Editorial: French riots reveal the battle under way for future of liberal democracy

History is full of defining moments.

Moments when it became clear that things were changing. Or had already changed.

It is difficult to look at the violence in Europe without thinking this could become one of those moments.

What started in France, ostensibly as protests by students calling for more investment in education, saw an estimated half a million demonstrators turn out.

But it soon became something much deeper.

Something angrier. Violent. Mindless. Lawless. Threatening. Ominous.

The scale of the mayhem is plain to see.

In what have been described as some of the worst scenes of public disorder in modern French history, gangs of black-clad, masked activists ran amok.

Cars and buildings were set on fire. Police pelted. Tear gas, stun grenades and smoke filled the streets. Shop doors and windows were smashed amid widespread looting of high-end outlets which stripped the shelves.

President Emmanuel Macron, in a national address, issued a call for calm and said “We all feel anger and shame tonight.’’

Mr Macron said people shouldn’t confuse protesters’ legitimate demands with “those who destroyed, broke and looted’’.

“We have all asked ourselves: what was going through their minds? How can French people do this to France?”

But it was not just France. The protests have spread across Europe to include Spain, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Albania.

The protests and violence are variously attributed to any combination of factors such as rising cost of living, low wages, high rents and better living conditions.

But there is more to it than that.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the vandals “thugs who exploit demonstrations to spread chaos, attack those who guarantee security, and hold entire cities hostage”.

Far-left French leader, Philippe Poutou, backed the demonstrators.

Mr Poutou wrote on X: “The government is asking us to choose our side. OK, so for us it will be the side of the protesters, the rioters, the rebellious youth, the oppressed and the disorder”.

Even professional activist Greta Thunberg turned up in France last week, and promptly offered her support to protesters.

Naturally, she was pictured wearing a keffiyeh, uniform of the pro-Palestine mobs.

No doubt some of what has been on display over the last few days was opportunistic looting.

But there is something much deeper going on.

Telling were the photos of some of the rioters in France waving the Palestinian flag.

A synagogue in Paris was vandalised.

The street battles unfolding across Europe are being fought by a loose and strange alliance of the hard Left, and Islamists whose goal is the destruction of the western way of life.

We have seen elements of this too in some of the pro-Gaza/anti-Israel demonstrations in Australia which spread fear and anger across the streets of our cities.

Most obvious in Europe, but also detectable here, the western world is riven by an internal battle for the very future of liberal-democracy.

It is one of the reasons why people in the west are responding as they are to the issues around immigration.