The following revolt had many similarities to the Black Lives Matter uprising that followed the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the end of May 2020.

The régime showed its worry by its attempts to conciliate with the masses. The next day, President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne both condemned the police killing as unjustified, even abhorrent. The prosecutor on the case kept the killer cop locked up on charges of voluntary manslaughter.

Remember that this is the same government that pushed its cops to use tear gas and rubber-coated bullets against the Yellow Vests in 2018-19 and to arrest and beat unionists and others protesting the pension cuts all this year.

But the régime failed to stop the protests against the killer cops from becoming angry and massive. The anger among the youth in the suburbs over the daily racism they confront was too strong to be deflected by political maneuvers. (In France, most suburbs are working-class communities, often populated by descendants of migrants from former colonies.)

ETA: Nahel’s murder: France’s continuum of post-colonial denial