Spain is reeling from another high-speed rail accident – the second major crash of 2026. With 68 confirmed dead and 138 injured, both numbers are expected to rise but this is already the country’s worst train crash in more than a decade. Calling the two-train collision “a significant tragedy”, Spain’s health minister Mónica García Gómez warned the nation to brace for more bad news.
Political parties swiftly announced the suspension of scheduled election-campaign events. Now the national government and Spain’s high-speed rail network are facing renewed scrutiny – and plenty of anger too. There are painful echoes of the high-speed crash near Adamuz, Andalucia, which left 46 dead in January. Then, like now, the collision was attributed to human error.
Early reports suggest that a state-operated Alta Velocidad Española train with 397 passengers on board was not warned that a private Iryo train with 140 passengers had stalled ahead. The LZB signalling system, which should automatically employ brakes upon detecting any obstacles ahead, seems to have malfunctioned, though the controller in Madrid also appears to have failed to warn of any danger. It’s perhaps worth noting that Spain has been transitioning to the European Rail Traffic Management System to bring it in line with the rest of the EU.
Aerial footage taken from a Guardia Civil helicopter indicates the intensity of the crash, with at least four carriages derailed; one is completely obliterated, while a section of rail line appears to be piercing another. Among the unaccounted for is Fátima Báñez, Spain’s former national employment and social security minister.
With yet another crash on the same Madrid-Seville line, questions are being asked about whether any of January’s hard lessons about maintenance and communication had been implemented. Safety concerns from the Spanish Union of Railway Drivers have remained a sticking point – a partial strike is, in fact, scheduled for tomorrow morning over these very issues.
Spain’s high-speed rail network is a source of national pride. With more than 4,000km of track, it is the largest in Europe. In the first half of this year, an estimated 25 million passengers used the rail network. Train journeys account for 57 per cent of national travel.
In recent years a diversification push has added more low-cost options, providing Spaniards with more competitive pricing and increasing rail travel by 40 per cent from 2019 to 2024. This year it’s the cohesion between these services and the state of the network that’s back under the spotlight.
Growing frustration with transport minister Óscar Puente, who, apart from his troubled ministerial portfolio, has a reputation for getting into petulant fights on social media, will surely flavour the political fallout. During his first press conference since the crash, Puentes called it a “truly implausible accident” but with only a month before the national election, the entire country will surely be demanding more answers and, indeed, consequences for what seems to be a horrific case of déjà vu.
For now, though, emergency services and the surrounding towns south of Toledo are rallying together and attending to the devastating scene unfolding in the Spanish countryside.
A few weeks ago I began the long, painstaking process of breaking up with streaming platforms. After many years of short-term relationships with rentals, it was time to commit to something more permanent: a collection that I could own. I’m not anticipating it to be a clean break; after all, we’ve been involved for 15 years.
It started out quite innocently: I had been playing pen pals with LoveFilm, receiving monthly DVD packages in the post. Then Netflix came along and love-bombed us all, promising every film or show that we had ever wanted to watch, whenever we wanted it. It was sexy and American, and impossible to resist – like Marlon Brando in a white T-shirt yelling “Stella!” It even had great original shows: House of Cards, Lilyhammer, Orange is the New Black. Now, whenever I scroll through the homepage, I’m offered season 157 of Love is Blind Ipswich and a 12-hour documentary about a murder that never gets solved.
Anyway, it wasn’t my disappointment with Netflix that started this. It was my husband’s frustration with mainstream music-streaming platforms. As a musician, he could no longer in good faith continue to support them because of their disproportionately poor payment of artists. When you have access to every song ever recorded for the cost of a pint, how can musicians ever be fairly remunerated?
I should be clear: I’m not complaining about how affordable streaming platforms are but about how suffocatingly entwined with them our lives have become. When you only rent music and film, you lose the beauty of curating a thoughtful collection that is actually attuned to your tastes – not just what an algorithm has decided. Not to mention the mounting costs as platforms hike up their prices each year for what feels like increasingly poor streaming experiences. But where else can you go?
Well, backwards. My husband and I are consolidating an MP3 library on Plex and finding interesting ways to display our CDs, which had been gathering dust under the stairs. I’m on the hunt for an industrial 1920s pigeon-hole unit of the right size. This also means that I’m listening to albums more consciously from start to finish (no skips, unless it’s “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”) and getting the cohesive experience that the musicians intended – the joy of which we’re enjoying sharing with our young daughter, for whom music has, until now, only involved hits searched for on a phone.
We have also made lists of the films and TV shows to which we return, with a plan to expand our DVD collection and fill in the gaps with MP4s. But where to store them? Surely not iCloud, the digital answer to Shurgard? No, we’re investing in a Network Attached Storage hub, or a NAS, which acts as a private cloud. For us, it’s a Diskstation from Taiwanese company Synology, which makes something seemingly arcane feel effortless (though Ugreen and Qnap offer reliable alternatives).
This might all sound terribly troglodyte – particularly coming from someone who works in media in 2026 – but I intend to leave the cave door open. Maybe I’ll even venture out to the cinema. And sure, the next time Netflix releases a water-cooler show, we might roll straight back into bed with it – but just for old time’s sake.
When consumer research showed that Ikea was under-serving young city dwellers who move frequently because of regular job changes and short tenancy contracts, it decided to visit their homes to find out more. “The demographic is limiting their belongings but still want furniture worth keeping,” says Ikea product developer Dora Ding. The result is Kompishäng, a line of household pieces that a single person can transport without needing a van.
Designing the collection, which includes a folding desk and other items adapted for portability, was more than a matter of figuring out how to make things lighter. The desk, for example, has a solid pine top and sturdy steel legs but had to be easy to carry and affordable; its handle was tested in various shapes before an ergonomic steel version was selected. One of the team’s key discoveries was that renters grow emotionally attached to plants but find moving big ones to be a hassle. This resulted in the jute plant pot, which has “a warm, natural material that gives it a homely feeling”, says designer Wiebke Braasch. “It has a protective sleeve that pulls up to protect the leaves in transit.”
Kompishäng reflects the reality that though frequent movers tend to own less, many still want objects that last. Ikea, which pioneered modern flat-packing, is now proposing a next step: furniture designed with its second, fifth or 10th home in mind.
ikea.com
Comment
Ikea has long paid attention to case studies and data from market research. Developments in urbanism, new technologies and changing consumer habits all inform the Swedish company’s design process. It’s a reminder of the importance of real-world knowledge. Ensuring that consumers feel part of the production process can also help to make your wares feel personalised.
Further reading:
Objects to soothe your space: The best interior-design pieces that bring nature into your home
Ten iconic European design pieces to cosy up your living space this winter
Around the world in 40 designs: The best furniture, country by country
UK Chancellor John Healey is walking a fiscal tightrope ahead of a crunch budget this week Tough choices, we’re told, are the only way to manage ballooning national debt and arrest the steep decline in public services.
Luckily, one already confirmed government policy offers a glimmer of hope that politics can bring us together over mild irritation. Specifically, a fine for antisocial behaviour targeting people blaring music too loudly from their phones in public and a crackdown on littering, vaping and threatening behaviour.
This small bit of statecraft won’t solve the energy trilemma or productivity pitfalls but it could salvage some consensus from the jaws (and bores) of national defeatism. Let’s call this the modest manifesto, or a nudge that petty policymaking people can understand and get excited about in a sea of big promises.
Talking property
House prices are exorbitant, supply limited and wages stagnant. Home ownership is unattainable for many. So let’s start with punitive taxes on estate agents who call damp basements “garden apartments” or cupboards “bedrooms”? Then a swift moratorium on the overuse of the term “up-and-coming” to describe grotty neighbourhoods, before a clampdown on those misleadingly describing unscrubbed graffiti as “street art”.
Tech tax
Customers shouldn’t need to register an account to buy anything and everything online. It’s a toothbrush not a mortgage.
End pissing around
Surely, it’s time that cities recognised the need for taxi drivers, delivery folk and the rest of us to find relief? The aggressive privatisation of public space has left many with nowhere to go. Literally. What say we build some pleasant public toilets and pay people to keep them clean?
Questionable practice
Let’s also agree today to ban the pointless end-of-transaction “customer survey” in all instances. “How did we do today?” Not well. Ditto a blanket ban on endless password prompts and the alarming irony of computers endlessly verifying our humanity online. Is this progress?
Nothing is ‘future-proof’
Anyone claiming to “future-proof” a business, particularly those flogging software, should be compelled to explain in detail exactly what the future looks like – in writing and for scrutiny at a later date. The tech industry seems incapable of predicting next Tuesday let alone what might happen in 2030.
Resilience in word and deed
We need a national campaign to prevent people from framing ordinary activities in Herculean terms. Changing your internet provider or getting a wardrobe delivered is not “a journey”. Also, a slow train, bad lunch or a little drizzle in no way constitutes a “perfect storm”.
Unhappy customers
Fines for companies that replace customer-service teams with an uncomprehending chatbot called Alice, programmed to tell you that she “understands your frustration”. She manifestly does not.
Over to you then, Mr Healey. Your work is important to us. We understand your frustration. But here’s some feedback. Maybe politics needs fewer grand gestures and more fixes for the little indignities that leave us wondering if there’s anyone in charge.
Bookshops are once again flourishing in the Indonesian capital but the business of selling books is only part of the story behind this welcome revival. In Jakarta’s publishing sphere, a creative community is finding fresh ways to celebrate the written word and to support local writers, keeping the art of print alive while bringing readers together in physical spaces. Monocle draws insights into the city’s burgeoning literary scene from five of its leading figures.
1.
The bookseller
Judo Suwidji
Co-founder, Periplus
Suwidji has been drawn to books since childhood. As a boy he became captivated by a map that his father owned, which would later awaken a fascination with illustrated books. Now 62, he is a co-founder of Periplus, one of Indonesia’s largest bookselling chains, with 57 well-stocked outposts nationwide (including a must-visit location in Jakarta International Airport Terminal 3).
Suwidji’s dream is simple: to introduce as many people as possible to the pleasures of reading and, with luck, even inspire some of them to start writing. Though Periplus was founded in 1985 to import foreign titles and magazines, Suwidji now wants more books about Indonesia on his shelves. “What I really hope is that at Periplus, we can introduce talented young writers,” he says. “Whether they write in Indonesian or in English, it does not matter. They are welcome. What matters is that they write well. After that, we will bring in publishers from across the world.”
To appeal to the next generation of young readers, Periplus is investing in its physical shops and recently unveiled fresh interiors, featuring lighter natural woods and brighter lighting, at its branches inside Plaza Indonesia and Plaza Senayan – two of Jakarta’s premier shopping malls. “A bookshop shouldn’t be intimidating,” he says.
2.
The writer
Ratih Kumala
Author of ‘Gadis Kretek’ (‘Cigarette Girl’) and ‘Koloni’ (‘Colony’)
Kumala is one half of an Indonesian literary power couple – her husband is novelist Eka Kurniawan – but that does not make her job any easier. “Survival as a writer demands agility,” she says, speaking to Monocle after participating in a discussion about one of her short-story collections just outside Jakarta. Kumala began her career with shorter works before publishing Gadis Kretek, which Netflix adapted into a series in 2023.
Her latest release, Koloni (Colony), takes the form of a fable about ants to explore themes of hierarchy and gender equality. Penguin Books published the English translation by Dalih Sembiring in August. “My goal when I write a book is simply to entertain. Even now, if my readers feel entertained, then I’ve done my job,” she says, advising young writers to become their own sternest critics and to have the courage to start over.
For Kumala, fiction offers an escape from the daily news cycle but it’s not mere escapism. She weaves together her own life experiences with historical events, feminism and satire. A writer, she says, must evoke the real within the unreal. “Indonesia needs fiction writers who are both critical and sensitive. [Renowned author] Seno Gumira Ajidarma once said that when journalism is silenced, literature becomes the path to speak out. When we are not allowed to report the truth, fiction becomes a way to express what truly matters, in a more humane and emotionally resonant way.”
3.
The book-fair chief
Wedha Stratesti Yudha
Committee chair, Indonesia International Book Fair
Book-related events are booming in Jakarta and they don’t come any bigger than the Indonesia International Book Fair (IIBF). This year’s edition of the annual event, which took place at the Jakarta International Convention Center in early October, drew more than 250,000 visitors and proved particularly popular with children, who could be seen eagerly exploring the lower ground floor in search of picture books and comics. Vica Lietha, author of Eat My Belly, was also there to join a pitching session, telling Monocle that it was a valuable opportunity.
The IIBF has been running since 1980. It is overseen by Yudha, committee chair of the Indonesian Publishers Association. An industry veteran herself, Yudha hopes that the IIBF can give to publishers from across the vast archipelago the same opportunities enjoyed by their international peers and those in Jakarta. “Not every author can be found in a designated bookshop and some publishers face similar challenges when it comes to distribution,” she says, while sipping coffee in the Kompas Gramedia building on Palmerah Street, home to prominent media titles, including Kompas, The Jakarta Post and Tempo.
The IIBF encourages other cities to host similar events and raise awareness of unequal access to publications across the archipelago: more remote islands tend to have higher prices and lower literacy rates. Yudha’s goal is for the IIBF to become a literary hub for readers, publishers and writers to gather and exchange ideas. “The publishing industry cannot develop in isolation,” she says. “It is interconnected with other industries.”
4.
The librarian
Sheilla Njoto
Co-founder, Margin
When Njoto returned to Indonesia from Australia, where she received much of her education, she was struck by the shortage of libraries in Jakarta. “Indonesia’s literacy rate is high but many people read words without truly grasping their meaning,” says Njoto. Channelling her frustration, she decided to do something about it. In 2025, she and two friends, Agatha Tika and Reisky Handika, opened independent library Margin in the Pejaten neighbourhood of South Jakarta as a place to encourage exploration over having to choose a book to buy.
Njoto, an art graduate, helped design a welcoming space to encourage members to settle in for long reading sessions. She also wants the library to host discussions on everything from poetry and art to politics. “Books have the power to ignite empathy,” she says. The 30-year-old is originally from Surabaya, Indonesia’s second-largest city, which sits at the opposite end of Java to Jakarta. As a writer herself, Njoto understands the importance of supporting emerging voices. That’s why Margin has a dedicated space for showcasing fiction and non-fiction titles by local writers, which are available for sale. “We have a special consignment system,” she says. “The writers place their books on our shelves and we only charge a bank transaction fee. It’s a fair arrangement for everyone involved.”
5.
The producer
Handoko Hendroyono
Owner, Filosofi Literasi
Filosofi Literasi (pictured) opened in August inside Sarinah, a rejuvenated 1960s shopping centre in Central Jakarta. The book café is the passion project of film producer Handoko Hendroyono. The 63-year-old has developed a knack for turning historic buildings into vibrant hangouts via his placemaking initiative, M Bloc Group. Giving Monocle a tour of Filosofi Literasi, he points out titles such as Mustikarasa, a cookbook containing the favourite dishes of Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, and Atheis by Achdiat K Mihardja, a 1940s novel about a young Muslim’s experience with religion. There are also newer releases, such as Dee Lestari’s Perahu Kertas and Laskar Pelangi by Andrea Hirata. For Hendroyono, technology cannot come close to replicating human touch; he believes in creating physical spaces where conversation can spark new ideas.
The coffee at the café is seriously good too. Indonesian beans are among the world’s best and Hendroyono’s grinding goes back more than a decade. It all started in 2015 with a bestselling book set in a coffee shop, which he turned into a film. Later, he and a friend opened a coffee shop with the same name. Now he wants to complete the circle by using coffee to encourage Indonesian literature and film. “Films depend on books and books need writers who can build universes worth adapting,” he says. “We built Filosofi Literasi because good source material leads to good scripts.”
Singapore’s ministers are already among the world’s highest-paid officeholders but their salaries have just been increased even further. Lawrence Wong’s annual pay has risen by 64 per cent to a staggering S$3.6m (€2.51m). By comparison, Donald Trump makes $400,000 (€356,000), while Andy Burnham earns £174,039 (€206,590). Though Wong explained that ministerial salaries had not been revised for 15 years and pledged to donate his pay difference to charity for the next half decade, the timing of the news unsurprisingly drew a spate of negative responses.
Singapore’s retrenchments have reached the highest level since the coronavirus pandemic and many households are contending with cost-of-living concerns. But beneath all the dissent, is there an argument for political officeholders to be accorded bulky paycheques? Will higher pay produce better leaders to steady the ship in volatile times?
Wong certainly thinks so. “Is good government important?” he asked the crowd at the Forbes Global CEO Conference in Singapore earlier this month. If the answer was yes, he said, ministerial salaries would need to be “broadly competitive” with private-sector roles to reduce “the burden, the financial loss and the hurdle of entering politics”. Before last year’s general election, Wong approached several senior permanent secretaries and private-sector CEOs to join the fray but everyone turned him down.
While many have fixated on the eye-watering salaries, it’s also worth considering the hidden personal costs of serving your nation. Heavier is the crown in a social-media age in which public scrutiny has only intensified, from nosy intrusions into your family life to judgements of your every move. Any misstep will likely be weaponised. In July then-acting minister in charge of Muslim affairs Faishal Ibrahim resigned after a “lapse in judgement” over messages to a woman online.
It might seem counterintuitive but paying well can play a role in upholding integrity. Corruption remains a rife, deep-seated issue in Southeast Asia, which only reinforces the need for clean, high wages in the region. Poorly paid politicians make a cesspool for corruption to fester. And the Singapore government has appeared to walk the talk when it comes to punishing underhanded behaviour. In 2024 the administration charged former minister Subramaniam Iswaran with accepting more than S$403,000 (€280,500) worth of gifts – such as tickets to West End musicals and English Premier League football matches – that he could have afforded on his own dime.
Money is, of course, no panacea for producing exceptional political leaders. But we all know that finding an integrous individual with a genuine sense of calling is a tall order, especially in this golden age of performative politics. Everyone wants leaders to be ambitious enough to run for office but humble enough to downplay their proclivities for power; decisive but open to feedback and criticism; and charismatic in global arenas while still approachable to the man on the street. If a tidy sum of money can cushion the cost of public leadership, surely the dividends will outweigh the price. No one can afford to be penny-wise and pound-foolish – not when an entire nation’s future is at stake.
As autumn takes hold in the northern hemisphere, wildland firefighters are hoping for a much-needed reprieve after a scorching summer. While the July fires in France’s Gironde region and Spain’s Almería province might have generated the most attention, more than 1.2 million hectares burned across southern Europe and North Africa, according to EU data. And yet extreme conditions persisted through September, with new forest fires cropping up south of Perpignan, along the Amalfi Coast and in central Greece.
North America faced its own bruising wildfire season, with flames ripping through residential neighbourhoods in Spokane, Washington, and continuing to burn through Canada’s far-northern boreal forests and across the thickly timbered mountains of the Pacific Northwest.
Even as the temperatures cool and much-needed fall rains help to quench the remaining blazes north of the equator, wildfire season is about to heat up in the southern hemisphere. From Australia and Chile to South Africa, the austral summer has its own sobering track record. Meanwhile, January will bring the two-year anniversary of the Palisades and Altadena fires in Los Angeles, a reminder that fire conditions can even develop in winter.
So with an increasingly year-round global wildfire season, who is in the business of detecting and tamping out the flames? Here are five companies sparking new ideas – from analog aviation retrofits to high-tech AI-enabled cameras – to help firefighters on the front lines.
Dryad Networks
Germany
Dryads are tree nymphs in Greek mythology. But in modern-day Germany, it is the brand behind an innovative wildfire-detection system. The company’s green pendulum-shaped sensors hang from trees to catch forest fires almost from the moment of ignition by sensing the gas compounds that are released from burning wood. In thick tree canopies, this method can be faster than camera-based systems.
In 2023 Dryad secured €10.5m in Series A funding to scale its ambitions globally and opened an office in Australia last year. Over the summer, a Korean national-park delegation inspected a Dryad installation deployed in California, while a Dryad team was busy running tests in a remote part of Alaska en route as a finalist for the Xprize Wildfire competition.
dryad.net
Umgrauemeio
Brazil
In 2020 Brazil was hit by devastating wildfires in the Amazon rainforest and the Pantanal. In the latter, flames tinged roughly a quarter of the vast wetland, which is spread mostly across Brazil, as well as parts of Bolivia and Paraguay. The fires shook up a nation whose identity is defined by its close relationship to nature and sparked a desire for domestic technology to detect future fires.
