Tempers flared in Strasbourg as far-right and far-left MEPs collided over how to explain the unrest that has shaken France, Italy and Belgium, turning an emergency debate in the European Parliament into a proxy battle over immigration, policing and the cost-of-living crisis.
France moved swiftly yesterday to announce partial curfews in Paris and other cities after weekend demonstrations over soaring prices spiralled into some of the worst street violence the country has seen in recent years.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said he did not rule out imposing a state of emergency, following remarks by the interior minister that police had “lost control”.
Similar pressures helped drive weekend protests in Italy and Belgium, where cost-of-living grievances also brought people onto the streets.
MEPs agreed to hold the emergency debate at the opening of parliament in Strasbourg, after accusations from the far right that rioters are “scum” who have “assorted with the far left” were met by counterclaims from far-left representatives that the far right holds people struggling through the cost of living crisis in “contempt”.
No Irish MEP had speaking time during last night’s debate.
Several far-right and conservative lawmakers, including members of the Patriots Group and the European Conservatives and Reformists group, sought to cast the riots as a consequence of left-wing politics and immigration.
French MEP François-Xavier Bellamy, a member of the European People’s Party, argued the turmoil is “not just a problem for France but for all of Europe”.
He blamed Jean-Luc Melenchon, leader of France’s left-wing La France Insoumise party, for inflaming the situation.
Matthieu Valet of the Patriots Group labelled the rioters “savages” who “pillaged”.
He said that while his group has been branded as “le Pen fascists”, it is “standing up for France”.
The tone repeatedly forced intervention from European Parliament Vice President Katarina Barley, a German MEP in the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats Group, who interrupted on at least two occasions over the language being used.
Among the remarks drawing her response were those from Nicolas Bay, a French MEP for the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, who called rioters “scum who loot” and tied his comments to immigration.
Ms Barley warned him about his remarks.
The exchanges prompted sharply different interventions from left-leaning MEPs, who condemned what they described as racist rhetoric and insisted the unrest cannot be separated from a long-running and worsening cost of living crisis.
French MEP Manon Aubry, from the Left Group, pushed back directly, saying that while damaged shop windows can be repaired, “eyes lost, hands, lives snuffed out cannot” — a reference to injuries suffered by many protestors, the vast majority of whom she said were peaceful.
Christopher Clergeau, a member of the Progressive Alliance for Socialists and Democrats group, said 800,000 people initially took to the streets over the cost of living crisis and what he described as a lack of resources in schools, before arguing that heavy-handed policing “poured oil on the fire”.
Greens group French MEP Melissa Camara also pointed to the scale of the demonstrations, saying “800,000 people protested the cost of living” and were entitled to do so, but when events escalated “what does the right do? It blames immigrants”.
She said that response amounted to an “injustice” toward people of all backgrounds who have been affected by the riots in recent days.
