Episode Details

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Many listeners will have seen the recent protests in France, protests that began with high school students marching out of classrooms for better conditions in them, then grew to a broader backlash against the cost of living and a crisis of affordability in the country that filled the country's streets—protests that sometimes were accompanied by violence and looting, and that ultimately were met with a brutal police crackdown and mass arrests. All this, of course, comes just months before the French presidential elections, which polls show National Front candidate and longtime tribune of the far-right in France, Marine Le Pen, comfortably leading. To help us understand the situation, we again call on our French connection, Marseilles-based journalist and friend-of-the-show Cole Stangler. We get his on the ground report from the protests as he experienced them in Marseilles, discuss the brutality of the government and police's response, parse how the French right, center, and left have reacted, parse what it all might mean for the country's upcoming presidential contest, whether the profound crisis might lead to fundamental constitutional reforms, and more!

Watch Cole's show, What Do We Want? here.

Sources:

Cole Stangler, Le Miroir Américain (2025)

— Paris Is Not Dead: Surviving Hypergentrification in the City of Light (2023)

— "France Needs More Than a New Leader. It Needs a New France," New York Times, Dec 22, 2025

Emile Chabal, "Why Is France Perpetually Rioting?" Foreign Policy, Oct 19, 2026