Questions over who funds France’s protest movement have reached George Soros’s philanthropic network, after the Spanish daily La Gaceta reported that seven organisations active in the October demonstrations had received money from, or kept links to, his foundations.
The report followed a Fox News Digital investigation that identified 101 organisations across 13 countries coordinating, organising or amplifying the unrest, up from 54 three days earlier. That investigation named no funder and made no reference to Soros.
Open Society’s own public grants register records three payments to the Ligue des droits de l’Homme, one of the French groups named on that list. The Paris-based civil liberties body received $82,538 in 2016 and a further $300,184 across two grants in 2017.
The money was awarded for action against police practices in Paris, for a campaign to end France’s state of emergency and for work on discrimination and access to rights. The Ligue has defended the protesting students and criticised police conduct during the demonstrations.
Open Society has rejected comparable allegations elsewhere, saying it neither supports nor funds violent protest. Its French fact sheet lists the Ligue among the organisations it has backed since beginning work in the country in the early 2000s.
The funding question has surfaced as France counts the cost of its worst rioting in years. Nearly 2,400 people were arrested and close to 1,000 police officers and gendarmes injured on October 17, when about 550,000 people took to the streets over living costs, fuel prices and school funding.
The historic town hall in Limoges, west-central France, was gutted by fire and a left-wing activist has since been arrested over the blaze. Curfews have been imposed in several cities and the French Government said it would cut welfare payments to those convicted of looting.
Organisers are not finished. A second day of action billed as “Acte II” was called for October 24, with 212 mobilisations planned, and a third for October 31.
The wider ambition is European. Student and socialist groups in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom have signed up to an International Youth Strike on November 20, calling for walkouts, blockades and occupations.
Its manifesto describes war and climate breakdown as the “essence of capitalism” and says NATO should be dissolved. Italy’s CGIL labour confederation has called a general strike for the same date, converging with the student mobilisation.
France is not the only member state affected. Protests have already spilled into Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Albania, and Austria has blamed migration for the violence in France and Italy.
