The Riots In France Expose The Dangerous Fiction That Public Spending And 'Integration' Create A Peaceful Society

The Riots In France Expose The Dangerous Fiction That Public Spending And 'Integration' Create A Peaceful Society

Matt Roberts

The violence, looting and burning in France over the weekend of October 24th-25th was somewhat less intense and widespread than it had been on the previous weekend, but it was still significant. Demonstrations comprising an estimated 400,000 people took place across France on the Saturday; in Paris the march was confined to the south-eastern edge of the city, and this was followed by violent clashes with police near Porte de Vincennes, about a 45-minute walk from the Place de la Bastille. Water cannon and tear gas were used. Around 500 rioters were estimated to have broken off from the main protest. There were more clashes, as well as bin fires and looting in Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Toulouse, Nantes, Grenoble, Rennes and several other parts of France. There were around 1,000 arrests nationwide (1,300 by some reports), with 70,000 police having been deployed to the streets, which was a substantial increase on the previous weekend's deployment. Activists have called for further action on October 31st, and it's clear that the sentiment behind the unrest hasn't gone away. The weather on the 31st is forecast to be mild and dry, more similar to that of the 17th than the wetter, colder 24th, so it remains to be seen how much the tensions have been defused, and to what extent the less dedicated were put off by the weather.

There are two competing narratives in the media (mainstream and alternative) about the motivations for the unrest, and indeed the nature of the unrest. On the one hand, this is a 'mostly peaceful' expression of the French people's frustration with public services. It started with teachers and students protesting against the underfunding of schools, and has widened to express a broader discontent with austerity measures and the economy in general. On the other hand, this is a violent ethno-religious-communist uprising trying to bring down the French state and overturn French society.

Legacy media would have you believe the first of these is true, given the footage they're showing and the voiceovers they're providing. Just a brief sojourn into X, Rumble or YouTube will have you come away convinced of the second. Interestingly, the French political Establishment seems to be more aligned with the insurrection view than the peaceful protest view. Less than a week before the first outbreak of violence, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of La France Insoumise('France Unbowed') was calling for the formation of a Sixth Republic of 'popular power'. On October 22nd, addressing the nation, Macron referred to "political and even seditious acts carried out by organized ultra-Left groups whose aim is to bring down the Republic". Laurent Nuñez, France's Interior Minister, referred to "very high levels of violence" and "militants of the ultra-Left movement, of the extreme far Left". Although they're comfortable calling out the black bloc activists that can be seen on the streets, they're ignoring the Islamic slogans and the ethnic composition of many of the perpetrators that the rest of us can see on X.

These two narratives are not mutually exclusive. There is both a mass peaceful demonstration against perceived underinvestment in public services and a violent uprising from an alliance of convenience of anti-Western forces. In this sense, there is an opportunity to use France as an object lesson on this side of the channel. It is a lesson we have been refusing to learn from our own situation, and which has been offered to us grindingly slowly in our own politics and on our streets: the techno-managerial social democratic project rests on a utopian fiction. If we are interested in preserving our civilization, then we really must start paying attention.

In Britain, across almost all of the EU and into the Anglosphere (possibly excepting the United States), the fiction goes something like this: if the state can hoover up just the right amount of money and distribute it correctly through services and benefits, guided by experts and technocrats, eventually we will achieve a settled, prosperous society. The system is imperfect, but perfectible. All that it needs is just the last tax increase, the ideal budget, or a carefully planned management structure, and all will be well. It's just over the horizon, but the direction of travel is the right one. It must be, because that's how we planned it. In the meantime, all of this will be improved by importing human capital from far-flung parts of the world. Since culture and tribalism are essentially artificial, this will be a success as soon as we achieve something called integration.

Many reading this will doubtless already have concluded that this is indeed a dangerous fiction. The interesting thing is that our political, media and institutional class don't seem to be able to look across the channel and see the urgent evidence of the delusion.

If it really were a case of the right amount of resources being allocated through the state, then surely France would be closer to nirvana than we are in Britain? French public sector spending accounts for around 57% of the country's GDP. Social spending - that is, cash benefits and in-kind services for old age, health, family, unemployment, incapacity, housing, and so on - accounts for fully 30% of GDP. This compares to 49.4% and 28% state expenditure and social spending respectively for Germany, 47% and 23% for the UK and 37% and 19.8% for the US. In Communist China, the state accounts for around 33% of GDP and 10-13% is spent on social benefits. In the USSR in 1988, something like 51% of spending was by the state; roughly 15-20% was social spending (these last two are necessarily estimates, because the data are neither easily available nor reliable).

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Hackers Hit Hundreds of French Supermarkets, Destroying Food by Taking Control of Refrigeration Systems

Hackers Hit Hundreds of French Supermarkets, Destroying Food by Taking Control of Refrigeration Systems

OFFGRID SURVIVAL

Hackers remotely took control of supermarket refrigeration systems across France, causing freezers to heat up, destroying food and reportedly starting fires. The attack raises serious questions about how vulnerable America’s own food supply is to cyberattacks.

Hackers managed to do something this weekend that should concern anyone who depends on a grocery store to feed their family. They remotely accessed refrigeration systems at hundreds of French supermarkets, forced the equipment into continuous defrost cycles, and reportedly pushed temperature settings as high as 122°F. By Monday morning, October 12, stores were dealing with ruined meat, dairy products, frozen food and, in some locations, reports of fires.

According to AFP, between 150 and 200 Intermarché supermarkets and nearly 100 Coopérative U locations were targeted. Other chains, including E.Leclerc, were also reportedly affected. French authorities have opened an investigation, and the full extent of the damage is still being determined.

The hackers reportedly exploited older refrigeration-control software from Danish manufacturer Danfoss. Rather than shutting the equipment off, they manipulated its defrost function, which normally runs for short periods to prevent ice buildup. The systems were instead forced to keep heating.

In Haguenau, a town in northeastern France, local supermarkets reportedly suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in spoiled inventory. Across the country, losses could reach millions.

This wasn’t somebody stealing credit card numbers or breaking into a retailer’s customer database. Someone sitting behind a computer was able to interfere with physical equipment in hundreds of stores, destroying food that people depend on.

Most people have no idea how much of the modern food supply depends on internet-connected equipment. Refrigeration systems in supermarkets, warehouses and food-processing facilities can be monitored and controlled remotely. That makes maintenance easier, but it also creates another way for someone to interfere with the equipment.

Security researchers have been warning about these vulnerabilities for some time.

Researchers at Claroty’s Team82 identified security weaknesses in refrigeration controllers manufactured by Danfoss and Copeland. During testing, they demonstrated how attackers could manipulate refrigeration equipment and interfere with temperature readings.

Both manufacturers released firmware updates addressing identified security problems. But releasing an update and getting every supermarket, warehouse and refrigeration contractor to install it are two very different things.

Some of these systems have been operating for years, and stores may have little reason to replace equipment that appears to be working properly. Remote access originally installed for maintenance can also become a security problem when passwords aren’t changed or software isn’t updated.

We’ve already seen what happens when someone abuses that access. In the Netherlands, a former refrigeration contractor employee was sent to prison after using old login credentials to interfere with a supermarket’s refrigeration equipment.

The difference this time is the scale. Instead of one disgruntled employee targeting a single store, attackers in France managed to disrupt refrigeration across hundreds of locations.

A coordinated attack against hundreds of stores, distribution warehouses or food-processing facilities could become a serious supply problem.

When refrigeration fails, stores cannot simply turn the equipment back on and start selling everything again. Once perishable food has been held at unsafe temperatures, much of that inventory has to be discarded.

Replacing it takes trucks, functioning warehouses, available inventory and suppliers capable of filling new orders. If enough facilities are affected at once, replacements could be difficult to find.

And the potential problems don’t end with spoiled groceries. Refrigerated medications and other temperature-sensitive supplies depend on many of the same kinds of cooling and monitoring systems.

iPhone Dystopia: Age Verification Baked Into IOS 27.2 Using Camera

iPhone Dystopia: Age Verification Baked Into IOS 27.2 Using Camera

Terrence Hill via Tech Times

It’s just one step closer to dystopia as Apple caves to government pressure for age verification. It lets Apple play in major markets around the world: Australia, Brazil, England, and South Korea. But it will also be used in the United States. Facebook uses a selfie to prove age to get a “verified age” badge, but that is an app; Apple baked it into the operating system.

