In an apparent attempt at a CNN impression, the BBC said the riots that swept France over the weekend were "mostly peaceful".
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In an apparent attempt at a CNN impression, the BBC said the riots that swept France over the weekend were “mostly peaceful”.
Social media users were quick to mock the British public broadcaster for “doing the thing” after a report from Paris correspondent and former professional rugby player, James Waterhouse, said in a televised report that the supposed protests over education and cost of living concerns were “mostly peaceful” as footage of rioters setting cars on fire and attacking police played in the background.
Waterhouse claimed that the protests were hijacked by an “opportunistic minority who came in and sought to rob and cause carnage”.
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However, the French government largely contradicted this account, with Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez saying on Saturday evening that the violence started “right from the beginning” of the demonstrations, unlike other protests where opportunists typically wait until the end to engage in violence.
The riots saw at least 2,400 people arrested, over 1,000 police and firefighters injured, the mass looting of more than 3,000 businesses, and arson attacks on government buildings, including the fire that largely destroyed the historic 143-year-old City Hall in Limoges.
The seeming attempt to downplay the destruction by the BBC drew comparisons to an infamous 2020 report from CNN, in which a correspondent standing in front of a building set ablaze by Black Lives Matter rioters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, was captioned with the chyron: “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests After Police Shooting.”
Commenting on the public broadcaster’s report, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said: “The BBC is broken. Calling the riots in France ‘mostly peaceful’ tells you everything you need to know. Reform will scrap the TV licence fee.”
Not to be outdone, the BBC’s primary private competitor, Sky News, seemingly sought to tie the riots to so-called “far-right” activists abroad posting clips of the mayhem online.
In a report published on Sunday, Sky’s Tom Cheshire said: “A lot of these protests are taking place in multicultural cities. This is a broad alliance across the left, united especially by economic discontent. That, in turn, is amplified online by far-right activists like Tommy Robinson.
“These are French protests, but they want to turn this into a European, even a civilizational issue. Just as we see the far-left black co-opting protests started by students, the far right has the wider tactic of using shocking scenes to amplify division by making immigration the sole focus.”
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While some, including President Emmanuel Macron, have attempted to draw a distinction between supposed peaceful protesters and the rioters, others have said that they should not be seen as separate, arguing that they are two sides of the same coin.
French Member of European Parliament Marion Maréchal told broadcaster BFMTV that she now equates “peaceful protesters” with “rioters”, “because they marched behind [LFI presidential candidate] Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and because he has never condemned this violence and encourages it.”
Maréchal said that she refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of the protest, which was claimed to be about educational funding or the cost of living, but which prominently featured Antifa slogans or ACAB (All Cops Are Bastards).
She said that to the far-left, violence is not “collateral damage” but rather a feature of the “struggle”, saying: “It’s doctrinal, when Jean-Luc Mélenchon himself says that everything must be confrontational, when [LFI mayor of Saint-Denis] Bally Bagayoko says that violence can be legitimate.”
