Society
France's Mass Protests and Riots Stoke Japan's Immigration Fears
Protests that authorities put at around 550,000 people spread across France, with arson, looting, a city-hall fire in Limoges, roughly 1,200 arrests and about 150 police injured. The protests began over the cost of living, schools and public services, and budget policy, but many Japanese commenters read the unrest less through those causes than as the result of immigration policy, and as a warning that Japan could follow. Others condemned the arson and looting as crime rather than protest, or questioned the framing outright. A relativizing minority noted that Japan's own fiscal position is worse.