Here are Apple’s claims:

• The selfie “isn’t accessible to anyone, not even Apple.”
• “Once your age is confirmed, your selfie is deleted and isn’t retained in any form.”
• Apple says PCC data is encrypted in transit and deleted afterward.

However, a user’s picture is sent to Apple’s cloud servers to be processed, where the data points remain. The picture is not needed at that point and can be deleted.

Governments can now mandate that Apple turn the feature on regardless of which apps are installed on the phone. Secondarily, governments can mandate that the apps access the feature before granting to access to their services. ⁃ Patrick Wood, Editor.

When Apple released iOS 27.2 on Sunday, it crossed a threshold no major operating system had crossed before: embedding a government-compelled biometric age gate directly into the OS layer itself — not inside an app, not inside a browser, but in the platform that every app runs on top of. 

South Korea is also part of the five-country rollout, but Apple’s selfie-based facial scan is not available there — South Korean users face annual carrier-verified identity checks instead. Adults who fail or decline the facial scan do not get a different app or a competing service; they get a permanently restricted device — or they get a different phone.

That architectural choice — OS-level rather than app-level — is the fact that makes iOS 27.2’s biometric gate different from every prior age-verification rollout in the industry, and it is the fact Apple’s public documentation downplays. Once this plumbing is baked into the operating system, every future government mandate that wants to require it will find Apple’s infrastructure already installed. That is not a side effect. It is the point.

Apple’s own support documentation describes the process as a liveness check more than an identity interrogation. Users are instructed to perform a deliberate four-angle head rotation — right, left, up, down — capturing their face from multiple perspectives. Apple advises removing anything that might obscure a result: masks, hats, sunglasses. The company calls the underlying technology an “age-estimation model,” not a facial recognition or identity-matching system, which is a meaningful distinction: estimation predicts a probabilistic age range from facial geometry rather than matching the face to a database record.

Apple promises the selfie “isn’t accessible to anyone, not even Apple,” and that “once your age is confirmed, your selfie is deleted and isn’t retained in any form” per its selfie verification support page. Users who are not cleared as adults are directed to try again with a fresh selfie, or to use an alternative: a credit card on file, Apple ID account-history signals, or a government-issued ID scan.

What distinguishes Apple’s implementation is architectural: not inside a single app or website, but embedded in the operating system itself. A user who dislikes Meta’s video selfie requirement can stop using Facebook. A user who dislikes Apple’s iOS 27.2 age scan cannot stop using the App Store without giving up iOS. The failure mode at this level is not correctable by switching apps; it is correctable only by switching platforms.

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What Happens Next In Israel? Four Paths Out Of The Election Deadlock

What Happens Next In Israel? Four Paths Out Of The Election Deadlock

 PNW STAFF

Israel’s voters have delivered a result that neither side can easily call a victory. With most ballots counted, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc is projected to hold about 53 seats, the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot about 48, and Arab-led parties 19. A majority requires 61 seats. The final count could shift the numbers, but the central problem is already clear: no side has an obvious path to govern.

Now the campaign gives way to bargaining. Netanyahu has called for a right-wing government. Eisenkot says the public voted for change. Yet each potential coalition carries a price that could fracture the very bloc trying to build it. Four scenarios are emerging—and none promises a quick or easy resolution.

1. Netanyahu Finds Defectors Or A Way To Assemble A Majority

Netanyahu’s most direct route would be to bring enough lawmakers from outside his bloc into the coalition, or persuade them to support a government from the sidelines. With his bloc projected at 53 seats, he needs eight more for a majority.

That is a steep climb. Members of the opposition entered the election promising a change of government, and defecting to rescue Netanyahu would expose them to a furious response from their voters. Still, Israeli politics is built on negotiation, and a lawmaker’s calculations can change when the alternative is another election—or when a specific deal offers a way to address urgent national concerns.

Netanyahu could also seek support through narrower agreements rather than a full coalition partnership. A party might back a government on confidence votes or key legislation without joining the cabinet. But such an arrangement would leave the government vulnerable whenever the parties disagree. A narrow majority assembled through personal defections or conditional support could be born with a short fuse.

This outcome would let Netanyahu argue that he had turned his bloc’s lead into a governing mandate. But the arithmetic would make clear that his government depended on more than the voters who backed his existing partners. The question would be whether those partners could tolerate compromises needed to keep it alive.

