Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni bluntly branded a Milan judge's decision to release Youssef Siher, the alleged organizer of the recent violent riots in the city as a "shameful" decision.
The post Meloni Condemns ‘Shameful’ Release of Alleged Organizer of Milan Riots appeared first on Breitbart.
This is precisely the injustice France must address. A proposed French law, debated by parliament this week, seeks to make those involved in rioting financially responsible for damage, with penalties potentially reaching €10,000. The legislation has provoked fierce opposition from civil liberties organisations and lawyers, who warn that it could threaten the democratic right to protest. On October 28th, the French Senate approved an expanded version of the bill, sending it on to the National Assembly for further consideration.
Those concerns deserve consideration. But they should not obscure a principle that ought to be uncontroversial: people who deliberately destroy other people’s property must be held accountable for what they do.
The right to demonstrate is one of the foundations of a free society. Citizens must be able to march against unpopular governments, demand better wages, protest rising living costs and challenge decisions they believe are unjust. Governments should protect that right, even when the message is uncomfortable.
But peaceful protest and criminal violence are not interchangeable. A legitimate grievance does not excuse arson. Anger about the cost of living does not justify looting a family-owned business. Nor does opposition to government policy grant anyone permission to attack police officers, intimidate residents or vandalise public buildings.
When violence erupts, the people who suffer are often those with the least power to absorb the losses. Independent retailers, restaurant owners, employees and local communities pay a price for disorder they neither organised nor encouraged.
Why should they be expected to bear that burden alone?
France’s recent unrest has illustrated the scale of the problem. Reuters reported that businesses suffered substantial losses from looting and vandalism, while thousands of shops were damaged or forced to close amid the violence.
The consequences extend beyond broken windows. Businesses lose revenue, employees face uncertainty, insurance costs can rise and neighbourhoods acquire a reputation for instability. Public authorities must divert resources to policing and repairs instead of spending them on services citizens actually need.
Ultimately, the public pays repeatedly: first through the destruction itself, then through the cost of restoring order and rebuilding what has been damaged.
A system that makes offenders compensate their victims would help reverse that injustice. Courts should be able to order restitution, impose substantial fines and pursue offenders’ assets where the law permits. Where several people deliberately participate in a proven campaign of destruction, the law should provide effective ways of establishing their respective responsibilities.
A €10,000 ceiling may be inadequate when the damage runs into tens or hundreds of thousands of euros. Compensation should reflect the harm caused, subject to fair procedures and realistic arrangements for payment.
Financial liability alone will not deter everyone. For those who set fires, lead organised looting, inflict serious injuries or repeatedly engage in violent disorder, imprisonment must remain a genuine possibility.
The most serious offenders should face lengthy prison sentences proportionate to their crimes. A person who deliberately endangers lives by setting a building alight should not expect to receive little more than a symbolic penalty. Organisers who coordinate attacks and individuals who assault others should know that the consequences can be severe.
Swift justice matters, too. Cases should be investigated properly, evidence gathered carefully and proceedings concluded without unnecessary delay. Punishment must be certain enough to command respect, not merely spectacular enough to generate headlines.
There is, however, a crucial distinction between being present at a demonstration and participating in criminal violence. No one should be ordered to pay for damage simply because they attended a march or happened to be nearby. Prosecutors must establish the relevant conduct and culpability, and defendants must have a meaningful opportunity to challenge the evidence.
That is not softness. It is what separates the rule of law from mob justice.
Critics of France’s proposed law, including Amnesty International, argue that provisions imposing liability for damage committed by other members of a gathering risk punishing people for acts they did not personally commit. That is a serious concern that lawmakers should address rather than dismiss.
Legislation must be drafted precisely enough to distinguish genuine participation in organised violence from peaceful assembly. Collective punishment is not a substitute for effective policing, and the financial hardship of an offender’s family should not become a convenient additional penalty.
But the answer to a badly drafted law is better legislation, not resignation to the destruction of streets and businesses.
France and other European democracies need a clear message: protest is a right; violence is a choice. Those who make that choice must accept its consequences.
A society that fails to protect innocent people from deliberate destruction risks losing public confidence in its institutions. And a democracy that allows violent minorities to intimidate communities and impose enormous costs on everyone else risks surrendering its streets to those least entitled to control them.
The principle should be simple. If you smash it, you should pay for it. If you burn it, injure someone or organise the destruction, you should face the full weight of the law.
