France Riots: Louis Sarkozy on Why France Keeps Burning

Welcome back to the Quill Etc podcast. You're with me, Zoe Sankey. And today we're going to be talking about... The French riots, yes, it's been flooding our news feeds and it's been hard to know exactly what's fact and what's fiction. I think one of the first videos I saw of the riots was a woman at a bus stop. She had a man in a mask go up to her with a can of aerosol, deodorant or something, and a lighter and proceed to sort of firebomb her face. It was really disgusting. I've seen videos of shop owners breaking down, howling, seeing their shops that they've nurtured for decades be completely destroyed by masked vandals. So I really wanted to speak to someone with a good knowledge of French history, preferably someone who's there on the ground who's seen it themselves. But I actually didn't know who... j'avais quelques possibilités. Donc, j'ai posé ça sur Twitter, j'ai posé les idées et la suggestion qui s'est venu de Louis Sarkozy. Et puis, j'ai fait un DM de lui et j'ai pensé, Sarkozy. Hmm, really? Maybe it's a popular name in France. Is it really the son of the president? And lo and behold, it is. But Louis is not just the son of the former French president. He is very distinguished and respected in his own right. He's only young, but he's done a lot and obviously he's seen. French politics from the inside. Interestingly, he also has some military education. So he studied at Valley Forge Military Academy, which is in Pennsylvania. And he earned a Bachelor's in History and Philosophy at NYU and a Master's in International Relations at American University. He's also the author of Napoleon's Library, 2024, a colonist for Valeur. actuel and a regular contributor to the spectator uk he's on french tv all the time and he also ran for me of monton which i believe is in the south of france in 2026 all that while being dad to a young baby as well so stay tuned for an insightful conversation with someone who knows france and french history very very well he will explain exactly qui est en la rue, pourquoi il n'y a pas de repercussions pour les gens, et pourquoi, si vous regardez la histoire de français, il y a un cycle de bûlant et de bûlant et de bûlant. Donc, nous devons être là pour un peu plus tard. Sans plus d'adouf, nous allons commencer par cette conversation avec Louis Sarkozy. Louis, merci beaucoup pour me rejoindre aujourd'hui. Je suis très heureux d'avoir vous le podcast.

Merci beaucoup pour l'invitation. C'est un grand plaisir.

you're currently in Paris, am I right?

That's right, yeah, exactly.

could you fill in my audience a bit about what's been happening there? What's the temperature like at the moment? I mean, not actual temperature, but political temperature.

What's

been happening?

avec plaisir. Comme je suis sûr que tout le monde sait, les images ont fait leur share de leur turn around the world. Il y a été un peu très compliqué pour quelques semaines. Donc, nous avons eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu l'ai eu Les étudiants protestants ont des causes et des justifications. Les étudiants ont besoin de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement, de l'équipement. I failed to see the need for new and modern equipment when the students chose to set fire to and burn down the hall of the newest school that we had, the Lycée Nelson Mandelaï Nantes, that was opened in 2014. We are a poor nation now, and we don't have many resources, and we're quite dysfunctional, but that lycée was quite a success story. A lot of public money invested. Et je pense que c'était bizarre. Et le symbolisme

de Nelson Mandela aussi, c'est burning ça. Oui,

je pense que c'est vrai que c'est vrai qu'il faut avoir un nouveau équipement. Et votre façon d'avoir des nouveaux équipements, c'est d'avoir des nouveaux équipements, c'est d'avoir des nouveaux équipements que vous avez. Donc, je suis très sceptique de ça. Second of all, we spend in France more money on our education system than most of our neighbors. We have 350,000 more public servants working in our education ministry than the German government does. And we have fewer teachers than them. And of course... moins bons résultats. Otherwise, it would not be funny. Including in the PISA international study, which ranks academic performance quite thoroughly, we perform amongst the worst nation. And in fact, it's one of the worst generations of French students that has ever existed. So the idea that these kids who study very little, don't work particularly hard, perform worse on every known test, want more teachers, even though we have so many, is again, something to raise your eyebrows on. Another fact that might stick with your audience. So what do you think is the largest bureaucracy in the world today? Out of curiosity.

That's a difficult question. I guess biggest country?

That's a good start.

So

biggest bureaucracy in the world is the People's Liberation Army, the People's Land Army of China.

Okay.

PLA, it counts 1.6 million public servants that work for the organization. The second bureaucracy in the world, the second largest bureaucracy is the French Ministry of the Education. Crazy. With 1.3 million public servants. Yeah, absolutely insane. And despite that, we have some of the worst results. So anyway, that's how the protests started. And because we are a deeply sick country, the economists just mentioned France as the sickest man in Europe. I think that's a very accurate description. Those protests degenerated, as do many protests nowadays. And in fact, anything degenerates in France. When we have soccer games, we tend to have rioting and looting afterwards. It degenerated into rioters and looters breaking businesses, arresting people, attacking police officers. And then since we have a long history of social protest and a lot of different groups in France believe that social protest is the engine of social progress. La France Insoumise. most powerful far-left party. I had the chance to write about them in the edition of The Spectator in the UK last week. Incredibly organized, incredibly coherent, incredibly ideological party. Channing the flames, its ambassadors walking down into the streets, encouraging protesters. And so this degenerated into the total chaos that we saw last week. So now it's calmed down a little. But this is such a powder keg of a situation that it might quite literally spring back up again under any pretense. Slightest provocation. The political power is so weak. Emmanuel Macron is so unpopular. France is so loosely held. The presidential elections are in six months. I mean, this is a very, very, very bombastic and fiery situation.

you've said that even after soccer, football games, you know, violence can break out. There's so much tension there. Why do people feel so... Why, why do they escalate so far? Like, do people not fear? Are there no repercussions?

