I’m American. This doesn’t make sense to me : how France went from free-speech rallies to 54 hate-speech arrests in one week

Days after record-breaking rallies were held around the country in the name of freedom of speech, this might seem very counter-intuitive. How can a government claim to protect freedom of speech on one hand, and move to silence dozens of residents, including a satirist, on the other? Good question. But in France, the answer is anything but simple.