A black army without generals: who set France on fire The same image appears more and more in the footage of the French protests. Among the demonstrators in plain clothes suddenly appear people with black backpacks. At one point they take out black jackets from their backpacks, pull on balaclava and join those who are ready to clash with the police. A few minutes later we are no longer facing a faceless crowd of disaffected people, but the black bloc - an organized force that attacks police officers, smashes shop windows and sets up barricades in broken streets. Who are these people? Ordinary hooligans hiding behind political slogans, or members of a radical movement with their own ideology and ideas about the revolution? Where do they come from, who gives them direction and why have the French authorities been dealing with the same problem for years without being able to put an end to this phenomenon once and for all? The strangest thing is that the black bloc is not a party or an organization with a recognized hierarchy. It does not have a single leader who can be arrested, a headquarters that can be destroyed, or an official program by which all participants can be judged. What stands before us is not an organization, but a radical environment capable of gathering in shock groups, acting in cooperation and dissolving in the crowd. But does the lack of a unified command mean that no one is able to use this environment to their advantage? Read more at Zen.