Enter Umgrauemeio, which translates to “one point five”, a reference to the goal of keeping global warming below 1.5C. Using its own high-resolution cameras coupled with satellite data – all fed through proprietary AI-led analytical software – the country pledges to detect new wildfires in under three seconds with its Pantera system. Today, Umgrauemeio has more than 39 million hectares under surveillance across Brazil and Spain, while its wildfire-prevention campaigns have won awards from the likes of the UN.
umgrauemeio.com
Coulson Aviation
Canada
Watchtowers Networks
Australia
The fire lookout perched on a lonely mountain peak once inspired literature. Jack Kerouac’s Desolation Angels is based on his 63-day stint on Desolation Peak while Gary Snyder’s “Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout” is a classic Beat poem. Sadly, a set of human eyes deep in the wilderness is a lost art, one to which Australian start-up Watchtowers Networks pays homage with its dual-camera automated systems that rotate continuously to provide a 360-degree panorama over remote forests up to 70km away.
Founded in the wake of the so-called Black Summer bushfires that devastated large swaths of land Down Under from late 2019 to early 2020, Watchtowers’ systems are now in service in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, as well as the US state of Utah, while the company’s new Lookouts service provides a wholly Australian AI smoke-detection model.
watchtowers.io
Seneca
USA
Drones can fight wars, rescue disaster victims and deliver pizzas, so surely they can fight fires too. San Francisco-based Seneca launched last year with $60m (€53m) in venture funding; an advisory board stocked with wildland fire professionals; and a compelling product: autonomous suppression drones that can carry 75 litres of water or foam retardant and spray down spot blazes with high-pressure hoses. Designed to complement, not replace, firefighters, the heavy-duty drones are more like mini-helicopters. They take a few beefy firefighters to muscle but they are small enough to transport on the back of a pick-up truck to a remote fire site.
seneca.com
A most surprising, curious thing happened early Monday evening: some people showed up at my apartment unannounced. Worry not – home invasions have thankfully not arrived in Lisbon and there was a small window of warning in the form of a phone call. “We’re 500 metres away from you and should be ringing the buzzer soon.” They must have been doing some kind of crab walk because it took them about 20 minutes to cover the half kilometre, which gave the household a comfortable margin to shuffle magazines, fluff cushions, check the bar and inspect the lighting. As I went about these tasks, I tried to recall: when was the last time someone came by without days or weeks of planning?
Perhaps if you live in a hilltop village in Piedmont or a cosy town in New Hampshire, this happens every day and you always need to be ready to welcome, host and let the day or evening take its course. I grew up with these types of spontaneous diversions. In Kitchener, circa grade two, Peter would knock on our back door (never the front) and suggest that we go buy some gum and comics or ride our bikes to the park. In early-1980s Ottawa, Susan and Jennifer would call after dinner and invite me over for a swim and a Duran Duran singalong. And in Notting Hill, early 1990s, Melanie, Max, Sally and many others would just drop in on a Saturday afternoon or early on a Sunday evening. Why did it stop? Is it part of modern big-city life? Are we more guarded and private? Is it more of an upper northern hemisphere thing?
Anyway, I was very happy to go down to the lobby to welcome Henri and Solène and shepherd them upstairs via the service lift – not because this was a clandestine operation but because we’re waiting for Kone to come up with an inspired replacement solution for the main lift. Settled in the living room, Solène apologised for the intrusion. She said that they had just attended a screening for one of her documentaries around the corner and felt the urge to seize the moment, swing by to say hello and catch up on the world. As I mixed G&Ts and poured wine while Mats organised the snacks (if you haven’t tried Mercadona’s canned jalapeño olives, you’re in for a proper treat), Henri gave his take on the situation in France and the state of Europe in general, and Solène was full of questions about my recent trip to São Paulo. The conversation moved towards cinema and Solène’s hopes for another Oscar (she’s a producer), more on France and whether Portugal has the apparatus in place to dodge the problems of its neighbours. For the record, I was a bit more hopeful than Henri, as I believe that Portugal has geography, ginga and favourable demographics on its side. But let’s see.
