Who really helped end the French riots?

It wasn’t president Macron who brought six days of rioting in France to an end, nor the brave bands of mothers who called for calm in some of the inner-city estates. It wasn’t even the presence of 45,000 police and gendarmes on the streets that persuaded the rioters, arsonists, vandals and looters to stand down. Instead, it seems that it was the drug gangs who decided enough is enough. Having so many boys in blue patrolling the streets was bad for business and so gang leaders exerted their influence and ordered the young hoodlums back to their bedrooms. 

That, at least, was the news broken to Macron at the start of this week when he dropped by a police station in the 17th arrondissement of Paris. Pressing the flesh with his worn-out police officers, Macron asked: ‘But these kids, who do they listen to?’ Back came the response: ‘The dealers, Monsieur le President’.