Clashes occur between rioters and police in Paris, on July 2, 2023, after the death of a 17-year-old boy killed by police in Nanterre in the suburbs of Paris on June 27, 2023.Photo: IC

With just over a year to go until the 2024 Paris Olympics, a wave of riots have swept across France and shocked the world. France is one of the theoretical origins of modern Western political systems. The dilemma the country faces is highly representative across Western societies. 

The riots began from a fatal shooting - a 17-year-old of North African descent was shot by police on June 27 during a traffic stop in a Paris suburb, which reignited long-standing contradictions between ethnic minorities and French society. It is not rare in the West. But it is perplexing that every time this occurs, the problem remains unresolved and a small spark could easily trigger a huge explosion next time.

Since the 21st century, the West has gone through a series of black swan events, ranging from terror attacks, to financial crises, Brexit, and Donald Trump's victory in US presidential election. These together indicate serious institutional dysfunction in the West, with the root cause lying in its own system.

First, under the Western system, each political party represents different interest groups. No political party stands for all people in the country. Once being elected, their policies can only lean toward supporting their own interest group. Therefore, under this system, if a group has interests and values to protect, two conditions must be met - having the right to vote and having a considerable number of ballots. If these conditions are not met, their interests cannot be effectively protected. 

French ethnic minorities participating in the riots are facing this institutional dilemma. The overall living standards of ethnic minorities are lower than the national average. Their unemployment, crime, and illiteracy rates, on the other hand, are much higher than ordinary French. The hard truth has lasted for so long because their votes are not sufficient to express and defend their interests. Therefore, some repeatedly resort to violence rather than voting to defend their interests.

Second, the design of political parties' competition in the Western system has many flaws. The design aims to promote better governance by the ruling party through competition among multiple political parties. It hopes to establish an accountability system through the supervision of opposition parties to ensure that the ruling party commits fewer or no mistakes. 

However, every political party wants to become the ruling party. As a result, the original good intentions have evolved into today's fierce battles between different parties, with each sides busying finding fault and attacking one another, and party interests undermining the national interest. 

Take French riots, all political parties are supposed to be united against violence. However, the left-wing opposition is targeting the government. Meanwhile, the far-right seeks to cast itself as the guardian of law and order, and wants a state of emergency to be declared. 

This scene occurred before during the extremely violent Yellow Vests Protests. During the protests, France's most revered monuments, the Arc de Triomphe, was stormed and vandalized. The opposition parties either blamed the Emmanuel Macron administration for causing the violence, accused the government of intentionally magnifying the violence to discredit the Yellow Vest movement, or criticized the government for diverting attention.

There could be numerous reasons why a riot is difficult to quickly quell, but the various political forces' desire to seek their own interests amid the chaos is an important factor.

Third, the Western model of freedom of the press and freedom of speech exacerbates conflict. Freedom of the press and freedom of speech have always been regarded as important components of the Western system and an advantage in Western national governance. However, in reality, they not only do not help resolve social conflicts, but often become the fuse for conflicts. This is the case when it comes to the long-standing conflict between ethnic minorities and French society. For example, French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, under the guise of freedom of speech, openly published cartoons that offended Islamic customs, triggering protests from Muslims in France and even from the globe, with extremists resorting to violence. This time, Western freedom of the press also played its role in blowing up an individual case into a large scale riot. 

It is the structural deficiencies of the system that are the true root cause of the current dysfunction of the Western system. All the problems that have emerged in the West, such as politicians only having short-term vision, without the ability to formulate long-term plans; the inability to select suitable talents; the inability to carry out painful yet necessary reforms; the lack of policy continuity, the inability to solve long-term problems, and inefficiency, are all related to such a system. 

The author is a research fellow on political studies at the China Institute of Fudan University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn