The Economist:

The first steps into the Unrest seem straightforward enough—anger at the fall of real wages, at capitalist aggression, at the unwillingness of Parliament; anger fomented by agitators...reason wars with instinct.

Few of those who mobbed French cities this week would recognise those words. But many would agree with George Dangerfield, the British-American journalist who wrote them. The demonstrators were consumed by rage. Rage at the failure of the state and against the floundering centrist politicians who govern. Rage at high prices and economic dysfunction. And for some, rage against the idea of centrist politics at all.

Dangerfield wrote about “the strange death of liberal England” in the years before the first world war. Some predict a similarly grim fate for liberal Europe today. Arson, mob violence, looting and mass protests show how much citizens despair of their leaders. France has a long tradition of the manif, but the violence unleashed by hooded and masked rioters across the country over the past weekend was unusually severe. Protests also flared in Belgium, Italy and Portugal. In looming elections, first in Spain next month, then in France and Poland next year, voters are poised to punish moderate parties—and in Italy the far right is outflanking the populist Giorgia Meloni, who has governed from the centre. In the wings wait more charismatic figures from the extremes, including Marine Le Pen in France and Alice Weidel in Germany.