At some point, the conversation moved to furniture acquisitions and sofa makers (the pair have just taken on new digs in another part of town), more G&Ts were prepared and then an invitation was extended to meet visiting parents later in the week. As our Mercadona snack supply was dwindling and there was a nanny who needed to come off shift, Henri and Solène said their goodbyes and disappeared down the service lift. What could have been a perfectly cosy evening à deux turned into something lively, off-script and oddly nostalgic. As we tidied up and sat down to catch the final episodes of The Gentlemen, I decided that it’s time for more spontaneous appearances.
For our subscribers in Manila, you have now been officially warned: I’m about to show up for a little surprise visit and, rather than minutes, you have a full week to prepare. See you soon!
Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns.
France is preparing for another weekend of unrest following this month’s protests against rising costs of living and the deterioration of public education. What began as peaceful public demonstrations quickly escalated into widespread violence, with police deployed across the country in a bid to prevent further looting and vandalism. According to justice minister Gérald Darmanin, more than 2,000 people were taken into police custody last weekend alone.
In Strasbourg-Saint-Denis, dark plumes of smoke rose from trash-can fires, while looters – hundreds, by some estimates – broke into shops. “They came out of nowhere,” said Vincent, the owner of a tobacco shop in the neighbourhood. He added that he tried to find and call the police but no one came. “They said that they were completely overwhelmed and that they couldn’t help.”
The riots across the country exposed both the government’s lack of preparation for the protests and a deeper issue with its strategy for maintaining public order. Opposition politicians blamed the administration for the misallocation of police forces, questioning why so few specialised units were deployed to quell the unrest and why it took hours to put forces on the ground. In Marseille, only one riot unit was on hand to monitor the demonstrations. Far too few officers were there to respond when several hundred rioters arrived in the city by early morning, breaking into the town hall and tipping over a statue.
Despite weeks of social-media buzz leading up to the demonstrations, French intelligence services allegedly underestimated their size. On the day of the protests, about 550,000 people took to the streets, which dwarfed the some 60,000 security forces that had been deployed to keep the peace. “In certain large cities, we lost control,” said interior minister Laurent Nuñez on France Inter, acknowledging “a lack of anticipation.”
That limited foresight coincided with the complexity of policing a crowd as varied as the day’s demonstration. Officers had to manage “three topics at once: peaceful demonstrators, opportunistic looters and more organised ‘breakers’ attacking state institutions”, said Sébastien Malzieu, senior police commissioner at the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS) central directorate. The CRS is part of France’s national police force, dedicated to security and crowd control. The group has several specialised units, such as the CRS 8 – a highly mobile and trained riot-policing unit that acts as a Swat team – but these were only deployed in the late afternoon of 17 October to assist with the riots.
“Stopping the violence was difficult and time consuming,” said Malzieu. Police tracked looters throughout the night and over the next two days. “Officers had to go street by street, shop by shop, following the long protocol for making arrests,” he added, arguing that the operation did not result in the collapse of public order. “A great majority of institutions were protected.”
While citizens have expressed outrage over looted businesses and affected town halls, many have also criticised the government and police response to the demonstrations. On the ground, the police used tear gas, rubber bullets and stun grenades in an attempt to stem the unrest. French regulations require several warnings to be issued before force is used but videos circulating online reveal tear gas at peaceful gatherings. Reports also show that the CRS used la nasse (kettling), a controversial tactic that involves surrounding a group of protesters and preventing them from leaving, often trapping peaceful demonstrators alongside those suspected of violence.
Ahead of this weekend’s demonstrations, the government has opted for a drastic escalation of its security measures. On Tuesday it asked local authorities to establish curfews in several cities. To protect sensitive sites, it also announced the deployment of troops from the army’s long-running counterterrorism operation, who were last mobilised during the Yellow Vests protests of 2019. The Brigade de Recherche et d’Intervention (BRI) and Brav-M motorcycle units are also involved today, the latter of which is infamous for several court convictions related to brutalising protesters and journalists.
