Paris May Day Parade Violence Adds To Recent Uprisings Worldwide

In France, May 1st is a day typically celebrated by the French people to honor their history and culture. Celebrated since 1561 to commemorate a gift of flowers to King Charles IX, people all across France traditionally travel to the countryside to collect flowers and present them to love ones to show affection.

On this May 1st, however, it appears the tradition of giving flowers has been replaced by giving Molotov cocktails and bottles to their fellow countrymen and women. Violent protesters have taken the streets, disrupting the event and assaulting police and Front Nationale supporters with a variety of weapons, even setting fire to multiple officers.

As seen in most of the recent violent protests that have occurred worldwide recently, the agitators can be seen wearing all-black, masks concealing their identities and carrying anarcho-communist paraphanellia, such as anarcho-communist and Che Guevara flags.

Violent protest has become all-too common throughout the Western world recently. Friday, violent protest broke out in Brazil as Brazilian president Michel Temer has proposed measures to diminish the strength of unions in Brazil and to reduce pensions. In response, Brazilian protestors united in general strike and took to the streets, combating police and setting fire all across the country.

Sunday, April 23rd, violent protest erupted following the first-round of French presidential elections, as Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen finished as the top-two candidates. Protesters claimed they took to the streets to oppose Marine Le Pen, a skeptic of the European Union who has vowed to initiate a British-style exit from the faction. The second round of French elections, in which the winner will inherit the presidency, is scheduled for May 7th.

April 8th, in Venezuela, violence erupted between protesters and police amidst a proposal by Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro introduced measures to ban his most prominent political opponent, Henrique Capriles, for running for president of the country for 15 years. The decision made by Maduro to stifle political opposition in Venezuela was held up as legal by the Venezuelan government, prompting Capriles to urge his supporters to take to the streets en masse.

This trend of violent protest, left unchecked, will only continue to destabilize the nations of the world and cause the already-high world tension to increase exponentially. As centrism breaks down, people further become polarized to either the far-left or the far-right, where any meaningful discourse and political cooperation becomes less and less likely. Now, more than ever, we need to overcome our biases and work with each other, lest we destroy ourselves.