JustaRedBird

I see the protests in France are trending. Since I just spent 10 days there during the heart of them, I figured I'd chime in with what's actually going on. The news and clickbait accounts on X will show you the outlier events: burning buildings, raging violence and everything that triggers you. I was in the heart of Aix en Provence during the biggest protest day and filmed the center where it was happening. (See below) This is right the University, across from the church, dead center of town. The students are dancing, singing, kicking soccer balls and have comically barricaded the entrance doors to force the school to close. I visited many cities in France during the protest period, and saw zero violence or malpractice of any kind. More broadly, I spent more than a month this year in France across 3 trips and 10+ cities, including Paris, Bordeaux, Aix en Provence, Nice, Antibes, Biarritz, and others, and it's incredibly safe, charming, peaceful and beautiful. Every city I visited is nicer than almost every American city, and there's zero comparison. So much that it wouldn't even be insulting to France to try, because nobody who has spent significant time in both countries would take this comparison seriously. I spoke with the students at length about their views. I also spoke with waiters, drivers, merchants, staff and whoever. They were all civil, well articulated and genuinely wanted to see change. We can disagree about their reasoning, logic or whatever, and it's true that France has fiscal problems, but to chalk up the France protests to raging extremist violence from "pick your favorite group to blame", is a laughable misrepresentation of what's actually going on. If you exclusively watch the news and believe the top 1% extreme situations, you have likely been psyoped.