I’ve spent some time just walking around looking at what’s happening during the protests in a large French city, and those didn’t really feel violent or overly destructive, more like a show of strength and trying to make the overwhelming public stance heard.

The only establishments that I saw had their windows broken were either large international chain stores or some municipal buildings, small cafes or various boulangeries were intact. There were burning trashcans and other stuff, but never too close to a building or something that might catch fire, everything was moved towards the center of the streets. It worked to disrupt car traffic and give the city a protest vibe, but it didn’t feel like the reason was pure destruction. You could’ve even come up to both masked protesters and cops and just have a chat in most cases. I think it was more violent in Paris, but I’d guess a lot of it had similar vibes still.

The thing is, it’s not like it started with this, there were peaceful protests and strikes at first. But when you ignore your population long enough, they see that peaceful means aren’t working and escalate. It could’ve been prevented if there was a reasonable governmental response.