a 17 year old nile nurse who a delivery driver was pulled over by french national police in the parish suburb of montana. on june 27th. it's unclear to outside observers what actually happened when police 1st approached his vehicle. but within moments the teen attempted to flee the scene. that's when one of the officers opened fire as the boy drove away. the end result, we know was that now tragically died. he's the 3rd person to be killed in france thus far by police. in 2022, france saw 13 people fatally shot by french police who didn't comply during traffic stop. but for some reason, now, death was the final straw. for more than a week, cities, suburbs, and even the french countryside burned cars, buildings you name it, thousands in progress. millions upon millions of dollars worth of goods,

eluded or vandalized. communities of color in france had enough to discuss the underlying long simmering tensions between minority groups and the french power leads to. we'll talk to ted rall. ted is a syndicated columnist cartoonist radio talk show host and author of many books, most relevant to this matter. a book called to afghanistan and back. ted rall, thank you for joining us. full disclosure. ted, as my friend and co host of the sputnik radio show called the final countdown. so i just got to put that out there. but that's not why i asked ted to join us on this topic. 10 happens to be a dual citizen, french american, or american french not sure. and which order or if it matters, he can clarify. but because of his dual citizen status, frances, his maternal homeland, the events unfolding, their hip, literally close to home for ted. so tad, as we witnessed the writing,

the looting the burning of communities all surrounding paris and beyond what goes through your mind, what's your analysis of those events? well, a lot of americans are sort of asking, what's wrong with france? why are they so crazy? you know, how did these become so dysfunctional there? and i'm kind of reminded of a very famous episode between throw and his good friend ralph waldo emerson. one of them was in prison for civil disobedience, or i should say in jail. and the other one came to visit him and said, my good friend, what are you doing? they're in prison. and the c o n said, my good friend, what are you doing out? they're not in prison. and i think that sort of the attitude that the french would have about americans. we have some of the social and political and economic skills that are afflicting us, including a continuing problem with police brutality often racially inflected. that why they

might ask, why are we not now in the streets? why are cities in america? not burning? and of course, obviously we did have a little bit of that during 2020 during the b o m protests. but for the most part, americans are a quiet lot. we haven't really had a major protest movement in this country since the early 19 seventy's half a century ago. so we are a, a very like switzerland here. we're not really doing anything. and the french have a long tradition of agitation and reaction to injustice. and so the background here is it's been a long time coming. this is not simply a case of some trigger happy cops who pulled over a 17 year old kid driving without a driver's license. in the suburbs, who got nervous and shot him as he tried to get away. this is the latest chapter, the latest episode, the latest flash point in a long standing problem in france,

where the, this national police, something we do not have here in the united states patrols particularly minority areas, an error of areas as though they are occupied church for they are, um they, they roll into town, they set up checkpoints, they asked they demand the ideas in what we would call stop and risk. they harass people. the things that just don't happen if you're in the white catholic areas of france. if you as a tourist to go to paris, you're never going to be asked for your id. the thing is a fast. everyone is issued a national id card. i have one and you can be asked by any government or police official at any time to present your id card and it's against the law not to have it. if you as a tourist, a white tourist, or walk you around in paris or my stay on these,

you're never going to be approached by the police. even if they don't know that you're not french, they're never gonna ask you because they don't do that. there are but the national police as a very dark racist far right. political background, it goes back to the nazi occupation of france, which took place between 19401944. at that time, france was divided into 2 zones, directly occupied zone by nazi germany. in the north and including paris and then an area that probably most listeners are viewers are aware of called vc, france, which was run by a collaboration is pro nazi puppet regime headed by the french general. only feeling fit to pay to form the national police in 1941, to supplement and over and over. storm. go over the heads of the john dell marie, there's own towns are basically french. these y'all is person. elm is arm is gun.

