France, Macron, and the Danger of Hyperpolitics
What Nationwide Unrest Could Mean for the Future of International Politics
Op-Ed by Jett James Pruitt
In parallel to the 1789 Storming of the Bastille, the mass demonstrations and riots that occurred throughout key cities in France (including but not limited to Bordeaux, Marseille, Lyon, Lille, and, most of all, Paris) on Saturday, October 17 portend a paradigm shift in the nature of political engagement — not only in France, but in all liberal democracies around the world.
As of October 20, 2026, at least 3,000 French shops were destroyed or looted across the country, with an estimated 2,400 people arrested and nearly 1,000 police and national guard officers injured. Countries such as China, Germany, and the United States issued travel advisories for their citizens visiting France.
In a national address on October 18, France’s President Emmanuel Macron condemned the rampant destruction, asserting “Tonight, we all feel anger and shame. Looking at these images, we all asked ourselves: What is going through their minds? How can French people do this to France?” While he acknowledged that demonstrators had the right to raise awareness about legitimate policy issues, he nevertheless vowed law enforcement would continue to be “uncompromising” towards the “agitators from ultra-left fringe groups, joined by numerous delinquents” actively “unleash[ing] unbridled violence in our cities.”
Macron, who already faces parliamentary gridlock and waning public support as the first round of the French Presidential Election approaches in six months, is facing mounting pressure to fire Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez for mishandling the October 17 protests. While there are currently no indications he will do so, Macron clearly stated he expects him to “draw all necessary lessons” and improve domestic intelligence operations amid calls for additional protests.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu vowed on October 20 to bolster the country’s police presence, claiming “The deployment for next Saturday [October 24] will be massive.”
Why are the riots happening?
Put simply, the movement began as a mass mobilization to raise awareness towards deteriorating conditions in French public schools, and then evolved into a collective uproar among the French political left against consumerism, Macron’s presidency, cuts in public services, rising fuel prices, the U.S.-Iran War, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis afflicting developed economies.
Yet, this concise summary does not capture the full picture of the bleak situation.
A 73-year-old woman near Les Halles (a shopping center in Paris), who chose not to disclose her identity, spoke with The Guardian: “[On October 17] There were different groups running everywhere with police chasing on foot or by car, and at the same time, some people were setting bins and bikes alight. The groups breaking into shops aren’t hostile to passerby [sic], so you’d see local residents walking down the street on their way home late at night, and masked teenagers running past the other direction carrying looted goods. It’s so strange – it’s like two different universes in parallel worlds.”
She continued: “It says a lot about society – it shows we have neglected our education system and that we’re living in a consumer society where all we say to our young people is: ‘buy, buy, buy.’ In this type of extreme capitalism, some people don’t have enough money to buy all of this and so they attack.”
In short, this quote reflects the ultimate paradox with the ongoing demonstrations in France, as reflected by the interviewee's description of "two different universes": it stands for something, and it stands for nothing.
In his 2023 book Hyperpolitics, Belgian political theorist and philosopher Anton Jäger details why modern democracies appear to experience such little legislative or institutional reform despite the mass politicization of society in the form of viral outrage, gnawing culture wars, and acephalous social movements.
He argues that intermediary political associations (e.g., churches, labor unions, and other forms of civic solidarity) have been gradually hollowed out due to the fluidity and easy accessibility of social media.
As a result, our current political age is defined by a sense of high moral urgency without investment in durable membership or allegiance to a political organization.
For this reason, everything in modern society is political (i.e., in the manner of constantly discussing current events and world leaders), and nothing is political (i.e., very little actually gets done) at the same time.
To complement Jäger’s thesis, American political scientist and international relations scholar Francis Fukuyama — best known as the author of the (highly misunderstood) 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man — contends the underlying cause of global mass protests is rooted in thymos, a Greek term referring to the human need for respect and recognition. As he wrote in Identity: Contemporary Identity Politics and the Struggle for Recognition:
“Economists assume that human beings are motivated by what they label ‘preferences’ or ‘utilities,’ desires for material resources or goods. But they forget about thymos, the part of the soul that desires recognition by others, either as isothymia, recognition as equal in dignity to others, or megalothymia, recognition as superior. A great deal of what we conventionally take to be economic motivation driven by material needs or desires is in fact a thymotic desire for recognition of one’s dignity or status.”
Synthesizing these two ideas — Hyperpolitics and thymos — it becomes evident that the October 17 riots were a consequence of a collective desire for significance, rather than a grounded, rational attempt to usher in legislative reform.
Granted, there are legitimate concerns relating to poor conditions in the public school system and the cost-of-living crisis in France. Yet, the amalgamation of several loosely-connected issues into a single mobilization against a president leaving office in six months indicates the riots are less a coherent program than a diffuse outburst.
Of course, the prevalence of ‘thymotic movements’ is not new, and protests in France have historically resulted in clashes with law enforcement and property damage (e.g., the gilets jaune movement of 2018).
The more important point is that thymotic movements are now the norm in major democracies, not the exception.
For these reasons, 2026 will launch a new period of international politics in which people’s desires for recognition will supersede any form of respect for traditional sociopolitical institutions. Simultaneously, the more violent ongoing and future protests become, the more governments will need to securitize.
Hyperpolitics, therefore, may mark the next biggest risk to global democracy.
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Jett James Pruitt is a Native American, Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of the bestselling book THROUGH THE EYES OF A YOUNG AMERICAN. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of TheGenZPost.com and a political strategist specializing in Generation Z voter trends. He is currently a B.A. International Politics student at The University of London Institute in Paris. His next book, THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE: What America's Political Parties Must Do To Win Over Generation Z, will be released in major bookstores worldwide early 2027.
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