“Violent video games” is an old bogeyman that politicians have often blamed in the wake of horrific tragedies in their countries. But it has become less common as study after study concludes there is no causal link between video games and violent behavior.
But that did not stop French President Emmanuel Macron.
“It sometimes feels like some of them are experiencing, on the streets, the video games that have intoxicated them,” Macron said in a press conference on July 1st.
Macron was referring to the recent violence that has rocked France. Fueled by anger over the police killing of a teenager during a routine traffic stop in June, scores of young people in France have been lashing out against alleged racial profiling and making clear their demand for greater police accountability.
The average age of those arrested over this violence is 17. Macron also floated the idea that social media was radicalizing the young, with Snapchat and TikTok allowing them to organize and spread “a mimicking of violence, which for the youngest leads to a kind of disconnect from reality.”
