Earlier this year, French PresidentEmmanuel Macron blamed the intensifying riots in France on video games, claiming they had “intoxicated” young people. Now, three months later, he has written a lengthy apology on Twitter, “I made the gamers jump.”
“I expressed my concerns at the end of June because video games have been used by offenders to trivialize violence on social networks,” Macron said. “It’s violence I condemn, not video games. Video games are a culture, an entertainment, a spectacle! They are a ground for artistic experimentation, a fascinating learning space, mixing all the arts.
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Video games are an integral part of France.Assassin’s Creedand [developer Ankama’s MMORPG] Dofus are creations of French talent. We are proud of it and we make it easier to access with the Culture Pass.”
Macron goes on to say that, as part of the France 2030 plan, he wants to “accelerate the sector” and welcome more students and create new opportunities in the gaming space, including esports. However, his original statement clashes with his new claims, as he not only condemned violence, but video games for normalising violence.
“We’ve seen them - Snapchat, TikTok, and several others - serve as places where violent gatherings have been organised, but there’s also a form of mimicry of the violence which for some young people leads them to lose touch with reality,” Macron said in June. “You get the impression that, for some of them, they are experiencing on the street the video games that have intoxicated them.”
While he stresses that he abhors violence and not video games, clarifying this initial statement, one of the titles he mentioned is Assassin’s Creed. If you haven’t played it, the series is all about murdering those in power to better the world… or just out of a lust for revenge.Unity, which is set in France, even has you killing French politician Louis-Michel le Peletier.
The riots in France started earlier this year when 17-year-old Nahel M was fatally shot in the chest by police. 2,000 officers were deployed in response to the protests as they spread across Paris, Marseille, Toulouse, and Lyon. The riots died down in July after over 3,000 people were arrested and 2,500 buildings were damaged. The police officer is under investigation for the murder, but his lawyer claims he did not intentionally kill Nahel M.
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