Are we going to see a French Trump? It’s one of the questions as the country is rocked to its foundations by riots that are said to be the worst since 1968. That was when leftist students tried to topple the Fifth Republic, which had been created and was then led by Charles de Gaulle. One could argue, though, that the current crisis in France is less predictable and more dangerous.

That’s our sense as the fires spread from the Champs Elysee and the government considers whether to declare a state of emergency. Not only have the fires spread, but protests featuring yellow-vested citizens irate over fuel taxes are now marked by black-masked mobs roaming the streets on more nihilistic missions. The riots could last beyond Christmas, and some are calling for revolution.

The reports are so dramatic that we put in a call to our erstwhile Paris correspondent, Michel Gurfinkiel, to see whether he thought a comparison could be drawn with the events 50 years ago. The more he spoke — in measured terms, as always — the more clear it became that today’s danger might be greater. Starting with the lack of the kind of strong leader that, in 1968, obtained in De Gaulle.

It’s not only the absence of a De Gaulle. There is also the absence of Big Labor. It’s a feature of the 1968 events that the leftist students were such a threat that the labor unions, then major factors in France, swung behind the government and helped bring the crisis to an end. Though not before President De Gaulle, nearing the end of his reign, slipped out of the Elysee Palace and disappeared for six hours.

French unions, though, have steadily declined over the past 50 years, along with the traditional economy and the old-style Civil Service. They may still engage in protracted strikes in such fields as the railways or airlines, but with limited success. They don’t have anymore the leverage they once enjoyed. The anti-communist union leaders — like Irving Brown and Andre Bergeron — are, alas, gone.

Monsieur Macron is no De Gaulle. He was already at sea politically when one of his closest security officers, dressed as a flic, was filmed beating a protestor. France was shocked, and gravitas began to drain away from Mr. Macron with each disclosure of how close he was to the offending aide. At this point, Mr. Macron has an approval rating not two-thirds of Mr. Trump’s.

Mr. Gurfinkiel sees the crisis in France as part of the wave of populism that has been lapping at the European establishments. There’s Brexit in Britain, the League and 5 Star movement in Italy, Prime Minister Orban in Hungary, Law and Justice in Poland, and Syriza in Greece. At this point Mr. Macron is losing support and appears to be in a panic over Europe’s parliamentary elections set for May.

Those elections, incidentally, are going to be on the basis of proportional representation. That’s the scheme whereby seats in the legislature are allotted to parties based on their share of the vote. What’s happening in Europe is unpredictable enough. The European elections could yet empower in the continental legislature extremist blocs, despite the current vacuum in France.

The Sun has no use for the National Front. After 2017 it rebranded itself as the Rassemblement National. Its rising star, Marion Marechal, Jean-Marie Le Pen’s granddaughter, is, at 28, seen as too young (then again, too, when Joan of Arc was 28, she’d been dead nine years). The Hard Left champion, Jean-Luc Melenchon, is widely unpopular. The American-type conservative, Laurent Wauquiez, is not yet a contender.

In any event, it’s going to be quite a season as Brexit comes to a head. What we take from it is that Mr. Macron is in no position to lecture his American counterpart, as he’s lately been doing. The best thing for France would be to embrace the ideas of the economist Jacques Rueff, who saved France with an understanding of free markets and honest money — of which France and De Gaulle were titanic tribunes.

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Image: Marianne. Via Wikipedia. Correction: Nine is the number of years Joan of Arc had been dead when she was 28; the number was given incorrectly in an earlier edition.