Looking sideways at the violence in France

The week begins marked by the landscape after the battle this weekend in France.

1,500 shops were the target of vandalism and looting, there are about 2,500 people arrested, five hundred gendarmes and firefighters injured, and the Limoges town hall (where the fire collapsed the spire, in the style of the Notre-Dame fire), the Bordeaux prefecture, and the Lyon tourist office were destroyed.

But there is an even more important figure: more than half a million people took to the streets in various cities. The state of malaise is a fact and the violence of this weekend should not cover up its causes.

This morning the liter of gasoline in France costs 2.18 euros and diesel 2.37 euros on average. Inflation is eating away at purchasing power, and now cuts to public services and social benefits are coming because France has a deeply indebted state.

And watch out, because since France is the second-largest economy in the eurozone, after Germany, it could drag us into a new debt crisis, given the possibility that France may no longer be able to pay the interest on its debt, let alone repay the capital.

You look at France (or Italy, because there has also been looting in the center of Milan this weekend, or Portugal, where there are also protests over housing) and you wonder if we could see this in Catalonia. Let's see, there are similar causes. All this French protest started due to the unrest in high schools, where students complain that they are neglected. I don't need to remind you what Catalan teachers are complaining about. And that we have had protests by farmers and doctors. And that there is an encampment in Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona in protest over the situation of access to or the maintenance of housing. Perhaps at some point France thought it had a welfare state that would never end, like the inexhaustible pitcher of Saint Ferriol. And there were big protests because instead of retiring at 62, they were made to retire at 64. But the reality is what it is: the number of working poor is increasing and the feeling of having no future is spreading. All stoked by the far-left and the far-right. Trump said this morning that this violence in France comes from people who come from a different world and carry hatred in their hearts.

Meanwhile, we are in the middle of the pre-campaign for the elections a month and 10 days from now. Two socialist notes. One: Pedro Sánchez is playing in another league. Is justice pursuing his wife with an ideological bias? He dedicates words of love to her at a rally and they kiss in front of everyone. In the realm of emotions, where a good part of politics is played, Sánchez has no rival, especially if the rival is Feijóo.

And the other note: Montse Mínguez from Lleida, the PSOE spokesperson, has resigned. She has not committed any crime and neither has her partner, but he works in the real estate business with dozens of apartments and has evicted tenants in accordance with the law… When your discourse is clear and divides between large property holders (or vulture funds) and tenants, the inconsistency explodes, precisely because politics is played in the realm of emotions.

Good morning.