Washington Examiner editorial director Hugo Gurdon said organizations such as Antifa are to blame for the violent riots in France.
“During the day, mostly, the protests have not been as violent, but they turn violent because one of the biggest contributors to these protests, and the French authorities admitted this several days ago, is Antifa,” Gurdon said Sunday on Fox Report with Jon Scott.
Last weekend, France’s interior ministry estimated that roughly 550,000 people participated in protests across the country. Meanwhile, organizers believe the number was closer to 800,000. Many of the protests turned violent, with rioters attacking police and looting luxury stores in Paris.
Gurdon said that even if France wanted to divert money toward better schooling, as the protests originally intended, it couldn’t.
“There were some protests about schools and, you know, the students were saying they want more money spent, but, you know, France is basically out of money,” Gurdon said. “It already spends 57% of its economy on, sort of, public services. It hasn’t got any more money to spend.” The European nation is facing a significant financial crisis, and its 10-year bond yield recently reached its highest level in 24 years.
This weekend, France looked to ramp up security measures to avoid a repeat of violence, including deploying police with military units and canceling any protest not sanctioned by unions. French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said “far-left” and “ultra-left” groups created an “insurrectionary plan” against the government.
FRANCE PREPARES FOR ANOTHER ROUND OF WEEKEND PROTESTS
Gurdon reiterated the prime minister’s sentiments, saying these groups were “co-opted by extreme Leftists.”
“They don’t just want to get more money spent on schools,” Gurdon said. “What they want to do is bring down Western society. They want to bring down [the] free market and free peoples, they want to replace it with sentry control, communists, and extreme socialists.”