19 OCT 26 SITREP

• Riots broke out across French cities over the weekend, with mobs looting businesses, setting fires, and destroying historic buildings. The unrest followed weeks of student protests, mainly in Paris, over poor school conditions, before hundreds of thousands joined demonstrations across France over fuel prices and the cost of living.
• In Limoges, a mob burned the 143-year-old City Hall, bringing down its bell tower. The building had survived World War I and World War II, but the fire destroyed priceless oil paintings, decorated ceilings, and frescoes by French and European masters.
• 54 organizations were accused of backing the violence, including Tricontinental, a Marxist think tank led by Vijay Prashad and financially connected to Shanghai-based technology investor Neville Roy Singham. Code Pink, Breakthrough News, the Communist Youth of Greece, and the French Communist Party’s youth wing were also named.
• The alleged network included 16 youth organizations, the Muslim Student Association, France-Palestine Solidarity, and the Collective Against Islamophobia. The groups faced accusations of coordinating support for the riots, deliberately destroying French cultural heritage, and using the unrest to destabilize France and the wider West.

• Attorney and University of Kentucky adjunct law professor Barrett Block accused the Obama administration of using Operation Choke Point to cut conservative organizations, firearms dealers, pawn shops, and payday lenders off from banking services. He also reported representing energy companies that lost access to banks and could no longer obtain the capital their businesses needed.
• Block said his family’s business lost its banking relationship with a major national bank after approximately 20 years, despite operating legally for more than 38 years and running 11 stores. The business had to scramble to find another bank, while the original bank invoked confidentiality restrictions and refused to explain its decision.
• President Donald Trump issued an executive order guaranteeing fair banking access, and Treasury Secretary Bessent and Comptroller Gould pursued action against debanking. Block reported that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency uncovered nearly 100,000 complaints and produced more than 420,000 pages of documents involving 9 major banks that had cut off conservatives and politically disfavored businesses.
• Representative Andy Barr’s anti-debanking proposal became part of the Main Street Capital Access Act, which Block said received 270 House votes with Republican and Democratic support. Block argued that protecting access to financing was particularly urgent for energy companies, citing close to 60 United States coal-plant closures while China built approximately 2 times that number over the same period; he warned that denying money for plant maintenance and operations threatened electricity generation and national security.

• President Donald Trump reached an agreement to buy Russian diesel to help bring down fuel prices for American farmers, freight operators, and consumers. Supporters argued that cheaper diesel would lower the cost of producing food and transporting goods, while Kyiv accused the White House of helping finance Vladimir Putin’s war effort.
• Trump also put sweeping sanctions against Russia on hold weeks after signing bipartisan sanctions legislation, saying he wanted to keep Moscow at the negotiating table. Russia continued attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, striking 10 facilities overnight despite an announced energy ceasefire that Ukraine had accepted and Russia had not.
• Bo French, a candidate for the Texas commission regulating oil and gas, supported the diesel agreement as a short-term measure and called for deregulation to lower domestic production costs. He blamed stricter diesel-refining rules introduced under the Obama administration for helping push diesel prices $1 to $3 above regular gasoline, raising costs for farmers and businesses moving goods across the country.
• Support for the agreement also rested on keeping oil sales in United States dollars to protect the petrodollar and the dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency. Dollar payments were presented as a way to bring Russian energy sales back into that system, but the payment mechanism for the diesel agreement remained unconfirmed.