France 'on the Brink of Civil War'

France is burning, and Bernard-Henri Lévy watches the scene with deep anguish. Since the riots erupted on September 16, French cities have turned into stages for fires, looting, vandalism, and antisemitism, as well as attacks on police and firefighters. But what pained him most was the arson at the Limoges city hall on October 17.

Lévy, recalling the sight of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burning seven years ago, said: “For French people who do not believe in heaven, the fire in Limoges represents a secular equivalent of the Notre Dame blaze. When the city hall’s dome burst into flames and then collapsed, what fell was not just a roof; it was part of France’s spirit burning before our eyes.”

A far-left activist has been arrested on suspicion of setting the fire.

Lévy, 77, is the author of 50 books and the maker of about 12 documentaries. In France, he is known as a philosopher and public intellectual, and newspaper readers know him from his reports from war zones in Ukraine, Nigeria, and the Middle East. He had planned to spend the autumn promoting his new book, *Temporary Memoirs*, but the turmoil in his country has forced him to focus on the domestic crisis.

He said, “You can feel that we are on the brink of a civil war. The worst part is that France’s two main political forces have an interest in the riots: Marine Le Pen, because she will come to power, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, because he will control the streets. This internal understanding, in the Yalta style, is a nightmare for moderates, both conservatives and liberals.”

Le Pen leads the National Rally party, while Mélenchon leads the France Unbowed party. Lévy describes them as representing the far right and the far left, but he goes beyond common media classifications, labeling both as fascist. With the collapse of France’s political center, the prospect of their facing each other in the second round of the presidential election scheduled for May next year has become plausible.

However, Lévy refuses to accept this scenario, arguing that French journalists are behaving as if the outcome is already decided six months before the election.

He said, “I am politically optimistic, and I have a different hypothesis: the French people are not as miserable as they are portrayed.” He believes a third option could emerge in the final months, whether it be a well-known candidate or an unexpected figure entering the race, to break the deadlock between the “competing fascists” and return France to its normal democratic path. If the final contest is limited to Le Pen and Mélenchon, he insists he will not vote for either.

Lévy is a long-time defender of Israel and views Mélenchon as “unapologetically antisemitic,” making statements akin to those of American figures such as Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, without any hesitation.

As for Le Pen’s party, which previously announced it was purging its ranks of antisemites, it is being pursued by reports that its leader, Jordan Bardella, sent antisemitic text messages when he was a teenager.

Lévy said Bardella’s acknowledgment of a mistake made in his youth would have appeared more convincing than his angry denial, which Lévy sees as resembling a confession.

Lévy considers Le Pen and Mélenchon to represent two faces of the same populism: a right-wing Trumpism and a left-wing variant, both sharing leniency toward Vladimir Putin, abandonment of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, nationalistic and isolationist retreat, rejection of deeper European integration, and economic policies that could push France toward bankruptcy.

He summarizes the conflict between them as a battle over “which one will have the horrifying privilege of destroying this country.”

This stands in contrast to the United States, where he argues that the “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) movement and the new Democrats, who have made anti-Zionism, in his words, the core of their politics, represent two extremes threatening democracy.

When asked whether President Emmanuel Macron bears responsibility for France reaching this stage, Levy refused to portray him as a devil, considering the attacks against him from both the right and the left to be unfair.

He says Macron deserves credit for keeping the connection between Ukraine and Europe alive, especially at a time when the United States appears to be leaning toward Russia.

In a related context, Levy described the statement by Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, who referred to Putin as “human,” as disgusting and an insult to the Ukrainian dead, to American principles, and to Republicans who dedicated their lives to confronting the Soviet Union and then Putin’s authoritarianism.

Levy insists that he did not oppose the French protests from the outset; the students’ demands for more teachers and improved conditions in high schools were worthy of sympathy. However, he believes that the far-left, led by Mélenchon, hijacked the movement, legitimized violence, and incited it, so that Mélenchon has become, in his words, the best servant of Le Pen’s campaign, with rioters doing the work on her behalf.

He warns that what is happening in France reflects a phenomenon spreading across Europe and perhaps the entire West: an “explosion of nihilism.” The protesters, as he describes them, are not seeking to replace one social system with another, but to destroy the very idea of an organized society and justice itself.

He insists that the current riots do not resemble the May 1968 protests in which he participated. At that time, the rebellion was accompanied by hope, and students were protesting dictatorships around the world, from the Soviet Union to Latin America.

Today, he sees protest slogans reduced to chanting “Gaza, Gaza, Gaza,” and Palestinian flags have become a symbol among some of the most ignorant protesters. He describes this as an “explosion of genuine anti-Semitism within the left.”

He says this phenomenon is new in its scale, nature, and desperate nihilistic character, and that politicians do not appear willing to confront it; indeed, some are fueling it.

He cites New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani among those, considering his presence in office a “stain on the soul of New York,” a city he views as part of a country that the Founding Fathers envisioned as the “New Jerusalem,” and which Jews regarded as their second homeland.

He adds that anti-Semitism was not marginal in Mamdani’s electoral rhetoric, but a driving force that contributed to increasing his popularity.

As for the future of Jews in France, Levy sees it as an essential part of the battle for the country’s identity. Jews, he says, have contributed significantly to building France, and they should not be the ones forced to leave because of attacks against them.

He concludes his position firmly: “If anyone must leave, it is not the Jews, but the anti-Semites. I will defend this cause and fight for it with all my strength, until my last breath.”

* A writer for the Wall Street Journal, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Classical Liberal Studies at New York University School of Law.