Emmanuelle Macron went astray by about 17 years because it was trendy in 2006 (a lawyer called Jack Thompson was attacking games vehemently…).

The French president blamed video games and social media for the events for the past three, nearly four days, which developed from a shooting (the Paris police fatally shot a teenager of Algerian origin, Nahel M., who tried to drive off with his car after it a traffic stop in the Nanterre suburbs of Paris). The events angered the people, who said the teen had been shot because of racial discrimination. The police officer who committed the murder is currently under investigation.

Macron urges parents to keep young people at home during demonstrations and says that social media and video games mainly cause vandalism and violence. The latter, the French president says, has intoxicated them and is being used by the mainly young protesters on the streets, and he believes that parents have a responsibility to keep their children at home. But this ‘blame the games for real-life violence’ theme is nothing new. Okay, we brought up Jack Thompson from the 2000s (he was mainly against games because of Grand Theft Auto), but there were accusations like this back in the 70s.

Since then, there has been no scientific proof that games are to blame for everything. Politically, it’s also common to blame them, with Texas Senator Ted Cruz last year claiming that the shootings and resulting murders in the US are the fault of video games. However, returning to Macron: it is an unusual comment from him, as the French President has previously been a strong supporter of the games industry and eSports!

So this is a significant U-turn from someone who used to call France the country of games. Is the presidency so shaky that he tries to convince the more conservative voters with this statement? That he has spoken out against Chinese TikTok is understandable (data theft), but the accusation against Snapchat seems incomprehensible.

The French government will also remove unnamed ‘sensitive’ content from social media…

Source: GameRant