The Moral of the Story

Sympathy for the mob can be found in ‘leftish’ circles, based on envy. Some people have a lot of money. Many have little.

Engraved illustration, ‘Making the Haycock’, from a French field. Source: Getty Images

Wednesday, October 21st, 2026

Bill Bonner, from Ardmore, Ireland

This is what awaits Europe with Islamo-leftism. Barbarians ravaging all that remains of beauty and civilization.

—Spanish Vox party leader Santiago Abascal

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What to make of the riots in France...Italy...Portugal…Albania?

What set them off? A temper tantrum by Millennials and Zoomers? Or the death rattle for Western civilization?

The media loves fires burning and cops swinging their truncheons. Especially in the streets of Paris, such a photogenic city. The rest of the world looks on in horror...and relief. ‘At least that’s not happening here,’ people tell themselves.

The commentariat, meanwhile, struggles to make sense of it. The rioters, what’s their beef? And what does it mean for the rest of us?

As always, there are opinions on the ‘right’ and on the ‘left.’ Sympathy for the mob can be found in ‘leftish’ circles, based on envy. Some people have a lot of money. Many have little. Surely that is the cause of so many of our social ills. Crime, lack of medical care, substandard housing...and so forth...all can be traced back to an unfair distribution of wealth, no?

That is the explicit appeal of socialism, generally, and New York mayor Zohran Mamdani in particular. The solutions are obvious — transfer the wealth from the rich to the poor. The feds should be taxing the rich, they say...and spending more for better schools, environmentally-correct housing, free medical care, cradle to grave — the usual ‘liberal’ agenda, in other words, an ancient tree that has never actually borne fruit. Maggie Thatcher explained the problem with it, ‘you soon run out of other peoples’ money.’

The contrary of the ‘liberal’ agenda is the ‘conservative’ agenda. You don’t hear it very often, because there are few conservatives still compos mentis. But those few will tell you that the problem is not too little funding for the young and the poor, but too much.

While the ‘liberal’ point of view is based in materialism, the ‘conservative’ outlook leans heavily on traditional morality...as in ‘the moral of the story.’ ‘People should get what they’ve got coming to them,’ says the old-time conservative. The grumpy old fellow is ready to share the judgement of time, experience...and scraped knuckles: ‘as ye sow, so shall ye reap,’ he says. The French have spent so much on ‘social services,’ he believes, that they now have a substantial population that is idle and, naturally, discontented. ‘What do you expect,’ says the graybeard, ‘they don’t have to get up in the morning and go to work.’

He is about to tell us what use the devil has for idle hands, but he knows he’s said it many times already; we’re probably getting tired of hearing it. ‘Nobody feels good about sitting around all day,’ he says, speaking from the experience of a retiree. ‘You’ve got to learn a skill...and feel the satisfaction of a job well done. They’re cheating these people out of a decent life. No wonder they’re upset.’

There’s also a third interpretation. Neither liberal nor conservative, there are those who think the fault lies not in our stars nor in ourselves...but in immigrants. The Independent:

Trump and Kremlin both claim French riots caused by ‘mass immigration’ in similar statements

“Close your Borders and take control, before it is too late!” the US president added. Russia’s presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev, meanwhile, said he thought it was “Western civilisation’s suicide through migrant chaos.”

This is a popular explanation because it puts the blame squarely on others...and suggests a simple solution: deport them.

That may or may not be a good idea, but it doesn’t explain the season’s riots all over Europe. Why are the immigrants rioting now? They’ve been in Europe for many years. Nor does it explain how France, for example, was able to field even larger mobs — in May 1968...in the Paris Revolution of 1848...and in the French Revolution of 1789 — with very few immigrants in sight. They — like Americans — are fully capable of burning down their own town halls; they don’t need foreigners to help them.

But the more dangerous and reckless the rioters become, the more voters will want to get rid of them. The Independent again:

Germany’s Alice Weidel, leader of the Alternative for Germany (AfD), described the clashes as an “attack on Western civilisation by migrant mobs and far-left agitators,” arguing that “open borders and mass immigration” were responsible for the destruction.

And back in France, Middle East Eye forecasts:

France is on the precipice of a far-right landslide

People don’t like to see shop windows smashed. Especially when it is an ‘immigrant’ doing the smashing. We don’t know if deporting whole groups of people will really make life better for those who are left. But there are several groups we’d like to propose.

More tomorrow...including another explanation for Europe’s riots.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

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