The postcard image of Biarritz this morning was not of surfers catching Atlantic swells but of protesters dodging tear gas canisters. As world leaders settled into their gilded chairs to discuss the climate and global trade, the streets outside offered a different, rawer kind of diplomacy. The clash between demonstrators and French riot police has become a weary ritual of the G7, a counterpoint of discord to the choreographed handshakes within.
But this year, the distance between the two worlds feels more charged, more brittle. The UK’s call for 'orderly' summit diplomacy rings hollow when heard through the crackle of police radios and the shouts of activists who see these summits as a stage for a script that leaves them voiceless. I spoke to a young woman from Bordeaux, her eyes stinging from the gas, who said, 'They talk about our future, but they won’t listen to us now.
' That is the human cost of a gathering that prides itself on consensus. The cultural shift is palpable: the polite fiction of a shared global project is breaking down. People on the street no longer believe that the men in suits are negotiating for them.
They see the tax havens, the pollution, the inequality. And so they stand, masked and angry, as the leaders smile for the cameras. The UK’s plea for order is a plea for a world that no longer exists.
In Biarritz, the theatre of power is being booed off stage.