so it literally means gun person, that's your local cost is yours. on down, they have affiliation in the local community. they know people. they're not nearly as likely to be involved in this kinds of aggressive leasing as the police not to not the police not, you know, it was originally known as the siri tech when they were found that by fit tap and they, the french in my, you wrongly kept a lot of vc institutions at the end of 1944 after liberation under charles to call . and one of the institutions that they kept was the national police and the se way that trump kept the space force recertified and kept trump state space force. so it's basically that same sort of thing. uh they go and travel wherever they want. they don't pay attention to the local police. there's on downs, they set up checkpoints, they harass local kids in particular. and there's really no one in france,

even among white people who don't know, or at least indirectly have some kind of story of police brutality involving the, the police not to not, i mean, you know, here there's that statement, a, c, a, b, all cops or bastards, well, i'll police nothing out of our bastards. and so this was only a matter of time. what you're seeing here is, this is just a bridge too far. it was caught on video, the cops line about what happened. they tried to get out of it and we use a lot of it, but they couldn't. it's less. i think this is less of a, george floyd and more of a rodney king moment when it comes to french politics in that. this is the 1st time that the cops were caught, debt to right. and the authorities don't really know what to do about it. present as an a menu or the macro has pretty much admitted that this shouldn't have happened. the interior minister has set up a hard line and has demanded

a harsh prison sentences for anybody caught looting or writing. but bottom line is, this was to be expected. this could easily have happened 2 years ago, and it is, it's the result of a years of pent up anger in the neighborhood. this teenager, now mercer is from you, said, is largely on jill algerian or of north african immigrants. the boy's death at the hands of national police seems to expose these cheap, racial, divides in france. can you give us some modern, historical context around this? i mean, does any of this have to do with the french colonial past? you know french, frances colonial past is front and center when it comes to all this. i mean, today, frances, just another country in europe and the secondary partner to germany in the you. but

of course, um, a 100 years ago, france, i had a fast empire that circled the globe and rivaled the u. k. as in terms of the sun, never setting this time, there's this case on the french empire of france. possessed colonies around the world still does tahiti places like a martinique and quite a loop in the, in the caribbean. they have a couple of islands off the coast of newfoundland canada. um, established sac. yeah. i certainly can. all they have um, the either you know, in the middle of the indian ocean, you've had the cottage on. yeah. and also in the pacific and other many counties, they had vast swats of africa, particularly north africa. the north, many of the arrows, the air of a sort of saharan countries were part of the french dominion morocco, algeria, tunisia,

and so on. and so what happened here definitely relates to the after frances colonial um, aspirations began to evaporate with its defeat in the military and independent struggle in the early 19 sixties. and by the way, that's really beautifully documented in a sort of pseudo documentary, the so called the battle of algiers that i would strongly recommend when a lot of awards and after 911. in fact, it became required viewing among pentagon planners looking into how they were going to occupy and deal with resistance movements in afghanistan and iraq. but anyway, um, so this kid, he was more, have basically have rock and half out to your him. and there were over there, a lot of people of the background who came here, particularly after the alteri and civil conflict, made it very unpleasant to live in places like that. some of them were political

refugees. the point is that in many cases they were allowed to, to come to france quite easily. sometimes they came on tourist visa, sometimes they were actual citizens. legal status varies tremendously. so for example, algeria was considered not just economy, l julia was legally part of france. the same way that alaska and hawaii are part of the united states, it was a full french defaulted law department, which is like a product. and basically, um, and there were a lot of white people calling us settlers. they call them the p and well the, the black sea because of the soil about syria. and they lived there tons by the 10s of thousands there. and they consider themselves fully out to you in any way this colonial legacy has left and emphatically enriched france with a lot of people move on background. and who came from these former french

colonies. it makes for a better variety of food and culture. it makes friends a far more interesting place than they used to be before world war 2. 1 the problem is there are racial tensions, france views itself, primarily as a french catholic country. this is kind of a, which is brew of a special kind of racism. and the, it's kind of the contempt of this nation state and sort of old generation white french people to look down on anybody who's got darker skin or who's not conflict by culture. and, and so the police not, you know, even though as the government will point out there more diverse, they still in the, they've heard of this culture in their ranks. that they view for people with dark skin for the people as being trouble as being people who aren't really to play

about the room. coming up next, a manual ma crown on the ropes. despite his recent re election, the french president is put in a tough spot, and his power is put to the test in the wake of this police shooting. we'll discuss it when we return with ted rall sit tight, the m o will be right back. the, the russian states never is as tight as i told him, the most sense key and the best in most all sense set up the same assistance must be the one else holes. question about this,

