The streets may eventually fall silent, but the struggle over who governs, who pays and what survives is only beginning

These days, European headlines resemble reports from a war zone: from stormed city halls in Marseille and Lille, to looted boutiques along the French Riviera, burned tourist offices in Lyon, and clouds of tear gas enveloping the Élysée Palace. The ‘day of rage’ in France drew over 800,000 protesters onto the streets – an event that was dismissed by Paris and the European mainstream as merely the “spontaneous revolt of the outskirts” or a “raid by migrants.” However, a closer look at the ‘rebels’ reveals respectable, bourgeois-looking students and well-off citizens engaging in destruction and violence.

None of these people know what to expect from the future of mainstream European politics.…