Emmanuel Macron - who earlier this year blamed video games for fuelling street violence - has backtracked on his negative stance about gamers.
The French president in June denounced video games as a cause for youths rioting after the police shooting of a teenage boy in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre.
The death of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk triggered nationwide protests and riots, which were shared and celebrated on social media networks, leading Mr Macron to accuse youths of playing “a considerable role” in the unrest.
“We sometimes have the feeling that some of them [rioters] are living in the streets of the video games that have intoxicated them,” Mr Macron said at the time.
But at the weekend, he described gamers as “storytellers” and claimed video games were a form of art, sport and entertainment - and inspire young people to use their imagination and be creative.
“Video games are an integral part of France,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“Video games offer opportunities for employment and the future, creating champions, but also engineers, developers, designers and creators. The sector inspires, makes people dream, makes them grow!”
Mr Macron said he had voiced his concerns in June “because video game codes had been used by offenders to trivialise violence on social networks”.
“It is this violence that I condemn, not video games,” he said, pledging to “accelerate” the sector.
“I have always considered that video games are an opportunity for France, for our youth and its future, for our jobs and our economy,” he said.
I see we’ve teleported back into the 1990s during the violent video games scare among parents. Gotta make excuses instead of, you know, actually facing the real problems.
Some of the more conspiratorial political stuff out there is basically Satanic Panic 2.0.
You mean how some of the rightwing literally believe that they are somehow part of a war with Satan?
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So a typical Politician’s job!
Never in my life has gaming ever thronged me into rioting. I’d rather play games instead
Yea, I tried League of Legends, but it wasn’t my thing so I don’t play Riot games.
Police officer shoot a dark skinned kid point blank, at the corner of Place Nelson Mandela no less, people revolt in protest:
“These damn gamers”Checks out.
I swear if this had been a movie, people would complain about the plot.
A bribe from Ubisoft or are there some elections voming up in France?
Probably just got a friendly reminder that there are some big and long standing games companies in France. He is a boomer businessman after all.
He’s actually late Gen X, though he has a certain… fondness for boomers.
The couldn’t have Brigitte Bardot, so he settled on another Brigitte.
A list of horrible, no-good things which video games definitely cause:
- Near-sightedness
- Satanism
- Obesity
- Communism
- Tardiness
- The gays
- Gun violence
- Hand/eye coordination
- And now… drumroll Rioting!
If the people in power say it is so, then it must be true.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Emmanuel Macron - who earlier this year blamed video games for fuelling street violence - has backtracked on his negative stance about gamers.
The French president in June denounced video games as a cause for youths rioting after the police shooting of a teenage boy in the Parisian suburb of Nanterre.
The death of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk triggered nationwide protests and riots, which were shared and celebrated on social media networks, leading Mr Macron to accuse youths of playing “a considerable role” in the unrest.
But at the weekend, he described gamers as “storytellers” and claimed video games were a form of art, sport and entertainment - and inspire young people to use their imagination and be creative.
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Japanese game director Kastuhiro Harada was among Mr Macron’s critics, and shared a video of the French leader lambasting gamers with the comment: “Blaming something is a great way to escape the burden of responsibility.”
The original article contains 386 words, the summary contains 175 words. Saved 55%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
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Holy shit, Jack Thompson is that you???