even though we will then in the european union, the kremlin mission, the state on the russians per day and split the ortiz next. even our video agency, roughly all the band on youtube tv services. for what question did you say a request for check the last 11 this 2011 below. just as quick as a recording in japan is we're interested a 14 meter to nami, devastates the focus cima. each and you see a power plants, the nuclear realtors are flooded,

sparking another risk disaster id by going to be of any time in june is living in japan and decided to go to the area of the new the a male down in focus. fema immediately drove me to talk to somebody about the as in the foyer investigation stats watch on the walking back to the m. o. i'm a no a chan. despite a manual ma cross only recently,

winning his re election in 2022. this way to speed a violent protest could serve as a tipping point in his legacy as president. these riots weakening his party and strengthening opposition, but perhaps not in the direction you might fake. pad raul is back with us. thank you for sticking around, tad. so let's talk about what a manual my phone is doing about this. i mean, frances burning, i've seen numerous videos online of home giant buildings set a blaze by rioters. some had made comparisons to america's george floyd protest and the bill m riots of 2020. are they really comparable? and then you'd mentioned rodney king, how is the french president responding to these violent apps as well? the french president is between a rock and a hard place because of what happened earlier this year. people are wondering whether these protests are related in any way to the yellow best protests. and so

few years ago, they've been ongoing, as well as the wide spread protests over his decides. decision to unilaterally increase the retirement age and perhaps from 62 to 64 without consulting parliament . and there's, there is a relationship, but it's not the relationship isn't. hey, whenever we're mad we take to the streets and pro molotov cocktails with the cops. the relationship is that the police not to not was used in order to counteract and suppress the yellow basses, as well as the type pension protests. and because of that now, and there's john downs or not have not really been a desirous or as cooperative in terms of defending the states for arguments in that same way. in this particular case, you have a different situation,

which is my call has some sympathy for the protests against police violence. he did not approve and very quickly pro set issued a statement that uh, that not having bill soup should not have met his end of this way. he disapproved of it. and i think if he didn't already, oh, shit, a favor to the police officer. now if he wasn't literally barely hanging on to power because of their ability to run interference for the states unpopularity in the streets of paris and other major cities, they, he could, he would be free to uh, ship this situation down. but as of this, you can only really issue half hearted, feeble state ones that are like these. you know, this is terrible stuff. i wish this wasn't happening. he can't issue a full throated condemnation of a national police because if he did were to do so,

the cost would probably stands down much in the way that we're seeing in the united states with the cops and standing down after the viola and protest and that the best the police move met, even though the police really didn't get divested anywhere of note. they're still so mad about it that they kind of refused to turn up to fight real crime. and that's why you see a lot of scenes of chaos in inner cities in san francisco, l a in new york and other places like that. so he's, you know, macro is looking at that and thinking, okay, if i come out against the national police, i'm going to have the same problem. and what do they get? what am i going to do the next time? uh the, the anti uh, and the pension age increased protesters or some other protest movements gets out of control. the he was just re elected. but it's only because the french voted against montgomery look. that is not because they voted for him. he admitted that

he knows that he's a very, very weak guy for a guy who has a controlling. he controls the parliament and he, uh, he was recently re elected. you would think that he would have considerable power. the truth is, this president is on the ropes and he could go any 2nd for it. there's no stranger to protest. pre cove it. we saw a ongoing yellow bass protest for more than a year. we've seen labor protest recently or retirement age pro tests. the french, no protesting, especially when they feel authority has gone too far. but when it comes to these immigrant issues, if we look at the money crowd, funding sites seem to imply that french citizens are actually favoring the cop who shots. now, the officer has already garnered over a $1000000.00 for his defense fund, while niles family is that a fraction of that is growing, but it's still a fraction. is it more of

