Aux Barricades Citoyens, Vive La Revolution!

Marianne leading citizens to the barricades (Picture: frenchmoments )
The original painting, Liberty leading the people, by Eugene Delacroix is displayed in the Louvre museum, Paris. I don’t know how the goddess of Liberty came by the name Marianne in French folklore but Marianne embodies the spirit of France and is a hugely significant symbol of French democracy.

I have reported regularly in my news blog, The Daily Stirrer, on the Yellow Vests protests against cost of living increases caused by green policies, high taxes and and general civil unrest due to the disilluionment of citizens with the government of French president Emmanuel Macron. The Yellow Vests have been mostly low key, with occasional outbursts of violent outrage, but the latest protest which is mainly about Macron’s planned pension and retirement reforms, which will force French people to work longer and drive many less well – off retirees into penury according to the protests leaders, have taken the tensions between government and people to a higher and more dangerous level. The general strike, which has hit public transport in France particularly hard, started in early December, held through the Christmas period and appears to be gathering momentum rather than weakening.

The French, as a people, have always had a strongly anarchic streak and tend to take you the streets to protest at the most trivial annoyances. Such protests are usually concluded by noon however, when the entire nation stops what it is doing to enjoy a good luch, and a glass or three of wine or beer, after which they all make friends again and go home.

This time however, the demonstrations and protests fel rather different and darker than the usual light hearted letting off of steam by waving placards, singing revolutionary songs and torching a few cars, a kind of Gallic ritual intended to remind politicians who get above themselves that “we are many, you are few.” After a few million dollars or Eurosworth of damage has been done the government would usually cave in and give the demonstrators most of what they were demanding.

French unions are not as militant as their British counterparts nor as well organised as the Germans is not highly unionized, but their strength in France lies in the hold they have onm the public sector, which includes passenger transport by road, rail and air, seaports, food distribution, education and healthcare. Public sector unions are traditionally belligerent, with roots in 1930’s communism or socialism, and along with trade organisations such as the Fermers Association, have a stranglehold on key sectors of the economy.

What makes the current protests a bigger threat is that the boy President, Emmanuel Macron has managed to antagonise just about every interest group in the country. A former investment banker, Marcon has all the arrogance associated with that profession combined with the small mindedness off a bean counter. And that abrasive combination does dot play well to the anarchistic attitude of many French people. The entire country appears opposed to President Emanuel Macron’s plans to modernize the nation’s crazy-quilt pension regulations that confer special privileges on favored groups of workers. Rail workers, for example, a particularly pampered bunch, can retire with close to full pay while in their 40’s. Ballet dancers enjoy similar benefits. Average workers can retire at 62. Macron wants to change retirement to 64, citing the longer life-span of today’s workers, and to consolidate the nation’s 42 separate retirement plans. This does not seem unreasonable when you consider Britain’s retirement age is 66 years.

However France’s labor movement is up in arms, responding with more outrage and fury than it did when the Germans invaded in 1940 when the habit of clocking off at noon for a long lunch earned them the sobriquet of ‘Cheese – eating surrender monkeys,’ from US President George W Bush after the French government of the day refused to support one of his wars.

In the 1940s of course, orinary French people thought there would be little difference between being governed by a bunch of intellectual socialists who had a penchant for sitting around discussing impenetrable philosophical propositions and a bunch of National Socialists with a collective penchant for wearing extremely shiny boots. They have not forgotten how wrong they were on that one and are not going to let Macron create a replical of the collaborationist Vichy government with the higher authority this time being a bureaucratic dictatorship in Brussels.

Macron’s attitude to the general strike is, “I’m the president, you all have to do what I say.” Unless he backs down however, the transport unions will blockade oil refineries and petroleum distribution centers, crippling most road transport just as rail unions have crippled the rail network. These in turn will affect food distribution, emergency services and airports. Ports will also be targeted.

France is heading for industrial warfare between the state and its citizens. Similar strike action and mass demos brought down the government of Gen Charles De Gaulle in 1968, an earthquake that still shakes French society and haunts its leaders. Looming over this local difficulty however is the gigantic, tottering shadow of the European Union. With the main opposition to Marcon coming from Marine Le Pen’s nationalist and anti EU party Rassemblement National, which would certainly follow Britain’s lead and quit the EU if victorious in the next election. Riding on a wave of nationalistic feeling, anti EU parties have come to the fore in Italy, Germany, Poland and Spain, which accounts for all the EU’s large population nations.

Having been a major supporter of political integration for EU member states throughout the eras of its five most recent presidents France has been right alongside Germany in pushing for the creation of a federal European superstate ,(sorry, did you think I was being frivolous when I compared Marcon’s government to the World War 2 collaborators of the Vichy government?) an idea that plays well to the metropolitan elitists and media luvvies in Paris but is about as popular as a fart in a lift with the general public.

 

General Strike brings France To Standstill As Nation Protests Macron Policies

French police drag Yellow Vest “protesters” away from Bastille Day parade as they jeer Macron
As Mr Macron was riding by at the start of the parade, he was greeted by people in the crowds who turned their backs, booed and whistled. Before the parade, he delivered a message to the French people and said he wanted to highlight France’s “irrevocable commitment to consolidate French and European security”.

