The history of modern France is largely a history of the street. From the fall of the Bastille in 1789 to May '68, protest has been a legitimate instrument through which citizens have defended their rights against the state. But this tradition also has a shadow: when legitimate demands are seized by radicals, the street risks becoming a battlefield. What is happening in France today illustrates this vulnerability. Under the sign of solidarity with students and those affected by price increases, a mobilization started from real grievances has come to be marked by violence and confrontations led by radical leftist groups.
France, from social demands to radicalization
The autumn 2026 demonstrations began in mid-September at a high school in Créteil, a suburb of Paris, where students protested against a lack of teachers, overcrowded classes and the deterioration of school buildings. The movement quickly spread and later intersected with protests against price increases. Arson, vandalism and clashes with the police showed how quickly legitimate discontent can be exploited politically. By 17 October, according to the French Interior Ministry, 2.397 arrests had been reported and 997 police and gendarmes had been injured. In Limoges, the town hall, a building inaugurated in 1883, was engulfed in flames.
The hijacking was not spontaneous. According to French media, intelligence services described the movement as an operation organized by La France Insoumise (LFI) and its satellites on the far left, who tried to capitalize on a fragmented mobilization lacking clear leadership. This does not mean that every student who took to the streets was manipulated, but that the extremists tried to transform social frustration into a tool for political confrontation. President Emmanuel Macron spoke of “insurrectional elements” from radical far-left groups and promised that those who tried to “bring down the Republic” would be held accountable. Education Minister Édouard Geffray said the movement had been “taken hostage” by ultra-violent groups.
The LFI's behavior in recent weeks largely confirms these warnings. Jean-Luc Mélenchon marched alongside the demonstrators. When the violence escalated, the party leader did not condemn the vandalism, but chose to accuse the state of having a racist bent to the repression. For its part, the LFI rejects the accusations, and the party's coordinator, Manuel Bompard, accused the government of "sliding into conspiratorialism." However, one fact remains difficult to dispute: when condemnation of vandalism is replaced by populist justifications and the Jacobin reflex of destruction ends up being presented as a necessary instrument of social struggle, it is clear that we are faced with at least indirect complicity.
More serious is the convergence between certain circles of the French far left and fundamentalist Islamism. Of course, not every left-wing protester is an ally of Islamism, and solidarity with the Palestinians or immigrant communities does not equate to supporting fundamentalism. The paradox of this rapprochement is obvious, however. The far left and radical Islamism are diametrically opposed ideologies: the former claims atheism, egalitarianism and the emancipation of the individual from any religious authority, while the latter seeks to subject society to a theocratic, illiberal order. What unites them is a common enemy: the liberal and capitalist West, with its representative democracy, market economy and individual freedoms that both reject. And where two forces hostile to liberalism meet with the aim of overthrowing the social order through revolutionary anarchy, the rule of law ends up caught in a vise. This alliance has been analyzed for decades in specialized literature, and in France it bears a name: "Islamo-gauchisme".
The communists from Dâmbovița are copying and pasting
The same mechanisms of ideological confiscation can be observed in Romania. Femicide is a real and pressing problem. According to the organizers of the “Together for the Safety of Women” march, 30 cases were registered in Romania during 2026. At the march organized in Bucharest, the demands regarding the protection of victims and the fight against violence against women were accompanied by Marxist symbols, slogans such as “Femicide is the symptom, capitalism is the cause” and “Feminists, socialists, anti-capitalists!”, Palestinian flags and T-shirts with Karl Marx. The problem arises by reproducing the same pattern of interference: a cause that should mobilize society around the protection of victims risks being transformed into an instrument of ideological propaganda.
The phenomenon is not new. After the 2025 edition, which was attended by over 12.000 people, the anti-capitalist messages displayed by some participants caused controversy. The organizers specified that such messages belonged to a small group and did not represent the general position of the march. This delimitation is relevant and must be respected: the presence of radical symbols does not automatically transform the entire demonstration into a communist action. The problem remains, however, a legitimate one to discuss: a vocal minority can come to dominate the public image of a large mobilization, and a cause that should unite ends up being associated with a radical political agenda.
Paradoxically, it is precisely the freedoms guaranteed by liberal, capitalist and Western society that allow the ideological grandchildren of Ana Pauker and Gheorghiu-Dej to challenge the system that ensures their right to protest, criticize the government and publicly express their beliefs. The freedom to wear a Karl Marx or Che Guevara T-shirt is itself possible in a pluralistic society, where the state does not impose an official ideology. However, the diversion of the demonstration against femicide into a platform for communist propaganda is a problem that cannot be ignored.
Epilogue
Europe is undergoing major ideological transformations, and political polarization is becoming increasingly visible. For decades, the media and public debate have given considerable attention to the far right, while manifestations of left-wing extremism have sometimes been treated with more tolerance, especially when presented in the name of equality and solidarity. European history, however, should have immunized us against all forms of totalitarianism.
In its authoritarian experiences, communism meant primarily repression, a single party, political police, unjustified expropriation, and political prisons. The Jacobin logic, which transformed terror into a supposed instrument of virtue, did not disappear with Robespierre. It reappeared, in different forms, whenever violence was justified as a superior form of justice, and the political opponent was presented as an obstacle to be removed in the name of an absolute ideal.
We cannot condemn right-wing extremism and, at the same time, tolerate left-wing extremism just because it waves flags of solidarity, selectively invokes equality, or claims to fight for the oppressed. We cannot defend individual freedoms and, at the same time, turn a blind eye when they are attacked in the name of revolution, class struggle, or a social utopia. For it is easy to be a left-wing extremist in a liberal society, but impossible to be a liberal in a communist one.
