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When I first started studying contemporary France as a graduate student in 2006, the country was still reeling from a convulsion of urban violence triggered by the deaths of two teenagers in an electrical substation as they were hiding from police. For several weeks in late 2005, the country had gone up in flames as angry young people protested against police violence, racism, social inequality, and the broken promises of France’s social contract.

Fast forward 20 years, and the images of France being broadcast to the world are the same. What began as a protest by high school students has escalated into a nationwide cry of exasperation, punctuated by looting, the ritual burning of public buildings, and a cascade of violence meted out by riot police armed with smoke grenades and tear gas.

When I first started studying contemporary France as a graduate student in 2006, the country was still reeling from a convulsion of urban violence triggered by the deaths of two teenagers in an electrical substation as they were hiding from police. For several weeks in late 2005, the country had gone up in flames as angry young people protested against police violence, racism, social inequality, and the broken promises of France’s social contract.

Fast forward 20 years, and the images of France being broadcast to the world are the same. What began as a protest by high school students has escalated into a nationwide cry of exasperation, punctuated by looting, the ritual burning of public buildings, and a cascade of violence meted out by riot police armed with smoke grenades and tear gas.

No less predictable has been the cascade of hot takes by commentators, politicians, shock jocks, and activists, all looking to capitalize on the spectacle of French people taking to the streets. For the most part, this has involved endless platitudes about the French—who are said to be especially revolutionary or pathological, depending on your view—or outright untruths about a supposed invasion of migrants destroying French and Western........

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