In the aftermath of the riots and pillaging in my home city, I have been thinking about Emily in Paris. How would she react to the scenes of violent looting in the City of Light?

I know the fictional Emily is still here, wearing her jaunty red beret and checked blazer with a chic Chanel flap bag. She’s back in her charming Left Bank flat after a brief romantic interlude in Rome. In the television series, the American ingénue never ventures into the rougher precinct of the French capital. After last week’s terrifying riots, would Emily be hastily packing her designer bags and racing frantically to Charles de Gaulle airport to board the first flight home to Chicago?

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Perhaps a plot idea for the series’ finale. Meanwhile, thousands of Emily fans have followed her to Paris to live the dream and embrace French savoir vivre. Many are foodies, some are fashionistas. Others are self-designated ‘influencers’ who gushingly promote the postcard clichés of Paris with photos and videos of the city’s burnished boulevards, charming café terraces, cobbled market streets, and Eiffel Tower sparkling after nightfall.

The violent street clashes, with hordes of masked thugs smashing up shops and torching cars, must be a shock to their nervous system. Suddenly, the soothing fantasy has succumbed to a horrifying nightmare. The soft-hued romantasy is over. Paris resembles a grim urban dystopia like the one portrayed in the film La Haine (Hatred) about alienated youths from the immigrant banlieue clashing with police in a bleak urban hellscape.

Perhaps we need an updated definition of ‘Paris Syndrome’, which describes the culture shock felt by Japanese tourists who........

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