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With an eye to the future, we analyzed the risk of protests and
riots in Europe from mid-2021, when the coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) virus epidemiological situation in Europe is likely to
start improving. We assessed future trends for protests and riots,
focusing on indicators for the changing risk environment. Let's
take a look at the data for Europe first, and then take a close
look at how this plays out across France.
Impact of the COVID-19 virus pandemic on protest
trends
Our open source intelligence events collection indicates that
despite an initial reduction in protests as a result of the
imposition of government containment measures in March-April 2020,
there was an uptick in protests and protest-related incidents for
the remainder of 2020 and into 2021, back to pre-March 2020
levels.
You can see the geographical spread of protests and
protest-related incidents recorded in our database in 2020-21 in
our heatmap. The "warmer" the color, the higher the concentration
of such incidents. The incidents heatmap demonstrates that
throughout the pandemic, protests have remained quite evenly
geographically spread, primarily across Western and Southern
Europe.
France
Taking this data forward, we can explore indicators even for
unlikely scenarios, which are representative of the risk score
bands for protests and riots as per our current methodology.
Current forecast
We currently assess France as being in the "very high" risk band
for protests and riots causing damage to assets, business
disruption, or injury in the one-year outlook. The "very high" band
is characterized by very frequent, large-scale protests that
disrupt business activity and/or transport networks in key cities
for several days at a time and cause limited property damage in
city centers.
Economic grievances, heightened by COVID-19-related containment
measures, coupled with negative sentiment against President
Emmanuel Macron (with a presidential election in April 2022) and
environmental concerns will be the main drivers for civil
disobedience in the coming months and even beyond the one-year
outlook. Protests in Paris, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse, and
Montpellier are likely to attract up to hundreds of thousands of
participants. Violence will be primarily driven by demonstrators
using "Black Bloc" tactics (including vandalism and rioting), as
well as "anti-system", "anti-capitalist", and "anarchist" groups
and supporters, who will attempt to take advantage of initially
peaceful protests to escalate the potential for violence. This will
involve fights with riot police and damage to government and
commercial assets through vandalism and arson, including targeting
high-profile multinational brands in retail and finance as well as
extractive industries.
This level of risk is also defined by occasional large-scale
violent protests or riots that lead to moderate damage to property
in smaller cities or larger towns. In French suburban areas
(banlieues), disenfranchised youths, due to increasing unemployment
and decreasing living standards, spurred by perceived police
brutality, may start rioting, including arson attacks, and
vandalism, damaging public and private property.
In terms of the monetary value of potential damage, riots
related to cuts in social spending in France in November 2005 were
estimated to have caused EUR200-million (USD242-million)-worth of
damage, and violent protests throughout late 2018 and early 2019
were estimated by the French Insurance Federation to have cost at
least EUR170 million.
Indicators to watch: Likelihood of move into "severe"
risk band
This band represents countries with tens of thousands of
protesters in key cities staging protests and riots lasting up to a
week. Protests often turn into riots with significant damage to
property from thrown projectiles and arson, with high death and
injury risk, especially from a heavy-handed security force
response.
Government announces phase-out of financial support for
small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) while the
COVID-19-related restrictions are still in place, primarily
affecting the hospitality sector. This is likely to lead to the
closure of struggling businesses, redundancies, and a severe jump
in unemployment rates, particularly in youth unemployment.
The Climate Bill - France's wide-ranging climate change
legislation - gets diluted as it goes through the final legislative
votes in the Senate and the lower house of parliament.
Multiple NGOs and environmental groups have already staged large
protests, attracting hundreds of thousands of people, arguing that
the current version of the bill does not go far enough. If the bill
is diluted further, protests would be highly likely to escalate, to
put pressure on Macron and legislators to adopt stricter regulation
ensuring France can meet its carbon-neutrality targets.
Public opinion polls show that Marine Le Pen, leader of
the far-right National Rally (Rassemblement National: RN) party is
in a strong position to win the April 2022 presidential
election. If elected, Le Pen would be likely to adopt
stricter security measures or threaten to ban certain far-left
groups, leading to a spike in protests by the affected groups, with
highly violent confrontations with competing groups or security
forces and attacks on security personnel and assets using
improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Proposals to introduce new or higher taxes on end
consumers, such as the fuel tax increase that led to the
creation of the Yellow Vest movement, and/or a resumption
of suspended pension system reform.
Fight between police and youths in banlieues results in
the death of a protester from an ethnic minority group.
Accusations of police brutality and misuse of power will trigger
violent riots, which will escalate into large-scale demonstrations.
This was exemplified by riots in the Paris banlieue of
Velleneuve-la-Garenne in April 2020, which started after a
motorcyclist was injured in a traffic accident involving a police
car.
Posted 01 June 2021 by Blanka Kolenikova, Associate Director – Europe & CIS, Country Risk, IHS Markit