Freedom demands responsibility. Without it, the right to protest risks becoming an excuse for the destruction of the very society that makes peaceful protest possible.
France Student Protests: 504 Arrested and 48 Police Injured as Violence Erupts in Paris
Shopkeepers are facing a staggering financial toll following the widespread damage and looting during the Oct. 17 demonstrations, with preliminary estimates out of the IFRAP Foundation surpassing €1 billion.
“Initial reports from insurance companies indicate that the losses will exceed one billion euros,” reported CCI France on Tuesday. “For Paris, we’re talking hundreds of millions,” France’s network of chambers of commerce, CCI France, has stated, as cited by Le Figaro.
Damage in Paris alone already stretches into the hundreds of millions of euros.
IFRAP’s €1.1 billion estimate includes nearly €910 million in physical property damage and €190 million in lost business revenue due to forced closures and reduced activity. The financial hit is heavily concentrated on businesses (€666 million) and public property (€200 million), the latter including the fire-ravaged Limoges City Hall.
These amounts would eclipse the summer 2023 riots, which cost insurers €793 million across 16,400 claims, with the unrest spanning 11 nights and impacting 672 municipalities.
Rating agency Morningstar DBRS estimates the current damage could peak at €1.2 billion, provided the unrest subsides.
Comparing these estimates to the Yellow Vest movement, which caused retail revenue losses averaging €400 million per weekend between late 2018 and early 2019, IFRAP’s baseline estimate for the Oct. 17-18 riots projects €190 million in operating losses for just the single weekend.
Still, the damage is real. During Saturday protests, “city center businesses lose up to 80% of their revenue,” said CCI France.
In response to the crisis, CCI France President Alain Di Crescenzo is urging authorities to ban all demonstrations, including those in suburban areas, until after the holiday season. “We absolutely must revive commerce,” he stressed.
In the wake of the riots, French government bonds were unloaded by investors in a dramatic sell-off. Ratings agency Moody’s was expected to downgrade France’s credit rating last week but instead maintained its long-term sovereign credit rating at Aa3 with a negative outlook. Some say, this reprieve may not last long.
The post ‘We absolutely must revive commerce’ – Damage estimates from French riots could top €1 billion as economic, debt fears deepen appeared first on Remix News.
© Piero Cruciatti/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
© Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times, via Getty Images
The riots in France have shown up the Leftist claim that enough public spending and 'integration' will produce a happy, peaceful society as a dangerous fiction. But is anyone paying attention, asks Matt Roberts.
The post The Riots in France Show Up the Dangerous Fiction That Public Spending and ‘Integration’ Create a Peaceful Society appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.
© Marko Djurica/Reuters
A series of messages published on social media Tuesday morning call for a wave of violent riots across Spain "inspired" by the recent chaotic events in France for Saturday, October 31, local outlets warned.
The post Reports: France-Inspired Violent Riots Are Being Urged in Spain for Halloween appeared first on Breitbart.
© Anne-Christine Poujoulat/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Speaking at her party’s opening campaign rally in Orléans, Marine Le Pen, presidential candidate of the National Rally (RN), spoke repeatedly about rebirth, or a renaissance, calling on the French to embrace a shift away from the disastrous policies of current President Emmanuel Macron.
Her campaign comes on the back of the disastrous riots that have seen France pillaged and burned. During her speech in Orléans, in line with her past messaging, Le Pen pledged to bring the French better security.
“We are not living the end of the world but the end of a world. It is up to us to build the one that is coming. The Renaissance of France begins today!” Le Pen posted to X.
Nous ne vivons pas la fin du monde mais la fin d’un monde. À nous de bâtir celui qui vient. La Renaissance de la France commence aujourd’hui !
— Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel) October 25, 2026
“No one thinks that we are stronger today than yesterday, or that after 10 years of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency, we are walking on a field covered in rose petals,” she told supporters, as cited by Euronews Hungary.
“The battle for facts has already been won; everyone in France agrees with us,” she added.
“Who can claim that there is a rule of law when hordes come to ransack and burn our buildings?” she asked during her launch speech.
“The rule of law is not law against the state,” said Le Pen, promising strict legal action against those who commit crimes, including the expulsion of foreign criminals, echoing sentiments from right-wing leaders across Europe.
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) October 19, 2026
She also called for greater French sovereignty, arguing that France must secure itself a “double border: French and European.”
Le Pen additionally struck out at Zelensky, noting that under her leadership France has no intention of send its youth to die in a war “that is not ours.”