a divide similar to those that we have here, state sides where communities of color tend to be economically disadvantaged. therefore they have less to give to nails, family and then, you know, the privilege whites of france have more wealth. so they're donating to the cops. i mean, can this be explained that neatly to oh, i think it's, i mean, yes and no. i mean, i don't want to overstate the progressive or left the nature of french politics because as the national police reflects in the popularity of marie le pound reflects, clearly there is a, for there is a right, we are very strong, right. we orientation tendency also within french politics and it's been always been a deeply polarized country. you know, it's similar to here. it's uh, the, the rural areas are more conservative, the urban areas are more left. and you do,

if you're going to sort of try to do the rough, like let's see, who is more popular by looking at who's go find to be, is more popular. you're the, i don't think that's a very useful way to look at it because the people who are going to support the french cop are going to necessarily be older, more conservative and more rural and with more access to money. and uh, and, and view that as their way to, to express themselves. they're not going to go out and counter approach, ask them through molotov cocktails, back at the inside police protesters. and at the same time, you're not going to go into um, you know, that, but the, the pro or the, i should say, the pro not have the protesters. they are going to view, donating as less useful. like going out and agitating and the street not to mention they're less able to do so because as you kind of indicated,

alluded to their manella, they are a, they're, they're, they're more, they're younger, the average age of someone arrested was 14 to 18. they're not, they don't have a lot of money to give away. and a lot of them are people of color, so they tend to have smaller incomes and they're less able to afford it. i mean, it's very analogous, i think, to some way shocking depths of joy nearly by the former us marine daniel penny in new york city, where there were rival go fun bees. and um, daniel probably did very, very well. i think he got more money if memory serves, then his victim jordan nearly hit his obviously george meal, he's dead, but his drug meal, his family. and there's a um, tennessee you say, well that means the police officer is getting more sympathy. but i think that's not quite the way it is. i think it's just the, the money is talking towards the forces of reaction because that's the way the

class of division exists. now last on the political front, there has been thousands of arrests, millions and millions of dollars worth of stuff loaded and vandalized torch. but there seems to be one victor here, and that's maureen le pen, you've mentioned her already. and her far right circles. my call is on the ropes, he's a lame duck president. he's got the olympics coming up next summer. how's this pan out for the political circles in france as well? everything and politics comes down to timing. if the like, if there were an election held today. if uh, back home where to step down right now and the new uh election were i think the election would be held either a month or 2 is the way this would work. do there's a short campaign period. uh it perhaps thats permitted. uh you would be um, it would be hard to imagine. well, the phrase would come down to charlie,

camino shaw, who is basically sort of a french bernie sanders plus plus versus not reading the pen and probably the pen when, when, although middle shaw would probably come close the hall, the the center has been completely gutted and hollowed out, but of course, the election might not be tomorrow or in 2 months. the election, but more likely be later on. if it's on the schedule, it will be 4 years from now. and who knows where it will be by then who the, we probably will have a completely different set of political parties. i mean, french politics has their party exchange lots and they become increasingly personalized. we used to have a system situation in france that resembled the united states, where you have for example, the socialist party had a number of candidates that were prominent, including of course, false meteor, all who was like is 1981 if memory serves. and the but, and then you'd have other routes like the rally for the republic and then they

would have their own candidates. now like with someone like micro, he had his own personal party basically. and he cobbled together a coalition with other sort of personal parties. so there's not a lot of continuity, not to mention, to really complicate things. they have these alliances, least for the parties of elections for the left and elections for the right 1st. and then they, sometimes they do that. sometimes they don't do that. little tons party is the national rally, which is kind of an air to the old national front, which was her father's orientation. and so she provides some continuity here. it's all a way of saying, look, it's complicated, even though it's like anything could happen. if you had an election held right now, marie le pen wins. so maria, so time is on marina pence side if there's not much of it left. but if let's just say micro holds on for another year, who knows?

it could some mental shows game. so there's never a discount either the far left or the far right when it comes to french politics because anything can happen, especially now it's streamlined volatile situation. even before all of these protests, a ted rall, syndicated columnist, cartoonist and officer of to afghanistan and back. thank you so much for sharing your analysis with us. very sad situation there in france. that is going to do it for today's episode of modus operandi and to show that dig deep into foreign policy and current affairs. i'm your host manila. chad. thank you for tuning in. we'll see you again next time to figure out the m. o. the

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