Mobilising such a battery of militarised police forces reflects a textbook pattern in the government’s handling of street unrest in recent years. During the student protests in early October, interior minister Laurent Nuñez ordered that authorities use anti-riot weapons with “no restraint”. The declaration contributed to renewed public outrage over police violence, particularly around the CRS units, whose use of anti-riot grenades and rubber bullets have maimed several high schoolers during those demonstrations.
“[The government’s] strategy is one of political desperation,” said Sebastian Roché, research director at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research and co-author of La Police Contre La Rue. “The use of the army, for example, is not a strategy that will add efficiency to dealing with public disorder. It sends a message about waging a war against the youth and people who are angry about their purchasing power.”
Where France goes from here is yet to be seen. Its politicians have used the riots as an opportunity to trade blame. Prime minister Sébastien Lecornu attributed the violence to the far left; La France Insoumise’s left-wing leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, criticised the government’s policing strategy; and Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National blamed the government and immigrants (there is no proof that migrants or the far left were responsible for the riots).
As France prepares to head to the polls next year, policing will surely be at the centre of the debate. Mélenchon and Le Pen offer sharply contrasting visions of law and order. The next presidential election will not only shape how France responds to future unrest but also whether it can find a way out of the cycle of escalation between protesters and the state.
Monocle contacted the French Interior Ministry, which declined to answer questions.
This week gallery representatives, advisers and collectors alike have been crowding into Karl Lagerfeld’s former home at the Hôtel de Maisons in Saint-Germain-des-Prés for Design Miami Paris. Prices, provenance and acquisitions were discussed in hushed tones as the design and art market got down to business at the event.
Highlights included the Designers of Tomorrow showcase, a collaboration between Design Miami Paris and Apple. Curated by Rodman Primack, it brought together four emerging studios with the theme of “Design for Presence”. Among its contributors is New York-based Isabel Rower, who presented “Padded Chair 1860”, a 19th-century boudoir-inspired seat with a fringe made of 1,500 ceramic beads. For Rower, a craft’s sense of presence begins in the making, especially with the surrender that ceramic requires: colour and finish are never predictable. “There is this inherent embracing of the presence of the present, of opening the kiln and relinquishing any control,” she says. The slow, laborious, ritualistic process brought her a “monastic” kind of presence. “Rower has created an invitation to sit,” says Primack, explaining that the piece invites people to remain still – to pause. But touch the beads and a soft clatter interrupts the expected moment of rest, drawing attention to the body and its surroundings. “It wakes you up,” adds Rower.
But the chair was not the only work to reward reflection at Design Miami Paris. Wrapping up tomorrow, the multi-day showcase of collectible design – from one-off pieces to antique treasures – was steered by curatorial director, Charlene Prempeh. Here are three other studios and galleries that caught Monocle’s eye.
The A/P Room
UAE
Based in Dubai, The A/P Room made its Paris debut at Design Miami Paris with a presentation of international designers that pushed materials into unexpected territory. California-based artist Rogan Gregory, for one, brought the farm to the table. His almost-two-metre-long upholstered chandelier combines goat fur with gypsum, while his smaller sculptural lights bring together bronze and horse hair.
theaproom.com
Pulp Galerie
France
Paris-based Pulp Galerie also made a bold first entrance to Design Miami, with orange walls and a prime spot by the doors of the Hôtel de Maisons. Specialising in design from the 1980s to the 2000s, the gallery’s manifesto reads, “style before function, form above all”. Gaetano Pesce’s Canovaci lights embody this spirit. Made with Italian glassmaker Venini, the luminaries are a ludic nod to laundry strung across Italian alleyways.
pulpgalerie.com
Galerie Scène Ouverte
France
At the presentation of “Around a Desk”, Galerie Scène Ouverte turned the 18th-century room into a sculptural office space. Made from peeled and unfurled layers of maillechort (nickel silver), Studio Lugo’s desk and library evoke the organic. “The manufacturing process is not concealed; it is highlighted, embraced and placed at the very heart of the creative gesture. A sculptural horizontality serves a functional object whose layers of metal unfold like geological strata or petals”, says founder Laurence Bonnel.
galerie-sceneouverte.com