That is such an interesting and complex question. There's different factors. So number one, there is a very real aspect of life is getting progressively more difficult for the French people and will only get worse. So listen, I criticize the students all day, but I fully understand why they are so angry. They are entering an economy with rising interest rates, with a crushing debt crisis. The pension payments are so enormous today that the system will fail before they get to retirement age. That is now... C'est un débatable, c'est que le money qu'ils sont putting aside, les jeunes, les jeunes, les jeunes, ils ne vont jamais voir. Nous sommes allé à une crise, une crise. C'est absolument undeniable. The French people are core now than they have been in decades. We have a completely dysfunctional public service system. Almost nothing works. Infrastructure is decrepit. We have a deeply unpopular president, deeply unpopular president who is leaving in six months. Engrave political and economic uncertainty. So don't let my criticism of some of these protesters blind you to the fact that at the core, there is a part of them that are completely right. Now, as to your question about consequences, legal, judicial consequences for people who write and break stuff and loot and steal, you're right in that we have few consequences. The reason for that is multifold. One, our justice system... et c'est quelque chose de controversial à dire, mais ici, c'est quelque chose de left-wing. Et les judges sont de l'autre côté de l'autre côté de l'ideologique et de l'autre côté de l'éducation et de l'éducation à l'éducation à l'éducation à l'éducation. Donc, il y a une sorte d'une idée que si quelqu'un est un criminel en France, c'est-à-dire qu'il doit être de l'un des systèmes. We have problems with individual responsibility. Don't you understand they are poor? Don't you understand the future? Don't you understand these communities are underprivileged and challenged? And so we try to avoid harsh prison sentences as much as we can. You add on to that the fact that we simply no longer have spots in prison. French prisons are overcrowded and we cannot build more, mostly because there's a very intricate power dynamic. Mayors do not want prisons on their territory. And despite Macron's promise of 15,000 more spots for prisoners, he only managed in two terms to build around 5,000. So we're running out of space. We also have a completely clogged judicial system. So today the police will quite literally say, if you have a rape case or a case of theft or aggression or violent aggression, there's a good chance that the police will never get to your complaint, will never get to your lawsuit. Simply because there's so many that it takes years in many cases to get somebody So, when you combine these three things, a clogged judicial system, no prison spots, and a general ideological disposition from French judges to not give heavy sentences, you have a generation of rioters and looters and thieves who are quite willingly aware that they will not face consequences for their actions. And also, we have the policing issue. So French police is fantastic and wonderful. force, but unfortunately much in the same way as what happened during Black Lives Matter in the U.S. If you have a 15 second video of a particularly muscular arrest that leaks on social media, there's a good chance that that is the end of that police officer's career. Even though we have no context, there's been no judgment passed, public opinion is very much against them. They're constantly being attacked and bombarded. So to give you an example. I spent the last three weeks on French TV shows debating with various left-wing figures on the protests. After the days and the nights of complete chaos in the streets, I can't tell you how many left-wing politicians came on those TV shows and said, essentially, it's the fault of the police. They've lost the confidence of the people. Their repression is much too harsh. They're much more violent. They're too violent. That's why people keep going down the streets. And it's complete. de colorblindness as to what the actual issues are so with the demonized police and the various faults in the justice system i've just explained you do have a sense of people going down the street breaking and stealing stuff knowing full well that they will face little to no consequence so

when you go on french tv and you debate these left-wing interwell speakers whoever how do they justify the looting of de small boutiques. I saw this very moving video of a woman who owned a jewellery store and I could see her Instagram and I saw her working at it for years trying to market her products and you know make her business into what it was and then in one day you just saw her Instagram completely change and she was screaming and she was howling that these Vandals had just come in and destroyed everything. And who is she? She's not a politician. She's just a middle-aged woman running a jewelry store. So how does the left justify, how do they explain that?

