Talk:2023 French unrest

Reverting bold move to create disambiguation page during move discussion

The article titled 2023 French pension reform unrest (as of now) contains eight references to riot police or riot gear and only one reference to "a few rioters" and one reference to a "threat" of rioting. Likewise in all of the sources, there is only one use of the word "riot" in the phrase "riot police". Let's discuss this premature classification of protests that saw over 1 million people in the streets as being fundamentally a "riot". -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:33, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

There are two events from 2023 in Category:Riots and civil disorder in France: 2023 French pension reform unrest and Nahel Merzouk protests and the year is not done yet. Unless an article gets moved here, I think it's better served as a disambiguate rather than a redirect. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 18:38, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Further, the article mentions "looting" only once, in the infobox. The mention is unreferenced. Also, as I'm sure you are aware, anyone can add a category with or without references. I am not unsympathetic to the idea of improving the pension reform article, but as it stands the sourcing does not justify this disambiguation page. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 18:40, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I support the dab page. Fires, tear gas property damage sound like much more than just "unrest". There were numerous riotous events in the pension protests. WWGB (talk) 02:02, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Further, there are zero occurrences of the word "unrest" in the body of the article 2023 French pension reform unrest and only three occurrences in the references (including "Macron dismisses unrest" & "French unrest impacts King Charles III's trip"). By contrast there are 279 occurrences of the word "protest". One acceptable solution would be to create a section on the page related to the social movement documenting the significant increase in episodes of rioting after the 49:3, and disambiguate to that section. Unfortunately, linking to the larger page (unintentionally) misrepresents the content of that page describing what was (by far) the largest protest movement in 21st century France (note the 7 pictures in that section, none of which show anything like rioting). I have begun to put together some elements towards that end. Another (better) solution would be the creation of a page talking specifically about rioting throughout the year. Such a page would not be a disambiguation page but would disentangle protest from opportunistic rioting. For now, the status quo is less deceptive than dismissing the anti-pension reform movement as riots. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 13:15, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Referring to the the current/recent riots as protests is clearly wrong. They're far more severe than the pension protests. Jim 2 Michael (talk) 16:08, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm highly skeptical of efforts to disentangle protest from opportunistic rioting. The line between riots, protest, and civil unrest are not bright lines and attempting to impose lines between them probably violates WP:NPOV and would probably be a WP:CFORK. TulsaPoliticsFan (talk) 22:06, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

It's really not rocket science. Looting is rioting (whether gold bars in Rennes or Nespresso capsules in Lyon), property damage (burning cars, buses, or buildings; shattering bus shelters, and shop/bank/insurance windows) is rioting, firing fireworks mortars at police (or otherwise endangering the lives of others) is rioting, setting fires as traps to attack firemen / police / rescue workers is rioting. Riot police dressed up in riot gear are definitely not proof of rioting: every major protest in a city of some consequence I've ever seen live has this feature. 1 million people walking in the streets after city halls / prefectures have been informed of the intention to demonstrate are protests. (This is largely what was going on prior to the 49.3). Transport strikes, fuel depot strikes, school strikes, duly notified or even wildcat, are protest tactics, as are blockades and occupying spaces (e.g. BlackRock). Yes there are gray areas: barricades, dumpster fires (even if relatively harmless) are leaning pretty strongly towards rioting, occupying spaces can technically be considered trespassing but is rarely called rioting. As you say though, we would have to go by the language used in sources, to avoid folks using OR to claim that looting was protest, or that an article with 279 mentions of protests was really taking about riots. :) -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 22:39, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Nahel Merzouk protests which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 19:05, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Nahel Merzouk protests which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:05, 6 July 2023 (UTC)