Where Are the Gendarmes?

I've seen France's Gendarmerie Nationale up close and in person, and since I just looked up the French equivalent of tough hombres, they're the des durs à cuire you don't want to mess with.

Nine years ago, my wife and I stayed with friends for a couple of weeks in a small town about 20 minutes north of Nice. A walk down the hill for a breakfast of croissant and coffee in the morning, cheese and fruit (and rosé) for lunch, and a late dinner of something delightful accompanied by a bottle of an inexpensive red that you'd be tough to match at twice the price in the U.S. 

The little town of Mouans-Sartoux has about 10,000 people, all in my experience delightful. And despite what you see on the news, almost entirely French.

I was out running errands when I hit a police roadblock, manned by half a dozen of some of the biggest dudes I have ever seen. Dressed in head to toe in black — most of which looked like body armor — they held rifles at the ready. They gave no indication what the situation was, and every indication that you'd be wise not to bother them with questions.

They were ready to crack skulls, and yours might be one of them if you were silly enough to get in their way. 

Watching the riots and destruction in France for the last week, all I can think is, "Where are the gendarmes? Where is the Police Nationale? Hell, where's the damn army?"

I'm reminded of 1968, but where is today's Charles de Gaulle?

How do you expect to dialogue with madmen who want to smash everything? When there are riots in the street, the only tone to take is the tone of command. In the end, the State has a prerogative: to take down those who want to take it down. You issue the warnings, you fire in the air once, twice, and if that isn’t enough, you fire at the legs. Order must be restored first. It’s a matter of the balance of force.”

France has people well-suited — well-armored — for cracking skulls when needed. And a long history of doing just that. The French have a long history of rioting, too, and so it all goes hand-in-hand.

Or at least it used to. 

"Where are the gendarmes?"

All that was swiftly followed by an epiphany courtesy of Walter Kirn:

I'm not so sure that the violence in France represents a loss of control by the current powers that be in Europe. It could be a display of control.

— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) October 18, 2026

Setting the savages loose is one way Europe's elites remind ordinary Europeans who's in charge there.

If that seems far-fetched — and not even Kirn was entirely convinced — an early morning Fox News investigation might clear things up.

Fox claims to have "identified 54 organizations and movements in France's October student protests and their wider network of supporters and international amplifiers, including communist parties, revolutionary socialist groups, labor unions, environmental activists, Muslim student advocates, Palestinian-solidarity organizations and international media outlets."

That's the Red-Green alliance you can see in action right here in this country, in places like Michigan. PJ's own Catherine Salgado has all those details for you in her latest, but here's what you need to know about what's going on in France.

"Of the 54 organizations identified in the October protest ecosystem, 16 — or only about one in three — are student or youth organizations," Fox revealed, and that's "including communist youth groups and a Muslim student association."

With an elitist insider like Emmanuel Macron in charge, why bother? He's not the type to rock the boat — the boat that keeps bringing over more Third World Muslims, and the government that keeps them on the dole. Besides, even if Macron had ever been the type to rock the boat, the elite French schools he attended drilled all that right out of him.

The problem isn't Macron. The problem is Marine Le Pen and her so-called far-right National Rally party perhaps taking power in the April 2027 presidential election. Macron is term-limited out, and Le Pen leads the early polling, albeit with a weak 32-36% plurality. A runoff will follow on May 2 if no candidate earns more than 50% of the vote.

Or maybe there won't be an election.

And Another Thing: Leave it to the New York Times today to frame it as a Frenchified "Republicans Pounce" moment. "France’s Far Right Seizes the Moment as Rioting Stuns the Country," the paper's Catherine Porter reported from Paris. Never mind that rioters seize and burn and loot the country.

This is pure speculation, but I speculate as someone with a decent understanding of French history.

If France is to have the kind of national emergency that more or less protects the status quo by keeping Le Pen out of power, ordering the riot police to crack skulls and restore order is exactly what Paris would refuse to do.

There's a simpler explanation, however. It could be that Paris is simply paralyzed — terrified by Le Pen's National Rally in April, and the Red-Green alliance out on the streets right now.

Whatever the case, France burns.

Recommended: So Long, and Thanks for All the Learing Centers

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