not entirely, I'm trying to be as good faith as I can be and really not trying to caricature their position here. I don't think they justify it. I think they're quite ready to condemn it, but they say it's only property, right? So it's not people's lives. In fact, in France, it's very interesting. This is not like the United States, where property is the sacred thing. Paradoxically, our constitution... ... ... ... ... ... C 'est que dans les années 80, dans la seconde half de l'année 80, il y a eu des protestants. Et un jeune Arabic student, Malik Oseki, un French-Arabic student, un French citizen, je crois, mais d'Arabic origin, il y a eu. Il y a eu des protestants parce qu'il y a eu des protestants et qu'il y a eu des protestants et qu'il y a eu des protestants et qu'il y a eu des protestants et qu'il y a eu des protestants. Et ça traumatized le French state, le French police. Il y a eu des protestants. Il y a eu des protestants. Il y a eu des protestants. And so since then, since the Malikosikhin catastrophe, there has been an idea and a doctrine of French police to sort of stay back when businesses and when property is being damaged and to not intervene if somebody's life is not threatened. That is why so many images, you see police officers basically not charging in to protect storefronts, when in the United States, of course, they would immediately charge in. There's this idea that yes, property is important, but nowhere near as important as the risk to a potential protestor's or rioter's life. I think we could all agree with that there's a clear chain of hierarchy between somebody's life. mais je pense que c'est vrai qu'on peut dire aussi que, oui, nous devons protéger les vies à tous les vies. Maintenant, les vies sont encore en danger. Nous avons toujours les vies, les vies et les vies, les vies et les moutils et les moutils et les maimés. Et nous avons le propriétaire. Donc, peut-être que nous devons-t-en de la police response un peu, pour essayer de stopper cette inconnance que nous sommes seeing. Et seconde de tout... c'est un peu plus important. Et il y a un peu plus important. Et il y a un peu plus important. Et il y a un peu plus important. Et il y a un peu plus important. And they sort of say, well, what did you expect? I mean, do you expect that you could have a Nazi-like police force, no economic opportunity, deep inequality, and that these people would stay quiet? So it's not that they excused the breakdown of stores and the burning of stores. It's that they said society's fault, number one. And number two, nothing is more important than protecting their lives. And so in this justification syndrome, you get the current debate that we have seen over the last few weeks on French TV.

who are the main people out on the street riding? I mean, I've seen different videos. I've seen like hippie kids who seem to be the genuine students who are bloody and kept years and like playing the tambourine or something. And then I've seen full-on masked terrifying criminals. The video of the guy who... l'aérosol et l'aérosol et l'aérosol en une femme en une femme. C'était un choc. J'ai vu plusieurs versions de ça. Donc, qui sont ces gens ?

that particular video is enough to get your blood going. It's just absolutely not understandable. So it's very hard to answer your question. Let me try to give as wide an answer as I can. So one, you have what are commonly referred to as black blocs, which is these paramilitary, hardcore left-wing militia groups, which lark on to any cause they can to go down, challenge the system, try to instill a revolution and an insurrection. You have the remnants of the Gilets Jaunes, who are very anti-system folk and quite ready also to be virulent in their militancy and their protesting. Can you just

briefly remind the audience where the Gilets Jaunes, what their origins are?

so in 2018, you had a number of protests started, which quickly transformed into one of the most significant and important waves of protest in modern French history. Deeply recognizable by the fact that the people wore the safety yellow vest that is mandatory to carry in every French car. It originally started over an obscure tax on gas, which nobody predicted would cause any issue. Et tous les sociologistes et les « French experts » étaient sur TV 24 heures avant qu'elle a commencé, n'était pas même en parlant de la taxe sur le gas. Et puis, il explodait en tout le monde's face et a causé such serious turbulences. C'est un élite group called the GSPR. That's how close we were in a region called Le Puy-en-Valais, where he was almost charged. Which president was

that at the time, Hollande?

Adèle Macron. It was one year after his election, his first election. By the way, he was still quite popular. I mean, he was far more popular than today. He was almost lynched in the street. To everybody who says revolutionism for the past, and this doesn't happen anymore. But we were not so far away from having a French president in 2018 lynched on the street by mob. I mean, this came quite close to happening. They almost wanted to evacuate the Élysée Palace. They almost landed a helicopter in the garden because it was besieged at some point. absolument insane few months and might even say insane years so these people are also down in the street today and then you have the inner city populations who are part of the poorest and more prone to gang related death activities crime related activities who despise this country many of whom although not all are from immigrant backgrounds so either their father or their grandfathers came from another country France's machine of assimilation is so broken that these kids whose grandfathers came from Algeria or Morocco or Tunisia and who themselves have never set foot in those countries today say, I'm Algerian, I'm Tunisian, I'm Moroccan, you know, fuck France, I want to burn it down. Even though they've never stepped foot in the quote-unquote home country. So you have a mix of all these issues, which makes it so dangerous because... One might argue that the great limiting factor of great revolutions historically is ideological unity. So to get many people down into the street to topple a regime, you would need to be able to convince them and to have a great unifying cause, which gets everybody on the same page and gets everybody down into the street. It seems you no longer need that now. All that you need is people angry for different reasons. They no longer need to vastly cooperate. They just need to agree on a template and say, you're mad about the wages. I'm mad about the taxes. He's mad about the spending. He just hates this country. He wants an insurrection. He's a far left militant. We all have our different causes. In many cases, we are adversaries on many different debates, but we're going to go down together and set fire the whole place. And it seems that this is where we're at now as a country and any excuse is good for the powder keg explosion.

Wow. How much of this is organized, like seriously organized by... You know, are there foreign actors? Are there people coming from different countries to participate?

Yeah, we definitely have foreigners who came for the October 17th protests. We know French intelligence services were quite clear in saying that you have Antifa and Black Bloc militants from Italy, from Germany, from Holland, many cases from Spain who came over. But I want to be clear, I don't think this is a great foreign conspiracy. I think this is a very French issue. And I think that with the right provocation, all these groups I mentioned are quite ready to larp on and join the fray and burn everything down. The French insoumise, the LFI, as we call it, the four-left party, the Jean-Luc Mélenchon's party. I remember I was asked this on the debate show, are they the instigators of this? And it reminds me of that old law. I forget where I read this. If you have a question about a particular state's action. And there are two possibilities. One, a great conspiracy involving many different parts and a great secret plan. Or two, people just being idiots. It's always the second option, right? It's always stupidity and entropy and ignorance. Oh, Camus Razor,

right? I think.

Exactly right, exactly right. And by the way, that is the main argument to be had against all these conspiracy theorists, flatterers and the anti-moonlanders. There's simply no way. In fact, we know now. My old professor at NYU, Mr. Naftali, told me this, that in the 1960s and 70s, the CIA was quite ready to promote discreetly. books which claimed that they had a hand in Kennedy's assassination because they were perfectly willing to believe, to make people believe that they had that capability, that they really had a hand everywhere and deep underground networks, even though it was completely false. But they wanted people to overestimate their capabilities. I think it's the same thing here. LFE immediately saw this opportunity as what it is, which is... C'est à dire qu'il y a un industrie, pour faire un insurrection, pour faire plus de jeunes gens qui s'excitent, pour faire plus de gens qui s'excitent. Mais ils ne sont pas les instigations. Ils ne sont pas les instigations, mais ils ne sont pas les gens qui s'excitent. Mais ils ne sont pas les gens qui s'excitent.

Mais c'est-à-dire que ce n'est pas encore une meilleure termine pour Marine Le Pen et pour Nationale, leur vote doit être skyrocketing. Ils vont à skyrocket.

Yeah, no, absolutely. So she was the heavy favorite before this whole thing. And in fact, she was likely going to win even if this did not happen. But now a new poll just came out two days ago, again, putting her squarely in the dominant position. All of her ambassadors and all of her militants and all of her spokespersons could not have done a better job for her campaign than these rioters and looters and protesters have done. Mostly for two reasons. One, Marine Le Pen's party, traditionally considered the far-right party, has never been in power. So she is considered the ultimate opposition group. She is considered the alternative. And since people are deeply dissatisfied with the current system and the current government, when electors are deeply dissatisfied, they vote for the alternative. So she is the ultimate alternative. And two. No one campaigns and promises as much as her on issues such as immigration and law and order. And so she is universally seen as the immigration restriction party and she's universally seen as the one campaigning most on order. And so when you have deep disorder and when you have deep resentment on the issue of immigration. People tend to vote for the one who campaigns the harshest on these two issues. So yes, I think she will win. I mean, it's very hard for me to see how she will not now. I mean, barring some catastrophic events, barring some huge news that no one sees coming. I think there's no chance that somebody else wins. And even now, people often say, oh, but remember in 2017, Macron, nobody knew him a year before the election. He came out of nowhere. He opposed or he won. Well, yes, but now we're six months away. So we're quite out of time. And to be a presidential candidate in France is actually quite simple. You need around 7 million euros. Since we don't have a Donald Trump, you need banks to loan you the money. And now banks do not loan anymore because she's such a heavy favorite. Because we had in the last election, the traditional right-wing party had a candidate called Valerie, Valerie Pécresse, who made less than 5% of the votes. And if you make less than 5% of the votes in a presidential election, the state does not pay you back. So she had to pay back the banks herself and almost bankrupted herself and made a very humiliating public demand for cash. I said, listen, I'm deeply indebted, I need money, help me out. And so since then, it has calmed a lot of banks who are not really willing to lend money anymore to presidential households and presidential candidates. So given all these situations, the inability to find money for a campaign, the fact that we're so close to the election, the fact that law and order and the alternative is what people most want and a restriction on immigration. I think Marine Le Pen is not just a polling mirage. I think she's the deep favorite. C'est difficile

pour moi de voir comment elle ressemble. C'est à dire qu'il y a un parti de polling vraiment, vraiment bien. Parce que, comme vous l'avez dit, c'est la même chose à France. Les gens ont perdu la confiance en nous. Nous avons une deux-partie système, centre-left, centre-right. Mais je ne suis pas super au fait avec le French système, mais notre centre-right a complètement disintegré. Le centre-left... qui, à l'extérieur, a été étonné par les Greens parties. Mais sur le centre-right, on a une nation, qui est notre parti populiste. Mais aussi, avant ça, on a été étonné par les Greens parties, qui étaient green-es, progressive, socially progressive, mais aussi, économiquement, plus conservative. Donc, ils ont été étonné par le centre-right aussi. They're really struggling right now and they don't know whether to align themselves with the populace or stay true to like liberal values. Yeah, it's the same thing happening there.

It's a similar situation everywhere. I mean, to some cases, this is quite a loose connection I'm about to make. mais je pense que c'est quelque chose, ou plutôt, il faut être étudié au moins. La emergence de Donald Trump dans les États-Unis, de Bukele en Salvador, de Millet en Argentina, le growth de Farage en l'Union, Maureen Le Pen en France, vous semblez avoir un coming-out-of-breath de l'olde traditionnel right-wing, traditionnel left-wing party, et une emergence amongst Western democracies, leaders qui, pour longtemps, sont considérés taboues, qui ont des méthodes de communication. qui tendent à être beaucoup plus fier et beaucoup plus unpredictable. Certaines personnes qui disent « populistes ». I happen to be alone in believing this, but I don't associate populism that negatively compared to many others. I think it's just a way of doing politics, which is not in itself positive or negative or anti-democratic or democratic. It depends how you use it. But I think it's, by the way, intrinsic to the Western tradition. Some may say Julius Caesar was the first populist in that he was an aristocrat who was anti-aristocracy and who turned against the aristocracy. I think it's

intrinsic. It's intrinsic to human nature, right? We all have it in us, I think. Yeah,

