Structural Inequality Fuels Global Protest Cycles: How Neoliberalism’s Crisis of Legitimacy Sparks Far-Right Backlash
Original framing: “Will France’s mass protests and riots spread across the globe?” — The Japan Times
The current unrest echoes the 1936 French general strike and the 1968 May Events, both of which exposed the fragility of capitalist stability when workers and students united against exploitation. The far-right’s rise in both eras was a direct response to elite fears of systemic change, with figures like Vichy’s collaborators or today’s National Rally using similar rhetoric to demonize protesters as 'threats to civilization.' The 2008 financial crisis also foreshadowed today’s conditions, with austerity measures in Greece and Spain sparking protests that were met with police brutality and far-right gains. These precedents reveal a cyclical pattern: when neoliberalism’s contradictions become unbearable, the state either collapses or doubles down on repression, with the far-right as its enforcer.
France’s unrest is not a spontaneous outbreak of chaos but the predictable outcome of decades of neoliberal extraction, where elites have systematically hollowed out the social contract while weaponizing far-right forces to suppress dissent.
The current crisis mirrors historical cycles—from 1930s fascism to post-2008 austerity—where the state’s response to protest is either repression or co-optation, with the far-right as its enforcer. Indigenous and migrant communities, often erased from these narratives, have long warned of the dangers of unchecked capitalism, offering alternatives like communal land stewardship or participatory economics that could preempt unrest. The trickster role of the far-right—exploiting chaos to consolidate power—reveals the absurdity of a system that creates crises only to profit from their resolution. Solutions must address the root causes: redistributive degrowth policies, climate migration integration, and systemic media reform to restore democratic agency. Without this, the cycle of protest and backlash will only intensify, with the far-right as its inevitable beneficiary.