Many are wondering if the recent French riots will spread to the UK, as they did to Belgium and Italy. It is not the first time the British authorities have asked such a question.

After the storming of the Bastille in 1789, English politicians were seriously concerned that the violent Jacobin uprising would cross the Channel. Much to the relief of Burke, Pitt and their contemporaries, the Revolution never made it to our shores. Historians attribute Britain’s escape from such turmoil to the fact that conditions in our two countries were very different in the late 18th Century. The power of Britain’s monarchy was limited by Parliament; rights such as the rule of law and trial by jury were well established; and British activists were committed to reforming the system rather than overthrowing it altogether. 

England had a much larger and more powerful middle class than France, who had too much to lose from anarchy and disruption. Poverty was less widespread, and various religious revivals had allowed the discontinued to “” without wreaking destruction. The Gordon Riots of 1780 severely dented middle class support for radical movements, and witnessing the spectacle of such extreme violence taking place in France horrified the British public, and acted as a warning against revolt.

Britain escaped France’s fate in the 18th Century, and as a result enjoyed far more political stability, wealth and freedom than our Gallic neighbours for the next century and a half.

But will we be so lucky this time?

Conditions in our two countries are far more similar than they were in the 1790s. Both France and Britain have experienced unprecedented levels of immigration from non-Western countries over recent years, leading to a breakdown of cultural cohesion and social trust. Some areas of both countries now have majority non-native populations, eroding any sense of shared identity and compatriotism. 

The governments of both countries have borrowed excessive amounts of money to satiate public demand for welfare and pension spending. Such fiscal incontinence has eroded the value of our currencies through inflation and increased the cost of borrowing. Britain and France are both feeling the effects of energy price rises following the Ukraine war and now conflict in the Middle East. 

Over the last ten years, Britain has experienced inflation of well over 30 per cent; the French have a slightly better record but their cumulative CPI increase still stands at more than 20 per cent. Both nations are experiencing widening generational inequality, as older people benefit from asset price inflation and qualify for generous pensions while the asset-less young are taxed heavily to pay for it.  

In both Britain and France there is a sense that once enviable public services are no longer working as intended. Health outcomes are still better overall in France, but it is just as difficult to see a GP as in England. Politically, both French and British voters have become frustrated with the offer of traditional mainstream parties. In France, Marine Le Pen’s populist right Rassemblement Nationale seems on course to win next year’s presidential election, while the hard left LFI possesses strong support too.

In the UK, the traditional parties show small signs of recovery, but combined support for Labour and the Conservatives is still well below 50 per cent; at the 2017 elections the parties won a combined total of 82 per cent of the vote. Both countries have seen a hardening alliance between the progressive left and Islamists, with pro-Palestine and anti-Israel sentiment seemingly underlying every leftist protest. 

In other words, in both countries the tinder of discontent is growing into a serious fire risk. 

Yet I still doubt that these riots will spread to Britain. For all the demographic and political similarities between our rival nations, there remain, like in the 1790s, some notable differences.  The UK is far less volatile than France for a variety of reasons. 

The French political system is locked in a stalemate. President Emmanuel Macron is a lame duck president with no control of Parliament. Successive French Prime Ministers have tried and failed to pass a budget that will shore up France’s fragile public finances. With the prospect of elections next year that could deliver what some on the left and centre consider an ‘extremist’ right wing government, tensions and fears are running high.

By contrast in Britain, while readers are unlikely to support the current government, and while that government has shown itself to be fairly impotent in some respects, Labour does have a substantial majority that Andy Burnham can utilise if he wants to. 

First-past-the-post, for all its flaws, has rarely left Britain in limbo. Our brief experience of deadlock during the Brexit years was perhaps a taster experience of what many of our European neighbours are subjected to on a regular basis. Stasis breeds frustration. And while British politicians are regularly accused of being out of touch, none of our Prime Ministers – even old Etonians like that of Boris Johnson and David Cameron, or multi-millionaire Rishi Sunak, came anywhere near to the highs of elitist remoteness displayed by École Nationale d’Administration wonder boy Emmanual Macron. Like Sunak, Macron is a high IQ technocrat, yet Rishi was never perceived as aloof and cold like Monsieur Macron. 

Unlike the French, Britain does not have a habit of widespread and regular protests and strikes. Indeed,  it takes far more to get Britons onto the streets. In France, protesting is seen almost as a civic duty – whilst in Britain it’s viewed as counterproductive. 

And our policing culture is different too. It is unthinkable that such widespread crime would be allowed to run amok on the streets of London without the military being deployed. But then, with a history of violent law enforcement incidents that have attracted widespread condemnation, French authorities may feel that their hands are tied. 

The scenes from France over recent weeks have been truly shocking. The descent of a neighbouring European country – one for which many of us have a deep fondness – into lawlessness and anarchy is frightening and distressing. Whether or not Britain follows suit is an important question in the short term. 

Yet, in the long term, the only way that the UK and Western Europe can avoid growing unrest is to deal with the underlying causes of despair. It is possible that with the anticipated election of patriotic right wing parties across the continent over the next few years may find the political will and courage to end and even reverse mass immigration. 

But our economic challenges are far more difficult to solve within a democratic framework because European voters – of the left and right – will not easily be persuaded to part with unaffordable welfarism that is crippling the bloc’s finances. Perhaps only an economic crisis will be the catalyst for reform; and sadly the resulting financial collapse will be more than sufficient to get Brits onto the streets.