and I think the accusation of populist is something that traditional politicians who are losing ground are quite ready to levy on people who are doing better than them. And it's a nice shortstop word for, I'm losing ground, so I'm just going to call you a populist. It's a rather cheap accusation to make. And in many cases, it does not communicate anything. I mean, it doesn't communicate you're fascist or you're anti-democratic. It just means I don't like what you're doing. So I don't associate the term that negatively, but we do seem to have, I think a much more interesting distinction would be instead of maybe in the 90s, traditional European politics with traditional left against traditional right, now we seem to have system against anti-system. So it seems that anybody who is associated with the current system, the ruling class, the political aristocracy, the way things have been done for the past 30 or 40 years is now disqualified. And the oppositions, whether they become right or they come from the right or the left, seem to be gaining ground. So prime example of this in France, my father, as you know, was French president and he headed a big party called the UMP, the Union for Popular Movement, which was our traditional right-wing party and encompassed all of the right-wing tendencies in France. I mean, it was the massive party. Everybody was part of the UMP, if you're a right-wing, of course. And it governed France for the better part of three decades, right? That party has now exploded into a constellation of different parties. Some far right, some middle right, some centrist right. And one candidate who is sort of the front runner for that constellation of party, what used to be the UMP, is called Edouard Philippe. I think he's around 13 or 14% in the polls. So very low. And this guy, were you to look at his resume. You would say, oh, he's the ideal candidate, right? I mean, he was mayor, mayor of a big city, Le Lavre, big port city in northern France. He was deputy. He was prime minister under Emmanuel Macron. This is a man who is not fiery, who is not controversial, who is not populist. He's had every job in the French Republic. I mean, 20 years ago, he is presidential by definition, right? He's the incarnation of what you would want 20 years ago. Merci à mes Tipeurs. Now, everything I've just listed about him, his experience, the many offices he sell, is precisely what's being used to disqualify him. So you say, look, he is responsible for how bad things are. Because he was a mayor, because he was a deputy, because he was prime minister, he is the system. He's been in the system. And since people are seeing all the negative aspects of French society now, the bad economy, the bad debt, etc., they're saying, you now all have to leave. And we're going to try people we've never tried before. So that, that... C'est ce qui m'a dit que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est que c'est

So yeah, there's been a general, like people don't trust institutions now, right? In all over the West, here, there, you know, was it COVID? Was it, you know, COVID definitely had a lot to do with it, but also like after COVID, there's been more of an awareness of, you know, certain... ideologies being pushed or promoted by these public institutions whether it's schools or you know universities or even medical institutions just that don't necessarily align with broader like mainstream values like on gender or immigration or religion like and people are becoming more and more aware of it and obviously Quillette has been publishing on these vous savez, pour une décade maintenant. Mais maintenant, les mainstreames, les gens parlent de l'identité de l'identité de l'identité. Ils parlent d'autres types d'identité de l'identité de l'identité. Et tout de suite, pas tout de suite, mais c'est comme le bébé est en train d'outre avec le bathwater et les gens complètement distroutent les institutions. I sympathise with, but at the same time, it's a scary premise, right? Like, how do we, does it need to be, do people need to feel like the system is destroyed before they rebuild it and then regain confidence in it? How do people gain confidence in institutions again?

well, it's such a complicated question. And I think the answer must depend on what country we're talking about. In France, As I said, there seems to be a history of those social protests and the need to topple institutions. And we are not like Anglo-Saxons who have constitutional amendments and who have the ability and the maturity to have great political debates that are non-violent and solve issues centuries before they become chronic. In France, it seems that our history has shown that we have to burn everything down in order to build new institutions. So obviously, the first chapter of this story is the 1789 French Revolution, the one everybody knows. en qui, contrairement à d'autres, non seulement on cut the head of the king off and want to, in the years that followed, change everything. The radicalism of the first revolutionaries, people like Saint-Just and Robespierre and Danton, was absolutely total. So anything that had a hint of the past and it had to be changed. We changed the calendar. We abolished religion. We killed the priests and the nuns. We instituted the cult of the supreme being. We changed the names of the monks. parce qu'ils étaient associés à l'antiquité, l'éveilisme, l'éveilisme, l'éveilisme, l'éveilisme. Nous devons changer tout, tous les comportements. C'était la première attente à un très moderne totalitaire. Tout ce qui avait l'hint de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme de l'éveilisme And said this famous phrase, you know, the novel of the revolution, it's over, it's time to write its history. Meaning it's time to be serious now, to start with the dystopian totalitarian dreams and to do something that's actually politically feasible and can work. And he solidified the best aspects of the revolution, did great reforms, created all the institutions, many of which still govern France, the Banque de France, the Cour des Comptes. And

you're an expert in this, right? You wrote a book on Napoleon. I was just checking. I was like, did I read that correctly? Yes.