Macron Threatens G20 On Climate Then Backs Off
France’s boy president and current climate scaremonger in chief and leading European federalist Emmanuel Macron arrived in Japan for the G-20 summit full of sound and fury, which like the stuff of Macbeth’s soliloquy in Shakespeare’s play turned out to signify nothing.France’s boy president and current climate scaremonger in chief and leading European federalist Emmanuel Macron arrived in Japan for the G-20 summit full of sound and fury, which like the stuff of Macbeth’s soliloquy in Shakespeare’s play turned out to signify nothing.

Residents Of Paris Suburb With Migrant Ghetto Feel ‘Abandoned’ as Crime Surges
In the areas where [ migrants ] have congregated, usually places with a surfeit of run down municipal housing the lawless behaviour in the migrant communities is causing problems for French people. Despite promises from government to increase police presence, residents of the 18th arrondissement of Paris say they feel abandoned as crime rises in the area.

bYellow Vest Violence Erupts Again, 23rd Straight week Of Protests

Clashes between Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protesters and French riot police on Sturday (20 April,)during the 23rd straight week of protests across France. Police arrested 137 protesters Euro News reports.

Slash taxes now, French tells Macron after three-month ‘great debate’

France must slash taxes now, or face ongoing civil unrest. According to the French prime minister, this is the main message from an unprecedented three-month “great debate” in the wake of anti-government “yellow vest” protests. Announcing publication of the findings from two million online contributions and 10,000 hours of town hall debates around the country, Edouard Philippe said on Monday there was “huge discontent” in the country. Astronomical levels of taxation was one of the prime concerns, alongside unemployment, immigration, and surrender of national sovereignty to the European Union.

Macron Isolated After More High Profile Resignations. Pressure Mounts On French President

On top of the Yellow Vests debacle, which is now destabilising France as the anti – government protests continue, a string of resignations from the tottering government of President Emmanuel Macron has prompted Gérard Larcher, leader of the French Senate to warn Macron that his authoritarian tendencies were partly to blame for the civil unrest crisis and political instability that have weakened his presidency.

Ghosts Of ’68 Threaten Macron’s Technocratic Dream.

The idealistic hope that mass protests and civil disobedience could trigger real social change met with some success in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but looked to have died after the USA’s 1960s civil rights movement and anti – war protests. The recent mass demonstrations of Frane’s gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement in 2018, a movement …

France: Yellow Vests Rampage After Founder Arrested

Yellow Vests leader arrested in latest anti Macron protests
Violence has erupted across France once again, days after French authorities arrested a key organizer of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement. After today’s protests began peacefully the Paris police once again used riot busting tactics, attacking the yellow vested demonstraters with teargas and batons as protesters began to get noisy during the so-called ‘Act VIII” …

France’s yellow vest revolt against Macron will cause huge headache in 2019

Since the first incarnation of the EU an The Common Market, FRANCE has always been considered one of the bastions of European stability and a poster state for financial and political integration among European Union countries. But former Goldman Sachs banker Emmanuel Macron has thrown both France’s position as Germany’s chief sidekick and the dream …

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General Strike brings France To Standstill As Nation Protests Macron Policies

France has been closer to social breakdown than the political establishment in the EU and their mainstream media sock puppets will ever admit since the the gilets jaunes demonstrations at their height nearly torched Paris and other cities. It would be a mistake to think, as television news bulletins and large circulation newspapers have suggested that support fot the protest movement has dwindled or the national mood is any less angry. Last month we reported on protests promted by new, over – zealous restrictions on agriculture imposed by the EU, as thousands of French farmers drove their tractors into Paris and other cities and blocked the main highways.

Today, in responce to calls by unions and activist groups for a nationwide strike, public workers across the country stayed home on Thursday, immobilizing public transit across the country as the first general strike in more than 20 years began.

The main reason for the walkout was President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms (not unlike how a planned – then scrapped – gas tax hike sparked the giles jaunes).

On the fist day of the strike, which is planned to last through the weekend, parts of Paris resembled ghost towns during the morning rush hours. Roads were empty, and train stations were deserted, according to the Times.

The biggest industrial action of Macron’s tenure is, so far, outweighting by a huge margin the Yellow Vests protests  in scale: 50% of French teachers are reported to be off work, nine out of ten trains have been cancelled today and eleven of the fourteen lines in the Paris Metro are closed. A total of 245 separate demonstrations have been announced across France as students,  police officers and firefighters, healthcare workers and others joining the action. Striking ground staff at Air France forced numerous flight cancellations, leaving thousands of travelers stranded. Air France cancelled 30% of its domestic flights and 10% of international short- and medium-haul flights on Thursday, RT reports.

Millions of workers are staying home.

In Paris, some commuters and shoppers resorted to bikes, skateboards or walking in the bitter cold as buses and underground trains failed to run. Some joked that the strike had made Paris into a much more ‘eco-friendly’ city. This  way of looking at the situation must have appealed to thousands of Extinction Rebellion activists and other environmentalist groups who took the opportunity to link their the climate action agenda to the protests.

The strike is expected to continue until Monday as the unions and Macron butt heads over the controversial pension reform proposals. Paris police are deploying 6,000 riot police to do battle with demonstrators who have decided to take their yellow vests out of the closet and back into action.

Many of the French capital’s most popular tourist spots were forced to shut their doors because of the strikes. The Eiffel Tower and the Orsay museum did not open on Thursday, while the large parts of The Louvre, the Pompidou Center and other museums were mostly closed with only the most popular exhibits accessible.

