French Riots: A Gift for Le Pen?

Home Shows Spotlight To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site. Cover image: Lyon Tourism Office © AFP 25:10 Issued on: 18/10/2026 - 20:25 From the show How much damage has the unrest in France caused to a protest movement rooted in genuine grievances but hijacked by rioters, violence and vandalism? Is it a gift to Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader and presidential frontrunner? Or is it a spectre of trouble to come in a deeply polarised society, amid an increasingly poisonous political atmosphere? France 24’s Gavin Lee speaks to French analyst Renaud Foucault and a senior professor of economics. Produced by Gavin Lee, Théophile Vareille and Guillaume Gougeon