ON THE GROUND: FRANCE Erupts In Riots, Protests

We're very excited now to be joined by Cole Stangler. He is the host of the What Do We Want podcast. He's also a former intern for Ryan Grim. Uh so, uh with with that, that that might be more of an important title there. Uh Cole, he is based in Marseilles, France. Uh Cole,

it's good to see you, man. Thank you for joining us. >> Yeah, thanks for having me. >> So, Cole, we uh obviously were here in the United States. We can only see what's in our social media feeds or in the news. We can put some of this up here on the screen. Uh we saw some

widespread violence and looting take the streets of Paris as well as some other major cities in France. Um all of this appeared to be after a widespread studentled protest movement that broke out initially. As I understand it, the studentled protest movement then morphed broadly into bigger protests around the cost of living, affordability, and

especially the price of gasoline. And then from that point forward, it then morphed into criminal and thug elements, effectively taking to the streets, straight up engaging in violence and looting. And last night, I know we also saw several areas of the city that were on fire, including residential buildings that were being burglarized. Obviously,

this has set off a political earthquake uh in France. We're curious uh Cole for you to give us some of the history as to why is this happening now? What is the broader societal impact on everything that you've seen? You were telling us before you actually attended some of those initial protests. Uh so how did

this start and then how did we get here? >> Yeah. So you know I think we have to go back we can go back you know far ways away but let's start off at least in midepptember which is when this student protest movement started. Um so basically a movement led by high school