Outside the busy Gare du Nord railway station taxis lined up with their green lights on, struggling to find customers in the deserted streets.

Of more immediate concern for Macron and his beleagured government is the fact that dozens of gilet jaunes protesters are blocking the nations major fuel terminals in the south and near the city of Orleans, leaving more than 200 petrol stations without fuel on Thursday, while another 400 report they will run out on Friday. If that action persists the country could be at a standstill by the end of next week. These blockades show the protesters have a coherent strategy which could bring the country to its knees and force Macron out of office or at least into a humiliating climb down. No matter how many times political leaders wax lyrical about the wonders of clean, green, sustainable energy, society still needs oil,  in spite what the Swedeish Baby Troll Greta Thunberg and her supporters wish for.

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Yellow Vests Week 43: Tensions Escalate Again As France’s Protests Continue

For the Yellow Vests movement in France, September 7th was billed as a come back from the summer break when there has been a lull in activity. France traditionally comes to a near standstill in August each year as the French head off on their annual vacation, and the protest movement was no exception.

Unpopular French President Emmanuel Macron tried to take political advantage of this distraction to advance one of his many unpopular policies, pension reform plans that will create a single national pension system with higher contributions for individual taxpayers and lower ones for business, thus stoking up the potential for an escalation of protests to the levels witnessed earlier in the year.

Former investment banker Macron is not trusted on the pension issue by 70 percent of the population according to polls and his plan is seen as a ruse to lift the retirement age to 64 from 62 and a continuation of broader policies to tax workers more to pay for the welfare state while cutting taxes for business and wealthy individuals in the name of economic stimulation and competitiveness in the world economy.

The vehicle fuel taxes that triggered the fist protests last year were ostensibly “green” but in effect they served the same purpose of relieving the tax burden on business and shifting it onto the general population.

The notion that business comes before environmental concerns reinforced by word going into the Newsdump Weekend that pesticide use in France will be allowed within distances ranging between 15 and 30 feet of schools and homes.  Environmental activists and the EELV environmentalist party expressing their opposition to the plans. Such policies have destroyed Marcon’s credibility as they contradict his pretence to be heading a ‘green’ government, having made grandiose but unachievable promises to phase out petroleum and diesel vehicles and make France a net zero emissions economy by 2040.

Thousands took to the streets of France to protest today, not in the huge numbers at the height of the movement in the early months, but significantly up on recent weeks.

Demonstrations took place in Paris, Bordeaux, Montpellier and Rouen as part of Yellow Vests’ “Act 43” rally. In some cities, particularly Montpellier, the protests turned violent with clashes between the participants and riot police. Violence was also reported in Rouen.

“The demonstrators threw projectiles on the police as protests continued into the night. Summations were made and there was the use of tear gas in response to the throwing of projectiles, the protesters were rejected and returned outside the perimeter,” the sub-prefect of permanence, Jean-Éric Winckler, said as quoted by AFP.

Yellow Vests protestors in Rouen (picture: http://www.chb44.com )

​In Montpellier, between 1,500 and 3,000 people took part in the rally, with clashes also reported near the city’s station. According to AFP, some of the protesters fired projectiles, prompting the police to use tear gas.

Protestors in Montpellier use umbrellas as makeshift shields (Picture: Daily Mail )

Some incidents and clashes were also reported in Lille, where more than 600 protesters took part in the rally (according to a police source), while the Yellow Vests say the number of demonstrators there stood at 1,500.

Meanwhile, during a rally in Paris, an emblematic figure of the Yellow Vests movement, Éric Drouet, was fined twice “for organizing an undeclared event” and was ordered to leave the perimeter.

MORE ON FRANCE

Macron admits Yellow Vest chaos COULD be his fault — ‘I made MISTAKES’

Macron Moves Against yellow Vests, Bans Protests In Neighborhoods With “Ultra” Radicals

French Journalists Reject Government Narrative, Show Support For Yellow Vests Yellow Vests

Throughout the developed world we have witnessed, over the past few years, increased political pressure being applied to news organisations to promote the government line on issues such as multiculturalism and diversity, climate change, vaccines, military interventions and mass surveillance. Some governments have even go so far as to effectively abolish the right of free speech by criminalising so – called ‘hate speech’, a crime where, in common with medieval witch hunts, to be accused is regarded as suffficient proof of guilt. While Silicon Valley new media giants have made no secret of their political biases, even appearing to be vying for the role of official censors of internet content, the corruption of mainstream news journalism has been more insidious.

Though governments in the democratic world have been following a trend towards greater authoritarianism, implementing mass surveillance policies, and clamping down on freedom of expression, resistance is growing, and nowhere more so than France, a nation with a long tradition of anarchic dissent. For six months the ad – hoc protest movement known as Gilets Jaunes (Yellow vests) have protested against the globalist government of ‘boy – president’ Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker pushed into power by the establishment in a bid to fend of a victory by the nationalist Marine Le Pen and her Rassemblement National (formerly Front National.) The Macron government is seen as ruling in the interests of the rich and of global corporations. The Yellow Vests protests were triggered by punitive fuel taxes, a part of Marcron’s over – ambitious plan to turn France into a net – zero carbon emissions economy, and by rising living costs and high unemployment. Now what began as an expression of dissatisfaction among people on moderate incomes has evolved into something much bigger, something that could change France and further weaken the European Union

Marcon’s response to the protests has been to delpoy the para – military Gendarmerie against the protestors and authorise brutal riot control tactics against unarmed citizens.

