If you have been following the news from France over the last few weeks, you have seen the images of cities in flames and high-school students in the streets. And if you have been reading the American press, you have probably read that these protests began with teachers striking over the conditions in their schools. There are too many children in the classrooms, too few teachers, the buildings are falling apart, and it was too hot this summer to learn. All that may be true, but this account appears to leave out quite a lot about what really matters. Looking at the protests, one sees Palestinian flags, not French flags, and keffiyehs draped over the shoulders and shrouding the faces of the demonstrators. What on earth do these symbols have to do with school buildings and faculty-to-student ratios in France?
Simone Rodan-Benzaquen is senior envoy for Europe at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and previously led the American Jewish Committee’s work in Europe for many years. Earlier this month she published an essay in the Free Press called “Why France Is Burning,” and recently joined the Tikvah Podcast to delve into the different forces at work.
With Mosaic‘s editor Jonathan Silver, Rodan-Benzaquen explores the political logic of these protests, the economic reality that underlies them, the generational anxieties that are being expressed there, and why a whole amalgam of French grievances are arrayed against the Jews and the Jewish state.