RN Chairman Jordan Bardella turned his sights on Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the far-left La France Insoumise (LFI) who has been adamant in his support for the ongoing riots. Bardella accused Mélenchon of “stirring the embers of rebellion” and called LFI unfit for the “highest functions of the state.”
France heads to the polls in May 2027. Recent polling shows Le Pen in the lead, with as high as 38% of the vote, according to Reuters. Mélenchon would come in second, with as much as 18.5%.
The post “The rule of law is not law against the state” – Le Pen tells voters at campaign launch appeared first on Remix News.
© Abhishek Khedekar for The New York Times
© Manu Brabo/Getty Images
France’s latest weekend of protest presents Emmanuel Macron with a question that presidential speeches cannot settle: can his government protect ordinary citizens while addressing the grievances driving them onto the streets?
Nearly 1,000 arrests were reported after Saturday’s demonstrations, with clashes in Paris and other cities. Most participants protested peacefully over education and living costs. But masked groups again turned public mobilisation into confrontation, leaving police to restore order.
From a conservative perspective, this matters enormously. Peaceful assembly belongs to the democratic inheritance France should defend. Throwing projectiles at officers, intimidating businesses and destroying property belong in the criminal courts. Economic hardship explains anger; it does not confer permission to terrorise a neighbourhood.
The Interior Ministry counted 410,000 demonstrators nationwide, while the CGT union estimated nearly 800,000. Authorities deployed 70,000 officers, supported by helicopters and armoured vehicles. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the operation helped prevent a repetition of the previous weekend’s widespread looting.
That offers some reassurance. Yet a country requiring such an extraordinary deployment to contain weekend demonstrations has a deeper problem than crowd management. Police can clear a junction. They cannot, by themselves, rebuild confidence in a political class that many citizens believe no longer understands their lives.
The most easily overlooked people are those with the least protection: independent shopkeepers, employees losing shifts, residents trapped behind barricades and taxpayers financing the response. Their interests deserve the same attention as the demands carried on banners. Keeping a business open is also a contribution to national life.
The BBC reported that shops were boarded up, cultural institutions closed and more than 20 Paris metro stations shut. These precautions may have been necessary, but they also demonstrate how disorder imposes costs far beyond those directly involved. A disrupted capital is a warning about the erosion of everyday freedom.
The government’s responsibility therefore extends beyond announcing arrest totals. Suspected offenders should face prompt, fair proceedings, with meaningful penalties where guilt is established. Where legally appropriate, those responsible for deliberate damage should contribute towards repairs. Public confidence depends on consequences that are visible, proportionate and consistently applied.
Consistency also requires rejecting violence from every political direction. Regional authorities reported that far-right extremists fought demonstrators in Nice, where 11 people were arrested. A credible conservative position cannot excuse street intimidation because its perpetrators claim patriotic motives. The law loses authority whenever political allegiance becomes an unofficial exemption.
Nevertheless, restoring order cannot substitute for governing competently. The movement grew from complaints about school staffing and resources into broader protests over household costs. Those concerns deserve answers. Parents expecting functioning classrooms and workers struggling to afford necessities are asking whether the state delivers what it promises.
The conservative answer should begin with value for money. Before reaching automatically for additional taxation or borrowing, ministers should explain where existing resources go, which programmes deliver results and which administrative burdens consume money better spent on essential services. Public expenditure should be judged by outcomes rather than the generosity of announcements.
There is an equally strong case for policies that reward employment, investment and enterprise. A government cannot sustainably improve living standards while treating the businesses creating jobs as an inexhaustible source of revenue. Nor can it promise every constituency protection from difficult choices. Credibility requires priorities, arithmetic and candour.
Macron’s political opponents will understandably seek advantage. But opposition leaders should be judged by whether they offer workable government, including a clear rejection of intimidation. Encouraging public anger is easier than reconciling demands for better services, affordable living and sound finances. France needs politicians prepared to explain those trade-offs honestly.
The immediate task is to keep streets safe. The larger task is to make democratic government effective enough that citizens trust its decisions. France needs firm policing, accountable institutions and economic realism. Unless its leaders provide all three, each weekend of unrest risks becoming another advertisement for the failure of the governing establishment.
France’s Unrest Exposes a New Front in Russia’s Information War Against Europe
© Yara Nardi/Reuters
© Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
© Nick Fancher for The New York Times
© Dimitar Dilkoff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Login