Police armed with riot guns and rubber bullets confron yellow vests protestors

Now, after supporting the government line so far, the news media have turned on Marcon, whose government is already on the brink of collapse as civil unrest threatens to turn into civil war. Over 300 media organisations, journalists, photographers, and others working to deliver news to French citizens have put their names to a letter denouncing the excessive brutality of the methods used in trying to suppress the protests. Rubber bullets, tear gas, water cannon, baton charges and punishment beatings have all been used against people involved in Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protests and members of the press corps in the cities and towns of France.

The letter claims that press freedom in France has been suffering for years under both conservative and socialist governments. Macron’s predecessor in office, the socialist Francois Hollande even went so far as to ‘ban’ conspiracy theories, though how that was intended to work we’re unable to say. The general dissatisfaction with all levels of French government entered a new phase following the start of the Yellow Vest protests in November of last year, Franceinfo reports.

“All these forms of violence have physical (injury), psychic (trauma) or financial (broken or confiscated equipment) consequences. We are personally and professionally denigrated and criminalized,” the journal wrote, highlighting the work of journalist David Dufresne who has catalogued at least 698 cases of people being attacked or injured by police at the protests, including 85 journalists.

The signatories to the letter also raised the issue of police demanding press cards, something not always available to independent journalists, saying, “As a reminder, journalism is not a regulated profession. It is not the press card that justifies our profession. That is why we demand that the government take the necessary measures so that law enforcement agencies stop harassing us and let us work freely.”

The issue of police violence towards members of the Yellow Vests has sparked concern from other sectors of society, including medical professionals, who, through their profesional body, said they had never seen so many serious injuries, some of which have included lost hands and eyes, during a protest movement.

Earlier this week, a 19-year-old woman who was so badly injured by police during a protest in Marseille on December 8th filed attempted murder charges against the officers, saying she was hit by a rubber bullet and then brutally beaten by plainclothes officers as she lay on the ground.

According to the 19-year-old, she had only just left work for the day before the assault and has been so badly injured that it took her four months to be able to return to her job in the retail sector.

In another example of excessive police violence, a 72 year old woman who fell to the ground after being hit by a rubber bullet was set on and beaten so badly by police officers as she lay on the ground that she lost an eye. Commenting on the outrage President Macron said he hoped she had learned some wisdom from the incident. It is encouraging that French journalists are no longer prepared to play down such revolting arrougance from the ruling elite.

Macron applauds the beating of an old woman by police (Picture via http://www.neonnettle.com )

Paris In Chaos As “Armageddon” Protesters Riot On French May Day Holiday

After six months of street protests against the government of President Emmanuel Macron, the anger of the French people showed no sign of abating this may day holiday as tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Paris and other French cities on to mark International Workers’ Day (also known as Labuor Day). Following the pattern of the ‘Yellow Vests’ protests, nobody expected todays efforts to be peaceful  and it was inevitable protestors would  clash with French riot police.

The demonstrators included Yellow Vests, trade unionists, climate change protesters and Black Bloc (antifa) – which posted on social media that they wanted an “Armageddon” rally that would turn Paris into the “Riot Capital of Europe,” according to a report in  The Daily Mail reported today.

Paris Workers Day Riots (Picture: Zero Hedge)

 

More than 7,400 police, gendarmes and soldiers were on duty to quell the more violent protesters. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said “‘There’s no question of dramatising anything, it is a question of being prepared,” adding that “1,000 to 2,000 extremists” were expected to take part in the protests.

Paris police said in the afternoon that 250 people had been arrested, most for public order offences related to the rioting, as cops clashed with ‘Black Bloc’ anti-capitalists. The Sun reported large areas of Paris are on lockdown as an unprecedented 7,400 police officers have been drafted onto the streets.

More May Day riots are expected in the French capital today, tomorrow and through the weekend following the months of chaos caused by ‘Yellow Vest’ protesters. The massive security presence on the streets of French cities was announced by Interior Minister Christophe Castaner. May Day is a Bank Holiday and a traditional time for Left-Wing workers to rise up against the ruling elite echoing the May Day revolution that led to the collapse of the Russian Empire and the formation of The Soviet Union.

Marching alongside workers organisations, pensioners, students and others, the protesters were attacked with of tear gas, water cannon baton carges and other crowd control measures. Our source in France tells us dozens of masked and hooded anarchists clashed with riot police in southern Paris today (Wednesday), burning bins, smashing property and hurling projectiles. The anarchists hijacked a May Day rally that was focused on protesting against President Emmanuel Macron’s policies, and the cost of living increases that have resulted from them.

Tens of thousands of trade union and “yellow vest” protesters were on the streets across France again, days after Macron outlined a response to months of street protests including tax cuts worth around 5 billion euros ($5.6 billion). Macron announced a series of proposals in response to the protesters demands, but many in the grassroots movement, which does not have a leadership structure, have said they do not go far enough and lack detail. The president’s problem is that nobody believes him, previous promises he has made have amounted to no more than creative accounting, moving money from one budget to another.

The increasing involvement of extremists in the protests signal that events are taking a nasty turnm in France and the protests are not likely to end well for anybody.

