Chaos across the country: is France about to Implode?

By Leo Kuper

On 17 October 2026, about 800,000 people marched in the streets of France. Some were students wishing for better conditions in schools; others were a group of struggling workers, pensioners and unemployed people, known as the “Gilets Jaunes” (Yellow Vests), protesting against the rise in the cost of living. This was a mostly peaceful protest. However, those who stole the headlines were the individuals (who can hardly be considered protesters) who took advantage of the situation to fight the police, burn cars and bins, and loot any shop in sight. Approximately 3000 shops were broken into in under 24 hours. These looters are more commonly known in France as “casseurs” (those who break). These events have plunged the country into a state of chaos, prompting various mayors to install curfews to stop the disorder.

With the presidential elections coming up in May, political tension is at an all-time high. What will the country evolve into, from a social and political standpoint? Is French society going to decay, with a rise in hate crimes?

Surely, Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, daughter of notorious Holocaust denier Jean-Marie Le Pen, was following the news on 17 October with a grand smile on her face? France was plunging into a state of great insecurity before our eyes, made worse by the fact that treating insecurity is one of the core aspects of her agenda.

The riots have likely enlarged her lead. Polls already expect Le Pen to get approximately 33% of the vote in the first round. As a reminder, the last French far-right leader was Philippe Pétain (1940-1944), who collaborated with Hitler’s Germany. If Le Pen wins this election, she has vowed to take measures such as banning Muslim veils in public spaces and limiting immigration drastically. To add insult to injury, she was found guilty of having helped embezzle more than €2,8m in European Parliament funds and transferring the money into her party in France. between 2004 and 2016. She has been sentenced to wear an electronic ankle tag. Le Pen has appealed this decision.

Is French society going to decay, with a rise in hate crimes?

And what about the controversial far-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who is expected to reach the second round alongside Le Pen? It doesn’t seem favourable for him, as his party, “La France Insoumise” (Unsubmissive France), has been accused by the rest of the political spectrum of encouraging violent behaviour and not condemning it. Members of his party have been present at the protests. The "LFI" mayor of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, even went viral with a video of him protecting student protestors from the riot police. Nevertheless, Mélenchon still seems to be the other favourite, alongside Le Pen, to reach the second round, though nearly every poll predicts that he’d lose to her by quite a wide margin. Therefore, she likely secretly hopes that he'll reach the final round and therefore avoid criticising him publicly.

However, the big losers of this chaotic period are the candidates who've had important jobs during President Emmanuel Macron's nine-year tenure. For instance, former Prime Ministers Édouard Philippe (2017-2020) and Gabriel Attal (2024-2024) were rumoured a few months ago to team up in the race and probably beat Le Pen's "Rassemblement National" (National Rally) in the second round of the election. However, with Macron's popularity scores at an all-time low, many people want a new kind of president, not a centrist, but a radical one. Hence the rise of both of the major extreme parties, and the fall of "Macroniste" candidates in voting intentions. As you've probably gathered by this stage of the article, France is extremely polarised, divided into three different camps: the far-left, the centre and the far-right. Each group hates the other, creating high tension amongst the French population.

On 23 October, a man committed a terrorist attack in the Parisian suburb of Trappes, which is one of the poorest cities in France. The terrorist, Kevin Tessier, shot and killed Pengo Bossio Wangi, a 26-year-old French man of Congolese descent, and injured five others, including an eleven-year-old girl. Tessier later admitted having aimed for black and Arab people. Chances are that the 17 October riots, carried out in part by young people from the suburbs, motivated him to commit this hate crime. Is this the first of many? If Marine Le Pen is elected president (after having run for office four times), it is quite likely that racist, anti-immigrant terrorist attacks will continue.

During his campaign in 2017, Emmanuel Macron stated that one of his main political aims was to stop the rise of the far-right in France by improving the country's economy and quality of life. Just under ten years later, it is safe to say that he has failed, though he hasn't been helped by external factors such as Covid-19, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and the war in Iran. France's debt has reached €3,6 trillion, and prominent French economists such as Jean Tirole and Philippe Aghion are very critical of Le Pen and Mélenchon's plans to cure the economy. France's future isn't looking too bright, but there is still hope that a "saviour" will emerge. Could it be the social-democrat Raphaël Glucksmann, who isn't far behind Édouard Philippe and Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the polls, and who would stand a better chance than the far-left in the second round?

Image: Wikimedia Commons