Emmanuel Macron beware, the riots are a gift for Marine le Pen

The news that French president was at an Elton John concert during the riots gives Marine Le Pen an opportunity.

President Macron, a centrist, is facing competition from the likes of populist Marine Le Pen. Picture: AFP

With the hard left and hard right dominating the opposition to President Macron, French politics is more polarised than it has been for decades, but on the riots in housing estates dominated by immigrants, all sides agree on one point: little has changed since 2005, when Arab and black youths rampaged for three weeks in the banlieues.

They disagree, however, on the causes. For Marine Le Pen, figurehead of the populist National Rally, and for the conservative Republicans party, 18 years of lax policing and out-of-control immigration have allowed lawless conditions on the estates to endure and fester.

For Jean-Luc Melenchon, the radical who leads the left-wing opposition alliance, as well as more moderate leftists, nothing has been done to improve the ghetto life of the descendants from France’s African colonies and the “brutal” policing employed to keep them in line.

The explosion of violence after a police officer shot dead 17-year-old Nahel M has surprised nobody.

A girl ducks down as she walks past police officers preparing to disperse protesters with tear gas in Marseille, southern France. Picture: AFP

When he resigned in 2018, Gerard Collomb, Macron’s first interior minister, forecast worse violence in the banlieues than in 2005 because the estates were becoming more anarchic and “the French no longer want to live together”.

Collomb, a Socialist, added: “Communities in France are more and more facing off against each other and it’s getting very violent.”

Since President Sarkozy in 2008, successive governments have thrown money at the banlieues to improve schools, housing and employment, but to little effect.

Macron, a centrist with no electoral experience, won office in 2017 promising to heal the divisions in society that had been amplified by the age of social media and conspiracy theories.

He ordered Jean-Louis Borloo, a former minister, to come up with a grand plan for healing the ills of the banlieues, but he shelved it a year later as being too ambitious and costly.

The president then seemed to swing right ahead of his 2022 re-election, launching a campaign to end what he called the “separatism” apparent in the Muslim-dominated districts.

A man holds a placard that reads, 'CRS (police) you bash the poor to defend the rich', during a protest in Nantes, western France. Picture: AFP

This spring, after weeks of protests and riots by the far left and anarchists over his pension reform, Macron sounded the alarm over what he called “decivilisation”, a breakdown in law and order.

Though he spread the blame to span incidents in the banlieues, far-right assaults on mayors and violent attacks on police by ultra-left protesters, he was accused of pandering to followers of Le Pen, Eric Zemmour, the anti-immigrant polemicist, and Eric Ciotti, leader of the Republicans.

The president has swung both ways since the teenager’s death on Tuesday. Jumping ahead of the investigation, he forcefully condemned the action of the police officer, calling it inexcusable and inexplicable.

A man and a woman cover their noses from teargas fumes during a protest in Montpellier, southern France. Picture: AFP

That drew the fire of the conservative and right-wing opposition, which accused him of undermining the police and legal process.

Then Macron denounced the rioters and ordered a massive police operation to enforce the law “without taboo”. That has played into the hands of the left. Melenchon has refused what he calls “the orders from the guard dogs” calling for calm and has backed demonstrations “for justice”.

With the Melenchon and Le Pen camps seeking to profit, Macron is under intense pressure to quell the unrest. He is hampered, though, by his deep unpopularity and the loss of credibility that he suffered after forcing through his hated pension reform without a parliamentary vote in April.

He has not been helped by news that while the banlieues were rioting on Wednesday night, he and Brigitte, his wife, were attending a concert by Sir Elton John in central Paris.

The Times