The founder and former leader of France’s right-wing Front National (FN) party, Mean-Marie Le Pen delivered a May 1 speech at the Place des Pyramides during a rally to honor Jeanne d’Arc. “Let’s have the courage to be nationalists,” he told the crowd, predicting “serious social and political dramas” to come.

Meanwhile in the southern French city of Toulouse, over 1,000 protesters made their way through the streets of La Ville En Rose, however local media has yet to report any violence according to The Local. There was also total media silence in the UK on this story, which should have led most news bulletins.

The yellow vest protests, named after motorists’ high-visibility jackets, began in November over fuel tax increases but have evolved into a sometimes violent revolt against politicians and a government seen as out of touch.

The banners in today’s crowds reflected the anger among some in the movement who feel abandoned by Macron’s economic policies.

The 41-year-old president, a former investment banker, pushed a reform blitz during the first 18 months of his presidency that impressed wealthy business and professional people but infuriated low-paid workers, who feel he favors big business and is indifferent to their struggle to make ends meet.

“Here are the thugs,” one banner read, showing Macron, European Union Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and International Monetary Fund chief Christine Lagarde.

Another targeted the president directly: “Macron, what have you done to us?”

Thousands of people also demonstrated in cities from Marseille to Bordeaux and Lyon, according to a report from Reuters.

It is becoming obvious that the only way France’s ruling elite, for years even more out of touch with the mood of the public that the political establishments in Britain, Germany and The USA, will solve this crisis is for the President and his government to resign and call a new election.

MORE ON FRANCE

 

General Strike brings France To Standstill As Nation Protests Macron Policies
Today, in response to calls by unions and activist groups for a nationwide strike, public workers across the country stayed home on Thursday, immobilizing public transit across the country as the first general strike in more than 20 years began.
The main reason for the walkout was President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms (not unlike how a planned – then scrapped – gas tax hike sparked the giles jaunes)…

Macron Isolated After More High Profile Resignations. Pressure Mounts On French President

On being elected President of France, Emmanuel Macron said he would rule in the style of Roman God Jupiter

On top of the yellow Vests debacle, which is now destabilising France as the anti – government protests continue, a string of high profile resignations from the tottering government of President Emmanuel Macron has prompted Gérard Larcher, leader of the French Senate to warn Macron that his authoritarian tendencies were partly to blame for the civil unrest crisis and political instability that have weakened his presidency.

Mr Macron’s office announced this week that government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux and Digital Affairs Minister Mounir Mahjoubi were leaving the administration, along with European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau. Monsieurs Griveaux and Mahjoubi are said to be planning to launch rival bids for next year’s mayoral election in Paris. The current mayor, Anne Hidalgo, a socialist is seeking re-election.

Mrs Loiseau, was a key player in communicating the French government’s stance on Brexit throughout the unsuccessful negotiations, she will move to head up Mr Macron’s pro-Europe La République en Marche (LREM) party in the May 26 European parliamentary elections.

Mr Griveaux has been government spokesman since November 2017, while Mr Mahjoubi was named digital minister in May 2017. Mrs Loiseau, a career diplomat, joined the Macron government in June 2017. A reshuffle is expected by Monday, the date of the next cabinet meeting, but could be announced early to avoid being bumped down the news bulletins by the coming weekend’s Yellow Vest protests.

In the last eight months, Mr Macron has waved goodbye to his popular ecology minister Nicolas Hulot, ally and interior minister Gérard Collomb, and close advisor Ismaël Emelien.

The latest batch of resignations have further eroded the ceredibility of Macron’s leadership, already undermined by easily supportable claims that he is a president for the rich and the global corporations (The Davosocracy,) and his policies are putting further pressure on low paid and middle income groups in what is now known to be the most highly taxed nation on the planet. The three ministers who quit the government on Wednesday were all assumed to be close allies of Macron. These latest resignations bring the number of cabinet members who have quit since the boy president took office in May 2017 to ten.

“Maybe the [resignations] are a reflection of Mr Macron’s vertical governing style … maybe they reflect the head of state’s growing isolation,” Mr Larcher told Europe 1 radio shortly after the departures were confirmed in an emailed statement.

The spate of ministerial resignations, along with rising living costs, tax increases, immigration and Macron’s push to integrate France more closely politically and economically with germany have all contributed to the discontent that triggered the Yelloiw Vest movement and now has Marcon’s with his political opponents depicting him as an increasingly solitary figure with diminishing popularity and an aura of cluelessness.

Ghosts Of ’68 Threaten Macron’s Technocratic Dream.

January 16, 2019

The idealistic hope that mass protests and civil disobedience could trigger real social change met with some success in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but looked to have died after the USA’s 1960s civil rights movement and anti – war protests. The recent mass demonstrations of Frane’s gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement in 2018, a movement …

France: Yellow Vests Rampage After Founder Arrested

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5 January, 2019
Violence has erupted across France once again, days after French authorities arrested a key organizer of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement. After today’s protests began peacefully the Paris police once again used riot busting tactics, attacking the yellow vested demonstraters with teargas and batons as protesters began to get noisy during the so-called ‘Act VIII” …

France’s yellow vest revolt against Macron will cause huge headache in 2019

December 26, 2018 europe, society, Uncategorized brussels, europe, france, macron, yellow vest

Since the first incarnation of the EU an The Common Market, FRANCE has always been considered one of the bastions of European stability and a poster state for financial and political integration among European Union countries. But former Goldman Sachs banker Emmanuel Macron has thrown both France’s position as Germany’s chief sidekick and the dream …

