Good morning. I bet your weekend was better than Emmanuel Macron’s. On Friday, the evening before mass protests that were planned across France, he attended a Céline Dion concert in Paris with his wife, Brigitte, prompting comparisons to Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette. On Sunday evening, he was forced to give a televised speech condemning the “unbridled violence” and riots that erupted in French cities over the weekend.
The rioters that burned makeshift barricades of bicycles in Paris, destroyed the steeple of Limoges’ town hall and set fire to Lyon’s tourism office were described as “LE CHAOS” on the front page of La Tribune Dimanche, and “SCENES D’INSURRECTION” on Le Parisien Dimanche. By Sunday, protests had also taken place in Spain, Portugal and Italy.