Inside France’s Fury | M6 | Zone Interdite

High school students in the streets, looted stores, police officers under attack, shopkeepers desperately trying to save their businesses… With every protest, France seems to go up in flames a little more. Why has it become so hard to demonstrate without violence? Who are the rioters, and what are they really after?

To understand a country on edge, Zone Interdite tells the story from both sides of the barricades. In Marseille, we met young rioters and spent time embedded with a unit of the CRS, France’s riot police, from the preparations to the clashes themselves. We also followed shopkeepers whose stores were ransacked, as they face an uphill battle to get compensation.

After the streets comes the courtroom, with fast-track trials. And one question remains: from May 1968 to the Yellow Vests, why do protests turn violent, and can the state break the cycle?