2. An Opposition Government Turns To Arab Parties

The opposition bloc and the Arab-led parties together have enough seats, on the preliminary count, to cross the 61-seat threshold. That makes them the most obvious alternative source of votes—and the most politically explosive one.

Some opposition figures have already urged their bloc to work with Arab parties. But cooperation is not a simple matter of adding seats. The opposition includes parties with sharply different views on security, the Palestinians, the judiciary and the future direction of the country. Several have rejected relying on Arab parties, while Arab leaders would seek influence over policy in return for their support.

The arrangement could take more than one form. Arab parties might join a coalition, support it from outside, or agree to back a government on selected votes. Each option would bring its own disputes over what that support means and what the government would be expected to deliver.

Such a government could remove Netanyahu from power, but it would begin under pressure to prove that it can govern across deep divisions. Its opponents would present it as a government dependent on parties they regard as hostile to Israel’s national interests. Its supporters would argue that Arab citizens voted in record numbers and deserve a voice in the country’s political decisions. Those arguments would not disappear on the day a coalition is sworn in; they would become part of the coalition’s daily survival test.

Iran Could Turn Coalition Talks Into A Security Test

There is another urgent question hanging over these negotiations: what happens if the fighting with Iran resumes? U.S. officials have reportedly warned regional allies to prepare for possible renewed military action after the American midterm elections. Nothing is settled, and diplomatic efforts are still underway, but the possibility is serious enough that Israel’s next government may have to confront a major security crisis almost as soon as it takes office.

That prospect could strengthen the argument for a unity government. If Israel faces another round of conflict, leaders may be pressed to show a united front at home as well as resolve abroad. But unity cannot be produced by simply calling for it. The parties would still have to settle who leads, what policies change, and whether they can cooperate when the country’s security is at stake. The Iran question may not end Israel’s political divisions, but it could make the cost of leaving them unresolved far more immediate.

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A 90-Day Doomsday Plan? The Pentagon Prepares For Fortress America

A 90-Day Doomsday Plan? The Pentagon Prepares For Fortress America

PNW STAFF

For months, we have been reporting on Europe’s preparations for emergency scenarios, including the possibility of military conflict and disruptions to essential services. Now the Pentagon has unveiled its own effort to prepare America for a crisis that could knock out power, cripple supply chains and threaten military operations on U.S. soil.

The plan is called FORTRESS America. Much of it sounds like prudent preparation: keep bases supplied, secure backup power and make sure factories can produce what the military needs. But the scale raises a harder question. Why is the Pentagon planning for American military installations to survive for 90 days without outside support? Is this simply responsible planning—or a sign that military leaders see a level of danger the public has not fully grasped?

According to documents reviewed by Fox News, major military bases in the continental United States would be expected to maintain essential operations for at least 90 days without relying on civilian infrastructure. That means having dependable access to electricity, water, fuel and communications even if the systems around them fail.

The Pentagon’s concern is that a major conflict could reach beyond distant battlefields. A power grid could be attacked or sabotaged. Communications could be disrupted. Transportation and supply networks could seize up. Bases that depend on the same civilian systems as nearby communities could find themselves unable to operate when the military needs them most.

“We don’t want to rely on standard civilian municipal infrastructure to run our national defense,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told Fox News. “We just simply can’t. It’s an intolerable risk.”

That is more than a backup generator. FORTRESS America envisions independent power systems, large batteries and potentially portable nuclear reactors. The plan also calls for stronger supply chains and stockpiles of items such as ammunition, fuel, spare parts, electronics and medical supplies.

The Pentagon is also looking beyond its own facilities. Through the Civil Reserve Manufacturing Network, commercial factories could be identified and prepared to shift to defense production during a crisis. The idea is to work out the contracts, technical requirements and conversion procedures before a conflict begins—not while the country is already struggling to keep production moving.

The Russia–Ukraine war has shown how vulnerable essential infrastructure can be to repeated drone and missile attacks. Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy system have caused widespread power outages, while Ukrainian drones have hit Russian refineries and other energy sites, at times disrupting operations.

Drones are not impossible to stop, but defending every vulnerable site against repeated attacks is a difficult task. Even when many are intercepted, a large wave can stretch defenses and force a country to protect power facilities, fuel supplies and industrial sites across a wide area. The lesson for military planners is stark: a nation’s ability to keep operating can be targeted without an invading army crossing its borders.

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