Among the images of this burning America, a week after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American, during his arrest by a white police officer on May 25 in Minneapolis, there are some that we would like to remember: those of "cops" who, from Oklahoma City to New York, place one knee on the ground in front of the demonstrators who applaud them.
But everywhere in the United States, anger persists, whether it takes the form of peaceful processions or riots. It has already swept through thirty major cities, and it is probably not over. In fifteen states, the National Guard - that is, the army, with its machine guns and armored vehicles - was mobilized on the orders of Donald Trump to reinforce the police.
Already terribly shaken by the deadly Covid-19 pandemic (more than 100,000 dead, world record), the American nation is seeing its old demons resurface. Those of endemic racism in a country with a long slavery past, as recalled by Joe Biden, Trump's future democratic rival in the presidential election next November.
A strategy of permanent tension
The Republican billionaire may have made a few gestures of compassion, calling the family of the deceased, he continues to do Trump - even from the bunker where he was confined by the "secret service", which provides presidential security, while protesters crowded outside the White House gates on Friday. That is to say to divide society with incendiary messages on Twitter.
With his re-election as the only compass, the President of the United States, who has still not addressed the Nation on these events, even designates a sort of conspiracy of the "Antifa" and "Leftists", posing as sole guarantor of law and order in the face of the risk of “anarchy”.
Can this strategy of permanent tension keep him in the White House, as he had brought Richard Nixon to supreme office in 1968, against the backdrop of riots for civil rights? Trump can already rely on his stainless electoral base, which remains with him regardless of the storms he sets off ... or experiences.
Faced with him, the future Democratic candidate Joe Biden, former vice-president of Barack Obama, hitherto a little worn and clueless, will have to seize the racial question and impose it at the heart of the presidential campaign. The challenge for him is to transform in five months into democratic votes the civic outburst of his compatriots, targeting in particular the countless undecided who almost always rock the election.
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VIDEO. Death of George Floyd: the region of Los Angeles affected by looting
How far will the fire spread? No one can predict it, because it fuels the despair of a community more affected than others by the coronavirus, and its economic consequences, with the 40 million jobs suddenly wiped off the map. The extent of the looting may also be partly explained by the vital need to feed in this country where the safety nets are very tenuous.
Once again, America is spreading its tears under the confused eye of the world, and that, both ironic and revengeful of China and Iran, its best enemies. For his part, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, said on Monday that if the protests are to take place in a peaceful manner, police violence must be investigated in the United States as in any other country. “We have seen cases of police violence in the past few days. All cases must be investigated, "he said through his spokesperson.
