Riots or Rosaries: France’s Stark Choice

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” One of the most famous introductions in the English language was written to describe the fears and hopes of a new era in revolutionary France.

Once again, in France, it is “the season of light” and “the season of darkness.”

First the darkness: Protests over school funding have escalated to the point that a quarter of a million students, teachers and activists took to the streets on Tuesday. The High School Students Union said that at least half of French high schools were closed or blockaded. A 15-year-old had his hands blown off by a stun grenade, and a 14-year-old lost some teeth after being hit in the face with a tear gas canister.

The mob dished out much worse violence. A 1-year-old was hit by a firework as rioters shot them at police. Two dozen schools were set on fire, and a head teacher was doused in petrol. Seventy-eight teachers have been injured in the protests so far. Crowds attacked fire engines and flipped cars. One bystander had her face burned with a homemade flamethrower. Another lost an eye to stones thrown by the mob.

It began as a student protest, but France’s Muslim and immigrant population joined in. “In the name of Allah, we can kill them all,” chanted one rioter. Algerian, Moroccan and Palestinian flags are common, as well as the Communist hammer and sickle. “France’s Riots Are No Ordinary Protest—They’re an Intifada in the Heart of Europe,” wrote Brendan O’Neill.

Behind this is France’s economic crisis. The nation has gone through five governments since 2024 as each fails to get spending under control. They now pay more interest than Greece or Italy. Yields on French 10-year bonds have hit their highest level since 2002. The euro has fallen 4 percent against the dollar since August, largely due to fears over French solvency. There’s even been talk of the European Central Bank stepping in to bring down bond prices.

This means there’s no money to meet the demands of these, or any other, protesters.

A Different Vision

France has also received a very different vision. Hundreds of thousands took to Paris’s streets on September 26. Once again, young people were at the heart of the event, but this wasn’t a protest.

From September 25 to 28, France hosted its first papal state visit since 2008.

Pope Leo xiv distanced himself from France’s current, unpopular leadership, rejecting President Emmanuel Macron’s offer of a state dinner, military honors and the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, the highest distinction France has to offer.

The 80,000 young people who turned out for Leo’s Youth Vigil were very different from those on the streets. The vigil included a glitzy retelling of the Catholic Church’s history in France, with a 2,500-member choir, knights on horseback and fireworks.

Tickets for the event sold out in under an hour. It was “like it was Beyonce,” one young fan told Le Parisien. This youth had 10 members of his family working to get him a ticket.

The mass in the heart of Paris was even bigger. The Place de la Concorde, Paris’s largest public square, is the site of the executions of France’s Catholic monarchy and a symbol of the French Revolution. Louis xvi and Marie Antoinette both lost their heads there. No wonder many found striking symbolism in the square filled with enthusiastic worshipers.

Leo celebrated the Catholic revival in France. He said the surge in new converts “far surpasses statistical and sociological analysis” and “contradicts every defeatist attitude” about the church’s future.

France’s “zombie Catholics” were a key discussion point 10 years ago. These “zombie Catholics” didn’t attend services but turned out in droves to support Catholic social policies and Catholic politicians.

Now some of these zombie Catholics, and their kids, are returning to church. They see the pope as the solution to chaos within and without.

“A lot of people told me they appreciated this American pope for how he could stand up to today’s strongmen,” said Eleanor Beardsley, npr’s correspondent on the ground. They say he has an important moral authority in a world of disorder.”

The events of the last month seem to offer France a stark choice: migration, leftism, chaos and violence—or Catholicism, order and beauty.

Europe’s Choice

All of Europe faces the same choice. The school protests are spreading, with violent clashes in Belgium and students occupying schools in Rome and Turin, with the slogan “Let’s do as in France” and Greece’s students mobilizing.

The pope also emphasized the European nature of his solution. He finished his trip near the German border in Metz, which is also the hometown of Robert Schuman, one of the EU’s founding fathers.

“We cannot speak of Europe, then, without mentioning Christianity,” the pope said, emphasizing the Catholic heritage of Schuman and other EU founders. He discussed the importance of “recognizing Europe’s debt to Christianity” and pointed out that Article 17 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union requires an “open, transparent and regular dialogue with … churches.”

Once France and Europe choose the Catholic Church, many will believe they are heading for the best of times. But Charles Dickens’s famous introduction wasn’t describing two separate events in France, but two contradictory views of the Revolution. In the end, one of these views was an illusion, and the revolution became one of the darkest periods in French history.

Similarly, embracing Europe’s Catholic heritage seems like the solution to all their problems. In some ways it will be.

A growing number believe they need the pope to help them stand up to this world’s strongmen. What better way to do that than helping Europe to embrace a strongman of its own?

The Warning From Bible Prophecy

This is exactly what Herbert W. Armstrong described in his 1965 Plain Truth magazine. “That crucial fact is this: The nations of Europe are utterly unable to unite themselves by their own political maneuvering,” he wrote. There are important national differences. How could the Germans tolerate a French strongman over them? Or the French, a German one?

“For years the Plain Truth has said these nations are going to have to realize their inability to unite themselves politically—to choose a common political-military leader that all can trust,” Mr. Armstrong wrote. “They are going to finally face the fact they must look to a supreme authority they can all trust! That supreme authority cannot be a politician or a general (De Gaulle is both). The only possible answer is a religious leader!”

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has continued to declare the same message. “Throughout Europe’s history, what has helped it to overcome its division has been a unity of purpose between church and state,” he wrote in 2006. “… But this church-state union hasn’t always been a happy marriage. Usually the two have been drawn together because of a crisis—an emergency.”

The crises are building in Europe: the migrant crisis, the economic crisis, the threat from strongmen abroad. And the pope is presenting an enticing solution.

These warnings are based on Bible prophecy. Based on these same prophecies, Mr. Armstrong forecast in 1945 that Germany would rise again as part of a “European union” of nation states. Revelation 17 describes this union of nations as a 10-headed beast ridden by a woman—symbolic of the fact that it would be led by a church.

Many in Europe will believe they are heading for the best of times when this church takes the reins. Bible prophecy says it will be the worst of times, quite literally. The rise of this empire will usher in the worst time of suffering the world has ever seen.

This Catholic-led empire is a false hope, a false dawn. But the real dawn isn’t far behind. You can read more about what the Bible says will happen in our free book The Holy Roman Empire in Prophecy.