This came following five nights of rioting initially triggered by the fatal police shooting of a Muslim teenager, Nahel M.

Macron's comments are hardly original, yet they warrant scrutiny from a free speech perspective.

One cannot help but raise an eyebrow as President Macron pleads with social media giants to erase the "most sensitive" content pertaining to the rioting.

With a wave of his hand, he decrees, "platforms and networks are playing a major role in the events of recent days."

His words, veiled under a guise of concern, echo a familiar tune that has been played on the world stage before.

"We've seen them; Snapchat, TikTok and several others, serve as places where violent gatherings have been organized, but there's also a form of mimicry of the violence which for some young people leads them to lose touch with reality.

"You get the impression that for some of them they are experiencing on the street the video games that have intoxicated them," he added.