Simon Michaux joins Commodity Culture to discuss the riots spreading across France, Belgium, and Italy. He argues the unrest is real in its anger but appears directed rather than fully organic. “Someone has directed that anger to this end and it’s manifested in multiple countries,” he says, pointing to the lack of a clear single trigger compared with earlier protests such as the yellow vests.
“THIS IS THE PRECURSOR TO SOMETHING ELSE!”
Michaux notes pre placed projectiles (we documented pallets of motolov cocktails left near riot sites), coordinated signs, and the burning of the French resistance headquarters as signs that the events are not purely spontaneous. “Pallets of projectiles happen to be put into place,” he observes, and “the French resistance headquarters really, that’s a message.”
He frames the riots as a distraction that keeps populations focused on street level chaos while other pressures build behind the scenes.
He describes an ongoing hybrid conflict below the threshold of formal war, involving economic measures, cyber activity, and influence over civil officials. “There is a full on conflict happening behind the scenes of an unconventional nature,” Michaux states. “The fifth generation warfare is a war of ideas.” Technology and social pressures have been weaponized, he adds, creating strains on governments that did not exist at the same scale decades earlier.
Michaux compares the current outbreaks to a pressure release that eventually burns out unless continually organized. “While the anger is in play, yeah, stuff’s going to get burnt and broken, but there comes a point when the rage burns out and it’s a relatively short term thing unless it’s synthetic,” he says. The true source of the directed anger remains unclear, which he sees as further evidence that the events serve a larger purpose.
The interview positions the visible unrest as one layer of a broader unconventional contest, with European leaders occupied by fires at home while larger strategic moves continue out of view. Michaux concludes that the pattern is not accidental and that the riots function as a tool to divert attention from the deeper conflict underway.