Germany and France furious after UK joins EU nations to BLOCK bid to dominate technology industry

December 21, 2018 Uncategorized

BRITAIN has teamed up with the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain to block electrical and electronic engineering giants Alstom and Siemens from creating a mega Franco-German corporation to dominate European tech industry. Siemens and Alstom agreed last year to merge certain operations, creating a company with £13.5million (€15billion euros) in revenue and a workforce of 62,000. …

Yellow Vests block Major Roads, Cause Transport Chaos In France

December 20, 2018 europe, society cars, france, Roads, transport, yellow vests

Reuters reports French “yellow vest” protesters wreaked havoc with road transport on Tuesday by occupying autoroute toll booths and even torching some of them. France’s biggest toll road operator, Vinci Autoroutes , said there were demonstrations at 40 of its sites and that several highway intersections had been heavily damaged, mainly in southern of France. …

More Woe For France’s Macron,Now Gilets Jaunes Joined By Gilets Bleus

December 19, 2018 Uncategorized

Macron fiddles with himself while Frsnce burns (Picture: express) Travellers in France, mainly around Paris, have been hit by delays at airports as French police slowed down passport controls in a protest over overtime pay. As we predicted last weekend, the Yellow Vests protestors are now being supported by the police service. The first action …

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Macron Moves Against yellow Vests, Bans Protests In Neighborhoods With “Ultra” Radicals

 

Ready for a bit of the old ultraviolence?pic.twitter.com/pXmC81yoEQ

— Bellingdog (@Bellingdawg) March 16, 2019

France is cracking down on “yellow vest” protesters following a weekend of renewed violence – as the Macron administration announced on Monday that it would ban demonstration in several areas of France – including the Champs Elysees in Paris, if “ultra elements” are present, according to Interior Minister Edouard Philippe.

‘We will ban demonstrations if ultra elements’ are present, said Philippe, according to CNEWS.

The ban will apply to “neighborhoods that have been most affected as soon as we have knowledge of” the “ultras.”

“I am thinking of course the Champs-Elysees in Paris, the place Pey-Berland in Bordeaux, the Capitol Square in Toulouse”, Philippe added, where “we will proceed to the immediate dispersal of all groups.”

Philippe added that he has asked the State Judicial Agent to “systematically seek the financial responsibility of troublemakers.”

Yellow Vests Turn Violent Again, Cars Torched, buildings Vandalised As Macron’s ‘Great Debate’ Ends

After several weeks of largely peaceful protests, with no reports of significant violence during weekend 13, 14 and 15, France’s Yellow Vests are back in full swing on weekend 16, following the end of President Macron’s unsuccessful ‘great debate’ – during which thousands of local meetings were conducted over a two-month period in the hopes of solving national issues through citizen debates.  Unfortunately the tone of the meetings was patronising and condescending to people who attended, with officials taking the line that ordinary people were not well enough informed on matters of economics and international relations to understand President Macron’s programme for transforming France.

Unfortunately after Macron signed the treaty of Aachen with Germany’s Angela Merkel, a committment to further integrate the two nations economically and politically, some people suggested, a tad unkindly perhaps, that Macron was simply rebooting Vichy France, the government of collaborator Marshal Petain during the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1944.

Up to half-a-million people participated in 10,000 meetings across the country to discuss social issues ranging from taxes – which the French pay the most of any OECD country in the world, to immigration, surrender of national sovereignty to the EU, the state of French democracy and climate change.

“We have been patient but now we want results,” Yellow Vest Laurent Casanova told press agency AFP.

With no meaningful changes yet apparent or on offer after twelve weeks of nationwide cathartic venting which began in November 2018, the Yellow Vests are now back to angry demonstrations as the protests kick off their 16th week with an ‘ultimatum’ rally – marked by lootings, fires, and mayhem that organizers maintain are due to a radical minority.

Some protesters attempted to erect barricades to block streets around Place Charles de Gaulle – prompting the police to respond with water cannon, tear gas and other riot control techniques.

Vehicles were set on fire according to AP as the demonstration turned into yet another riot, and the lootings began. Shop windows were mashed and furniture broken. Around 200 people were arrested according to BFM TV, while about 80 shops near the Champs Elysees had been damaged and/or looted according to AFP, citing Champs Elysees committee president Jean-Noel Reinhardt.

Wooden boards nailed over the windows of iconic stores such as Boss and Lacoste in the most fashionable street in Paris were ripped off and thrown onto burning heaps as looters emerged, arms laden with stolen clothes, some of which were used to fuel the flames.

Cafe tables and chairs also ended up on the fire and the famous Fouquet’s brasserie — favorite locale of the rich and famous, including ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy who controversially used it to celebrate his 2007 election — was also sacked in an orgy of anti-capitalist destruction.

“It’s unfortunate but this is the only way we can make ourselves heard,” a yellow vested protestor who traveled from the southeastern Bourgogne region for the protest, billed as an “ultimatum” to Macron, said as he looked on.

The police, having erected a ring of steel around the Arc de Triomphe, battled for over seven hours to disperse the protesters, using copious amounts of tear gas, stun grenades, and water cannon.

But for most of the day the protesters, who waved French as well as regional flags and chanted “Macron resign”, held the famous avenue which was shrouded in smoke and teargas.