Yeah, I did. Thank you. A modest biography of his life I wrote two years ago. fait, je pense que vous voyez derrière moi, je ne suis pas sûr, peut-être le hint de l'un de ses lettres, l'Ion III ici. Nous sommes très fiers de l'Empereur ici. Mais je pense qu'objectif, encore, même ses detracteurs pourraient dire qu'il était le grand reformer. Et que les reformes, les reformes de la réforme du 19e siècle, sont unthinkable sans le 10 ans de révolution, de la révolution et de la révolution et de la révolution et de la réconciliation. then throughout the 19th century, in 1830, in 1848, again, you have, you know, seven or eight regime changes where we get rid of Napoleon, obviously in 1815, the king comes back in the Bourbon restoration. And then he falls again for the sister family, the Orleans and the constitutional monarchy, that's tried. And then we get rid of him again. Then we try a republic and then we get rid of the republic and Napoleon's nephew, Napoleon III, grabs power. Not only is named the first president, but then crowns himself emperor. And then that happens until the 1870s, when there's the First Depression War, Napoleon III falls, and then we destroy everything again. We retry again a republic, and he is exiled, and Paris breaks off and becomes its own country for a few months, called the Paris Commune, a great communist free city. And then you have this total chaos throughout the 19th century, which leads us to the 20th, where after the humiliation of World War II. De Gaulle briefly holds power, but then he is also chased out by the parliamentarians. The Fourth Republic is created and we have to wait the Algerian crisis and the very real threat that the French Foreign Legion almost parachuted on Paris to grab power for themselves in 1958 for him to instill the Fifth Republic. et finalement donnera nous quelque chose de 50 ans de stabilité. Et le Gaulle système peut être laudé et que ça s'est passé pour tellement longtemps. Et maintenant, dans les 80s et 90s, nous avons d'autres protestants, évidemment, en 1968, une grande protestante encore. Et maintenant, nous sommes en train d'entrer, encore une pre-revolutionnaire phase. And if history is any indication, it would seem that we need to burn everything down again in order to have reforms that will last. And just to finish on that point, not that I'm a pessimist or that I consider this to be necessary. God knows. Any violence is to be fought against, but just knowing how the French state functions today, knowing the massive bureaucracy, the massive administration. I mean, the French state is morbidly obese, barely functions, filled with people who are employed for life, who have no desire to change the system. qui n'ont jamais donné leur bénéfice ou leur pensions ou leur vieux employés pour avoir un plus efficace state. Knowing comment difficile c'est de mettre en direction, c'est behemoth de l'administration. Knowing que, historiquement, vous avez très peu de succès à de-bureaucratisation. Doge avec Elon Musk et le US sont peut-être les plus clésident. Et même si c'est un défi, c'est un défi, c'est un défi, c'est un défi, c'est un défi, c'est un défi, même contre Donald Trump et Elon Musk. I simply do not see how the French state can reform itself without such an episode either of violence or of deep revolution or something resembling it. I mean, how are you going to tell the French people what politician is going to be elected by telling people, I'm going to cut your benefits down, I'm going to lower your pensions, I'm going to make you work more. Deeply unpopular, also deeply necessary. Nobody's going to win an election on that. And all these civil servants will never willingly sacrifice their benefits or their lifetime posts or their pensions in order to have a more functioning system. So I simply do not see how we get out of this crisis without such an episode, unfortunately.

And where will you be when all hell breaks loose? Are you going to win of the storm?

On the barricades, as is the duty of any young Frenchman now. I live in France, as you know, and of course look at such a potential future with deep distress and hope for the best. But at the risk of sounding controversial again, obviously we will do everything we can to avoid violence. But there is, as anybody who's ever read the memoirs of people who've participated in these great revolutions can attest, a great sense of excitement and reform amidst the horror. A great sense of the possible. And by the way, that great sense has often been the engine of totalitarian regimes during the revolution. I just finished a wonderful book on the Iranian revolution and the Ayatollah was prompted into power by people, again, similarly to France, vastly different ideological backgrounds you had. bien sûr, les islamistes, mais vous aussi avez les leftistes et les communistes, et vous avez les modernistes islamistes, et vous avez les anti-Shahs, et tous ces différents gens qui ont pris le pouvoir, ou plutôt unknowingly, bringing in le meilleur totalitaire système, plus worse que le Shah, que ça auparavant. Donc, on doit être très careful quand on est excitée par les possible reformes de la politique de la révolution ou de la social reforme. Mais having dit que... qui ne voudrait pas participer à cette aventure, au moins une fois dans leur vie. Et si vous voulez participer à cette aventure, c'est serait pressurable à être un jeune homme, je pense, ou un jeune gars, qui est, c'est de l'appareil, c'est toujours mon cas. Donc, nous allons voir. Ne pas me demander de me abonner à des cocktails de police, mais peut-être que vous allez voir me sur un barricade.

Wow, ok. Alors, je vous souhaite que votre wife et le child stay sauvage durant tout ça. have to ask, it's sort of a side note, but have you read Submission by Welbeck?

I have. I have, yeah. I have the chance of knowing Welbeck. He's a good fan of the family. He is an incredible... I'm starstrap. He's one of the... I'm a

huge fan.

So am I, quite understandably. He's one of the few authors. I think, were you to introduce him to somebody who does not know him, were you to describe him? People would not believe you. People would think it's a sham or the guy's exaggerating or he's not truly like that. Houellebecq is a guy who is truly like that. I mean, there's no facade, but that is him, right? So the deeply chaotic, deeply nihilist, brilliant, fascinating, but also very, very, very depressed genius of a writer. He's hilarious. One of the funniest people. vous n'allez jamais rencontrer. Et il est aussi le plus profond et délving et deep thinker. Il est complètement immune de toute politique correcte. Si il pense de quelque chose à ses corps, il n'y a simplement rien que le state, ou le social media mobs, ou le woke establishment, ne peut-être qu'il ne peut pas le faire. Je veux dire, il n'existe pas. Il n'existe pas. on the growing islamisation of the country before everybody else wanted to speak about it and he got in trouble

for it and now he stands vindicated

indeed indeed yeah i'm not sure qui est très heureux d'être indiqué. Il fait ça pour ça. Mais non, il est un absolument fascinant figure, un amazinant author. Il n'y a pas façade. Il n'y a pas de façade. Il n'y a pas de façade. Il n'y a pas de façade. Il n'y a pas de façade. Il n'y a pas de façade.

