For decades, American broadcast news networks have touted the benefits of socialism in France, from government-funded day care to healthcare to a mandated five weeks of vacation.Then-NBC host Katie Couric summed it up in 2001: "The French, they’ve got it right, don’t they?"Socialism is always a warm, comforting blanket.
It can’t ever fail.So, when violent rioting recently broke out in Paris and other cities, the preferred TV term was failing "public services."On Oct.
19, ABC foreign correspondent Tom Soufi-Burridge said: "The protest Saturday, involving hundreds of thousands of people, were supposed to be about the cost of living, and the state of France’s public services, but the situation quickly spiraled out of control in multiple French cities."REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: FRANCE BRACES FOR MORE UNREST AFTER PARTS OF PARIS SPUN OUT OF CONTROL"CBS Mornings" star Gayle King echoed it: "The demonstrations began to protest the rising costs of living and declining public services." CBS reporter Aidan Stretch also cited a "ballooning government deficit," which is code for overspending.The socialists would blame undertaxing.A fire burns and destroys the Limoges city hall after a group of individuals forced entry into the building during ongoing riots in central France on Oct.
17, 2026.(Photo by PASCAL LACHENAUD / AFP via Getty Images) Most network reports didn’t avoid that there was violent rioting, looting and property destruction.
But they claimed the protests were "hijacked" by bad people.CBS’s Stretch pushed the split: "The most extreme unrest was in cities across France, where protests over poor school conditions and worker pay were hijacked by masked rioters who torched cars, burned down government buildings and looted stores, stealing most of the inventory from this boxing shop."FRANCE'S MACRON BLAMES PROTESTS ON 'ULTRA-LEFT GROUPS WHOSE AIM IS TO BRING DOWN THE REPUBLIC'On the "PBS News Hour," Ross Cullen blamed "underinvestment" by the socialists: "Mo...