“It’s the apocalypse!,” one demonstrator shouted with glee.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe vowed to “severely punish” the radicals responsible for rioting and setting fires around one of France’s richest neighbourhoods.

Philippe visited the Champs-Elysees on Saturday to show his support for riot police and firefighters struggling to get the unrest under control after it broke out amid yellow vest protests.

He estimated up to a few thousand troublemakers were responsible for Saturday’s “unacceptable” violence. Speaking to reporters, he praised firefighters who saved people trapped in a building set fire by protesters.

Saturday’s riots were so severe that President Macron had to cut short a vacation at the La Mongie ski resort in the Hautes-Pyrénées following a three-day tour of East Africa which took him to Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya.

Macron skied on Friday, telling La Depeche du Midi “I’m going to spend two-three days here to relax, to find landscapes and friendly faces,” adding “I’m happy to see the Pyrenees like that, radiant, although I know it was more difficult at Christmas” referring to the lack of snow in December.

In response to Saturday’s violence, Macron said over Twitter that “strong decisions” were coming to prevent more violence.

Macron said some individuals — dubbed “black blocs” by French police forces — were taking advantage of the protests by the Yellow Vest grassroots movement to “damage the Republic, to break, to destroy.” Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Twitter that those who excused or encouraged such violence were complicit in it. –Bloomberg

 

In December, Macron attempted to assuage angry protesters with 10 billion ($11.2 billion) in tax cuts and other benefits for low-wage pensioners, but nobody believed he intended to turn promises into action.

Week 11 Of Yellow Vests unrest keeps pressure on Macron

by Arthur Foxake

Picture: Yellow vests protest – chalk on concrete by French street artist Pascal Boyart (via Breitbart Europe)

France’s yellow vest protesters hit the streets again last weekend, we’re a bit behind this week so excuse the lateness of this report please. Our editor was abroad covering the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland (actually he and his wife are visiting their daughter in the French Alps, but it’s only a couple of hours drive away.) It’s reported that numbers were up again, not only in Paris but also in many provincial centres where protests took place. This keeps pressure on President Emmanuel Macron, who can only rant about internal divisions in the movement as if they are an organised political force rather than a spontaneous expression of disillusionment with the establishment by random groups of citizens.

Multiple protests took place on Saturday around Paris and other cities, the 11th straight weekend of action prompted by Macron policies seen as favoring the rich. Also Macron’s recent treaty with The European Union’s other leading globalist, which moves towards politically integrating France and Germany has angered many citizens to whom the thought of becoming even more entangled with the Germans is anathema (German voters aren’t impressed either, there have been protests in Germany too.)

Globalisation has ensured the rich get richer, mostly by outsourcing labour to Asia, and again by driving down wages by importing cheap Labour. The result has been the gap between rich and poor in the West has increased.
And up till now working class voters have been bough off with generous state benefits and have continued to vote for establishment parties. However the end result of these policies which increase taxation of the lower groups in society while driving down earnings, and the debts incurred by bloated and inefficient state sector organisations has meant those benefits are now having to be cut.

A leader of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement has called for an “uprising” at next Saturday’s protest, following the severe injury of one of its major figures over the weekend.

The protest last weekend, dubbed “Act XI,” saw 69,000 participants across France, with 4,000 in the capital of Paris. One of the major incidents involved prominent figure Jerome Rodrigues who was shot at by riot police with “flashball” rounds which resulted in the activist being seriously injured, facing the prospect of losing one of his eyes, Le Figaro reports.

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Ghosts Of ’68 Threaten Macron’s Technocratic Dream.

The idealistic hope that mass protests and civil disobedience could trigger real social change met with some success in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but looked to have died after the USA’s 1960s civil rights movement and anti – war protests. The recent mass demonstrations of Frane’s gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement in 2018, a movement which has spread to Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Britain, Italy, Sweden and Canada looks to have resurrected this style of political activism.

The yellow vest movement is not idologically fuelled as protests from the 1920s to 1960s were; it’s fueled by desperation and what Francis Fukuyama in a recent essay (Against Identity Politics (Foreign Affairs, Sept/Oct. 2018),termed the working classes’ “perception of invisibility” a view echoed by French geographer / author Christophe Guilluy who said that “the French people are using the gilets jaunes to say we exist.” Unstoppable”: Christophe Guilluy on the cultural divide driving the yellow vests (via Arshad A.)

“Not only does peripheral France fare badly in the modern economy, it is also culturally misunderstood by the elite. The yellow-vest movement is a truly 21st-century movement in that it is cultural as well as political. Cultural validation is extremely important in our era.

One illustration of this cultural divide is that most modern, progressive social movements and protests are quickly endorsed by celebrities, actors, the media and the intellectuals. But none of them approve of the gilets jaunes. Their emergence has caused a kind of psychological shock to the cultural establishment. It is exactly the same shock that the British elites experienced with the Brexit vote and that they are still experiencing now, three years later.”

The author expands on how the working-classes have come to be excluded?

 “All the growth and dynamism is in the major cities, but people cannot just move there. The cities are inaccessible, particularly thanks to mounting housing costs. The big cities today are like medieval citadels. It is like we are going back to the city-states of the Middle Ages. Funnily enough, Paris is going to start charging people for entry, just like the excise duties you used to have to pay to enter a town in the Middle Ages.

