The French president Emmanuel Macron boasted on Twitter in May 2023 that France is investing 300 million euros in the promotion of films and video games. But now, games are “poisoning” the youth in France and contributing to outbreaks of violence.
What is happening in France?
- In France, on Tuesday, 17-year-old Nahel H. was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in Paris. The suspect is in custody.
- Since then, there have been riots, especially at night: There have been protests, and Molotov cocktails were thrown. Rioters set houses and cars on fire; thousands of people have been arrested.
- There are even speculations that President Emmanuel Macron will declare a state of emergency.
“Like in the video games that poison them”
What do video games have to do with it? In a statement, Macron condemns the violence and calls the situation “unacceptable and unjustified.”
Among other things, he blames video games for the current situation, along with social media and the failure of parents.
Macron says: Parents must keep their children away from the unrest. Social media plays a role in the escalating tensions and is used to organize the protests:
There is a feeling that some people live on the streets, like in the video games that poison them.
The culprit seems once again to be the “violent glorifying evil game,” like GTA 5.
That “uprisings in the suburbs of Paris by angry youth, because politics has failed” is such a well-known problem that French action films have addressed it for 20 years (“Banlieu 13”), seems to have escaped Macron.
Why does that seem so strange? Just not even 2 months ago, on May 18, 2023, Macron announced on Twitter that he would invest “massively” in “our cinema, in audiovisual and in video games.”
300 million euros would allow the state to double its production capacity.
We also had a discussion in 2023 about “killer games,” after there had been riots over New Year’s Eve:
