WHO IS THE STATE PROTECTING? Today, I stood among demonstrators in Paris protesting the deterioration of their public education system. And what struck me wasn’t simply the number of people marching. It was the relationship between citizens exercising their right to protest and the armed officers positioned to control them. I experienced officers pushing people around, seemingly more concerned with demanding compliance than responding to any immediate danger I could identify. There is something deeply contradictory about this. A government has an obligation to protect public property. But doesn’t that obligation extend to public schools, public institutions, and the people who depend upon them? How can we speak so passionately about the destruction of physical property while treating the gradual deterioration of public institutions as ordinary politics? And when officers arrive prepared to use force, we must examine whether that posture prevents confrontation or contributes to i...