Europe is worried that Britain’s riots might spread

The riots that have erupted across England in the last week have been splashed across Europe’s newspapers and broadcast on the primetime news. There have been editorials in France’s Le Monde, video reports in Spain’s El Pais and podcasts in Sweden’s Aftonbladet. The Italian newspaper, La Stampa, published video footage of disturbances in Plymouth on Monday night, and described the rioters as a mix of ‘extremists and hooligans’.

Some of the coverage has been superficial. The editorial in Le Monde read: ‘The current riots raise the painful question of the underestimated influence of the far-right in the UK, in a country that likes to recall its traditions of political moderation and its past of resistance to Nazism.’ The German tabloid, Bild, published a more in-depth and honest analysis of the riots on Tuesday. ‘Can something like that also happen with us?’ asked the paper. Yes, was the general consensus from the cross-section of experts canvassed by the paper.