Flashmobs outmanoeuvred the police

When rioting broke out across France on Saturday October 17 during cost-of-living demonstrations, the police were not simply outnumbered - they were tactically wrong-footed. Officers had prepared for far smaller turnouts, and the crowds that formed were two and a half times what they expected.

What made the disorder hard to contain was its structure, according to the programme. Alongside the mass of demonstrators came flashmob groups with different aims:

• •radical militants determined to get into fights with the police
• •others who joined the crowds specifically for the looting

That mix of brawlers and plunderers meant the forces on the ground were overwhelmed both by sheer numbers and by the shifting character of the groups inside them.

Limoges city hall among the targets

The violence reached France's usually quiet porcelain capital, where the 19th-century city hall in Limoges was assaulted - cited as an attack on symbols of the Republic.

A movement sparked by French youth

The movement itself began with France's youth, who set out to draw attention to deteriorating conditions in their schools.

A minority government facing the fallout

The unrest lands on President Emmanuel Macron's minority lame-duck government, with no money in the state coffers, per the programme. It also comes six months out from a presidential election where the extreme right and left have a huge lead in the polls.