Aujourd'hui, j'ai un peu plus de pages. Mais oui, c'est dark, comme tous les livres. Mais vous savez, il y a donc beaucoup de sexe et de fun en ça. C'est incitant, c'est pas juste de pression.

'est incitant, c'est incitant, c'est incitant. C'est incitant, c'est incitant, c'est incitant. C'est incitant, c'est incitant, c'est incitant.

Wow. And I wanted to know as well, so I can see you're a supporter of the Jewish people. I wanted, and I learned at the Thessaloniki Jewish Museum, I saw your dad's name there. And I thought, wow, I did not know that Sarkozy has Greek Jewish ancestors. So... That's your family history as well. Do you feel connected?

so we're not Jewish. We have some link with the Jewish Greeks, as you have rightfully pointed out. When my dad visited, they all jumped on him as if he was a long-lost cousin.

Yeah.

my father, of course, considered was respect and sympathy, but he found it quite funny because nobody ever claimed that when he was not famous and now sort of quite ready to prone it. But obviously we have Jewish roots, Jewish ancestry, even though I'm not Jewish myself. But that, of course, contributes to my many arguments on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the situation in southern Lebanon. israel's role in the region as you have seen during the protest as well that the palestinian cause

is

now the great unifier of the left for some cause exactly yeah it is the omni cause it is the super cause anybody who's dissatisfied with anything will now bear a palestinian flag for reasons passing understanding so that has also prompted a few debates that i've had the chance to participate in and some backlash too as i'm sure it's same in australia it's quite difficult now pour soutenir l'Israël, l'Israël de l'Israël, l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Israël de l'Isra A spoken but so literally understood slogan from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free, is such a profound moral and political scandal to say that. It is so deeply, deeply unacceptable and so profoundly problematic. And yet people chant it out with reckless abandonment. I remember in my schools, I went to NYU for my bachelor's, so in my school there was a short YouTube video done that unfortunately did not reflect. on the student body. They went around Palestinian protests that were undergoing, I believe it was two years ago, they went up to people with the billboards and chanting from the river to the sea and somebody with a microphone came up to them and just said simply, what river and what sea? And over 80% of the respondents were unable to specify what river, what sea. So what are we to make of that? The people who are most militant and most radical, who are most virulent and most violent about their political recommendations, are the least well-read and the least knowledgeable. C'est sort of a Dunning-Kruger effect, but on steroids. And in fact, the more people tend to be learned on this issue and the more people tend to be well-read, the less radical they become. I think that's quite a good lesson, not only for this particular conflict, but for life in general. Unfortunately, I learned this the hard way. I was placed under police protection for the better part of a year in France after I was... People were kind enough to send me about 500 death threats in a 24-hour window. After my criticism of Hezbollah and my rejoicing that Sahar al-Israeli military was systematically killing the leaders and the organizers of Hezbollah during its invasion of southern Lebanon, and while I decried as anybody else the collateral of civilian deaths in this and every other conflict, it seemed to me particularly rejoiceful. que ces gens étaient à la face de la Terre. Et non seulement comme un humain, mais aussi comme un Frenchman, pour le simple raison que, dans les années 80, durant le Hezbollah, ils attacked un American barracks, killing dozens de marines et aussi dozens et dozens et dozens de French paratroopers, qui sont extinguies dans leur sleep. Et France, vous voyez, n'a jamais fait beaucoup de choses, n'a jamais fait rien pour obtenir des paybacks. Nous n'avons jamais eu hâte de l'Operation. Nous n'avons jamais eu hâte de l'Operation. Nous n'avons jamais eu. Il n'y a jamais eu. on sort of let that go, the slaughter of dozens and dozens of French children and paratroopers. I have a military education, albeit in a military, American military education, but that still hits close to home. And so to see the idea of killing those people was something I thought was quite worthy of being congratulated and celebrated. Et ça n'appelait pas à beaucoup de gens qui ont fait de me et de mon fils et de mon fils avec des mutilations. Disgusting,

je ne suis pas surpris. est-ce que c'est le sujet que vous avez reçu le plus de death threats ou de hate pour?

Par non.

Par non.

C'est le sujet le plus explosif. Et c'est précisément pourquoi c'est le sujet le plus important à parler. believe it was Christopher Hitchens who made this famous. The more opposition you meet on a particular subject, the more you should know, oh, you're onto something here. I mean, if you feel resistance, then it's probably not a subject worth your time.

Yeah, yeah, no, definitely in my personal and work life as well, this topic has, as you said, bar none, been the most explosive topic that, you know, I'd previously lost trends over criticizing some aspects of mainstream feminism or gender ideology or, you know, the voice to parliament, which was like an aboriginal rights issue here in Australia. Those were all very controversial topics, but none came close. à ce que nous avons vu après 7 octobre et le nombre d'enfants j'ai perdu. Et je dois rappelerer, deux frères frères, une en Paris, une en Avignon, qui m'ont dit qu'ils ont accusé d'être un islamophobe qui est sur le côté de la génocide. Et je voudrais savoir ce qu'ils pensent maintenant quand ils pensent, je sais, Avignon, même, vous savez, des petites cities aussi rioting. J'ai eu l'impression que si j'étais à vous dire, si j'étais à vous dire, vous avez changé votre pensée, ils m'ont toujours dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit

'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit qu'ils m'ont dit Mais c'est toujours possible. C'est très difficile de trouver des gens qui tendent à s'agir avec nous. Surtout en France, l'Israël est plus et plus un populaire. Par le fait que l'Israël des États-Unis a des responsabilités dans le fait qu'ils systématiquement lose le battle de communication. ils semblent qu'ils sont les plus pauvres communicateurs. And in fact, when they do stuff that is profoundly moral, and in fact, in many ways, detrimental to their war effort, they don't communicate it enough or they communicate it badly. And they let others sort of set a narrative. So obviously, deeply unjust what is being criticized of Israel, mostly. But I do believe they do have a share of responsibility in their action. But in France now, amongst the time where they're the most involved. Very complicated to get a word in during this conversation. It's very complicated on the media. But we're still here fighting the good fight and attempting to do it as best we can.

and perhaps maybe the last question, I did want to explore this, you know, Macron-supported Palestinian state, I saw. France does have a large, far larger than Australia, for example, Muslim community. You see it when you're there, especially in big cities. Is it colonial guilt? Is part of this colonial guilt for being in Algeria, for being in Lebanon, that you're more accepting of creeping Islamist influence in France?

that's such a good question. There is undeniably a part of that. So ever since De Gaulle, the Quai d'Orsay, which is our foreign department, our foreign secretary, has had a very pro-Arab tendency. And it's half colonial guilt, half the fact that we did live with these people, we worked with them, and in many cases, conquered them for centuries. So there is sort of that bias towards a pro-Arab bias that persists to this day. Having said that, the recognition of the Palestinian state is not only explainable by that. There's also, as you mentioned, a very large Muslim diaspora in France. It's very hard for us to add precise numbers because, and by the way, this is a scandal, but we are, it is illegal in France. We are incapable of collecting accurate census data on people's religion or ethnicity, for example. Completely illegal on the French law. So we have to either rely on people volunteering that information or playing weird games with like the etymology of their last names to try to guess a person's origin. We're one of the only countries that does it. It makes no sense at all. It completely hamstrings us because we have less good data on about every important issue than our neighbors do. But this is how it is. But estimates range from about 15 to 25% of the French people who have a Muslim background or a Muslim origin or an Arab background or an Arab origin. Et je pense qu'en Macron, il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire qu'il veut dire And second of all, Macron, I think, has also done this by constantly criticizing, demonizing the imperial past. He called French colonialism a crime against humanity. And a couple of weeks later, in a speech in Spain, lauded the Muslim colonization of Spain as a great time of multiculturalism. I talked about the hanging gardens of Cordoba, that he would love to walk through it. And the same month said the French colonialism was a crime against humanity. So this auto-flagellation, this constant tyranny of guilt, quote a very famous book on the subject, is quite evident in his behavior. There is a constant feeling that we are the worst civilization who have ever existed and that we have done more harm to others than others have done themselves or have done others. Et donc, je pense que c'est aussi modifiant. Et en fait, c'est assez intéressant parce que Macron a aussi appelé pour un arme embarque contre l'Israël, despite le fait que le French state already sells no weapons à l'Israël. Donc, c'est qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit qu'il s'est dit Virtue

signalling.

Exacte, complete virtue signalling. So absolutely scandalous. And I thought that worse than all of this in recognizing the Palestinian state, the worse was the impotent nature of the declaration. I mean, it literally was just that. It was just a few words spoken at the UN. He said there would be elections coming and it was promised. They were never going to come. So either in the occupied West Bank or in Gaza. And what has this gained France? Nothing. Apart from alienating Israel and the French Jewish community even more. What has this gained the Palestinians? Nothing at all. A few words spoken at the podium at the UN has gained absolutely nothing. It has not saved a single Palestinian child. It has not delivered a single food crate to the population of Gaza. It has not stopped the war in any way. It has just contributed to the ongoing war against Israel. It has contributed to... The huge amounts of French Jews leaving. I was just in Israel last November meeting with about 30 or 40 Franco-Jewish entrepreneurs, all of whom left France in the last 10 years, citing safety, citing the fact that they don't feel comfortable sending their kids to school anymore, citing the fact that they don't feel represented and that they're tired of having a government which constantly criticizes them. Worse than the misguided nature of that declaration, the complete impotence. The fact that nothing came of it, in many ways, it underlined France's powerlessness and the fact that we no longer have to say on anything internationally. I think it was deeply regretful and quite depressing.

Well, thank you, Louis. You've given us so many insights into what's happening there. We see so much on social media and it's hard to work out. What's true? What's false? So it's good to hear from someone who's actually there with such knowledge in French politics from the inside and also from a good historical understanding as well. Is there anything else you'd like to talk about?

that's it. Thank you so much for your invitation. It was a great pleasure. Don't hesitate to read back out.

Thank you.

you, Zoe.