French President Blames Riots On Video Games And Social Media
17-year-old Nahel M was fatally shot in the chest by French police on Tuesday, sparking country-wide riots that have led to 150 people being arrested and 2,000 police officers being deployed. President Emmanuel Macron called a crisis meeting on Thursday as the riots continued, claiming that social media and video games have "intoxicated" young people.
As reported by Barron's, he believes that young people rioting in the streets are basing their actions on what they've seen in violent video games; "Platforms and networks are playing a major role in the events of recent days. We've seen them--Snapchat, TikTok and several others--serve as places where violent gatherings have been organised, but there's also a form of mimicry of the violence which for some young people leads them to lose touch with reality. You get the impression that for some of them, they are experiencing on the street the video games that have intoxicated them".
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Riots are still ongoing in France, with many likening them to the 2005 protests. In the past few days, they've spread from Paris to Marseille, Toulouse, and Lyon. Macron has responded to growing unrest by urging parents to keep their young ones at home, while denouncing all violence, particularly toward police, by protestors as "intolerable and inexcusable". Macron has also announced that he will put more police on the streets, despite the riots starting because a police officer killed a young boy for pulling away from a traffic stop.
Videos on social media show protestors setting cars on fire, looting, fighting the police, and marching in the streets, but while this was ongoing, Macron spent Wednesday night at an Elton
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