Yes, it is obvious. Disturbances like the ones we are witnessing at the moment help to open our eyes. The National Rally has already become the leading party in France, and the polls give it the winner of the next European elections. French public opinion is overwhelmed, it can't take it anymore.

She sees that the government is completely overwhelmed by what is happening. A majority of French people would like to see the army intervene in the suburbs. Emmanuel Macron is being criticized for not having instituted a state of emergency, as was done in 2005. The most significant symbol is the incredible success of the fundraiser launched on social networks to help the family of the police officer who fired the shots that sparked the riots: in less than four days, it exceeded one and a half million euros (before being closed)! Never seen.

IL GIORNALE: Is France lost forever or is there a chance to put an end to this situation?

ALAIN DE BENOIST: Never say never! The old countries of Europe have known much more serious ordeals in the past, and have always recovered from them. Everything that is actualized potentiates a reaction in the opposite direction. History is unpredictable. It is by definition the domain of the unforeseen.

IL GIORNALE: Do you think that what is happening today in France could also happen in Italy?

ALAIN DE BENOIST: It is possible, if not probable. The whole question is whether the Italian government will be able to learn the lessons of what is happening today on the other side of the Alps.