The cities themselves have become very unequal, too. The Parisian economy needs executives and qualified professionals. It also needs workers, predominantly immigrants, for the construction industry and catering et cetera. Business relies on this very specific demographic mix. The problem is that ‘the people’ outside of this still exist. In fact, ‘Peripheral France’ actually encompasses the majority of French people.”

And the role the liberal metropolitan elite played in this?

 We have a new bourgeoisie, but because they are very cool and progressive, it creates the impression that there is no class conflict anymore. It is really difficult to oppose the hipsters when they say they care about the poor and about minorities.

But actually, they are very much complicit in relegating the working classes to the sidelines. Not only do they benefit enormously from the globalised economy, but they have also produced a dominant cultural discourse which ostracises working-class people.

The middle-class reaction to the yellow vests has been telling. Immediately, the protesters were denounced as xenophobes, anti-Semites and homophobes. The elites present themselves as anti-fascist and anti-racist but this is merely a way of defending their class interests. It is the only argument they can muster to defend their status, but it is not working anymore.

Now the elites are afraid. For the first time, there is a movement which cannot be controlled through the normal political mechanisms. The gilets jaunes didn’t emerge from the trade unions or the political parties. It cannot be stopped. There is no ‘off’ button. Either the intelligentsia will be forced to properly acknowledge the existence of these people, or they will have to opt for a kind of soft totalitarianism.”

By mobilizing 80,000 heavily armed “security forces” in an unsuccessful attempt to suppress dissent, as President Macron has, looks more like hard authoritarianism than soft totalitarianism. The boy Macron has of course tried to justify his heavy handed response by a fatuously claiming  he has a duty to defend “the social order,” i.e. to maintain the  domination of the ruling elite.

But the French elites are discovering the unsettling reality that it’s impossible to defend every traffic-speed camera, every bank, etc. from sabotage and that their working class challengers are smart enough to know this. I’ve often finished article calling for civil action against authoritarianism with the line, “THEY CAN’T PUT US ALL IN PRISON.” It is intended as a warning to those who would control society, rather than an exhortation to those who challenge authority.

The class analysis of the current crisis shows a reversal of polarity from the 1968 general strike of elite students and labor unions. Fifty years ago, the students of the elite universities, in an orgy of virtue signalling (the left never changes though they scream for change,)  lent their support to the trade unions and this combination nearly toppled the government with a general strike.

Now, students of the elite Paris universities, brainwashed with politically correct ideology on gay and trans rights, the desirability of mass immigration and the duty of nanny state to micromanage our private lives, are supporters of the technocrat elite, as the most fervent hope of most of these students is to nail down a position in a government department or QANGO, jobs which are threatened by the yellow vest dissenters.

The labor unions are also missing in action, as they are now adjuncts of the ruling elites, feeding at the same trough of tax revenues and corporate globalization-financialization profits and promoting the same policies that are damaging to working class living standards and social mobility: mass immigration, globasisation (which the working class recognise as exporting jobs,) Islamification of society, erosion of national sovereignty and cultural values and so on.

The gilets jaunes / yellow vests are a working class revolt against the elites, who like medieval aristocrats, regard the “lower orders” as stupid, infantile and in need of paternalistic guidance, and those among the working and lower middle class who identify with the elites: the pseudo-progressive hipsters, the aspiring technocrats and the comfortably secure state employees, all of whom are now on the elite side of the barricades.

The Paris elites and their enablers may find that the next general strike won’t immobilize Paris, it will strangle Paris from the periphery. The unions which were on the democratic side of the barricades 50 years ago may find their identification with the ruling elite challenged, and they’ll be forced to either remember their roots and side with the authentic working class (yellow vests) in a general strike or throw their support behind the undemocratic technocrats like Marcon and those in his administration, who planned to run France for the benefit of their own caste, the university educated, progressive liberal, globalist, soft left.

The quasi-progressives claim to be anti-fascist but are themselves the anti-working class fascists (Beniot Mussolini defined fascism as the collaboration of state and corporate business to exercise absolute power,) and are not appreciating the fact that the ‘stupid working class oiks’ of the Yellow Vest movement are exposing their self-serving hypocrisy. Like the US liberals of the early twentieth century, they are all for civil rights “so long as the niggers don’t leave the plantation.”

Here”s a news snippet that encapsulates exactly what is wrong with the way Marcon and his elitist cronies are trying to handle the crisis. “On Tuesday, the person picked to lead the country’s planned “great debate” on the issues resigned over her €14,666 monthly salary (£13,200; $16,800)” which is $200,000 annually, roughly seven or eight times the average worker’s salary.

Now what kind of plonker would put an academic who already has a well paid position in charge of establishing dialogue with truck drivers, factory workers and labourers who, thanks to elitist policies, are stuggling to make ends meet. That’s the kind of insensitivity responsible for triggering the anger that drives the protests, an illustration of class division in a nutshell. The fake-progressive technocrats are skimming $200,000 a year to defend an indefensible undemocratic neofeudal system of exploitation that handsomely benefits the few at the expense of the many. And the hypocrites call Marcon’s opponent Marine Le Pen “far right.” Bollocks.

 

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French police drag Yellow Vest “protesters” away from Bastille Day parade as they jeer Macron
As Mr Macron was riding by at the start of the parade, he was greeted by people in the crowds who turned their backs, booed and whistled. Before the parade, he delivered a message to the French people and said he wanted to highlight France’s “irrevocable commitment to consolidate French and European security”.

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