The thing speaks for itself:
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| Gas! |
So why the riots in Paris?
Paris police said Sunday that 133 people had been injured and 412 had been arrested as protesters trashed the streets of the capital during a demonstration Saturday against rising taxes and the high cost of living.
Charred cars, broken windows and downed fences from the riot littered many of the city's most popular tourist areas on Sunday, including major avenues near the Arc de Triomphe, streets around the famed Champs-Elysees Avenue, and the Tuileries garden. Graffiti was also sprayed on many stores and buildings.
Activists wearing yellow jackets had torched cars, smashed windows, looted stores, threw rocks at police and tagged the Arc de Triomphe with multi-colored graffiti. French police responded with tear gas and water cannon, closing down dozens of streets and Metro stations as they tried to contain the riot.
Even in France, there are limits to what people will tolerate. Will politicians elsewhere draw the proper conclusions? Not a chance.
14 comments:
I wish California could be more like France.
What possible lessons can the political elite learn from the barbaric masses that aren't accurately captured already in polling of selected "focus" groups? The elite already know what must be done, they have UN reports and international agreements to guide their way towards the utopian light.
On the plus side, the fact these protestors are wearing reflective safety vests while they burn Paris is a real step forward for the reflective vest industry. They are finally getting the recognition and media fashion attention that has escaped them for so long.
On the plus side, the fact these protestors are wearing reflective safety vests while they burn Paris is a real step forward for the reflective vest industry. They are finally getting the recognition and media fashion attention that has escaped them for so long.
It's a great look.
Dee Snider's magnum opus is rapidly becoming the theme song of my life....
Somewhat minimized in the reporting is that in addition to higher taxes and increased emission standards (which means even higher gas prices) is that the government's proposals included a reduction in pension benefits. People in the west are accustomed to ever-increasing bites in taxes, but grumble and rant on social media. But when the government actually starts reducing the base amount of income (I know, higher taxes also reduce income), the optics become unbearable. People accustomed to both putting in and taking out of the system may still grit their teeth and put up with it; people used to only taking out of the system are not so sanguine. And, if you've imported a couple million takers, and disenfranchised your own dependent citizens, it gets ugly. Life imitating Fortnite. Then all you have to do is add in a pandemic and we're back in the Middle Ages.
How do we get some of those "community organizers" over here to trash Minneapolis and oppose Walz's gas tax hike?
Be careful what you wish for, Jerry. It's a nice picture, but the problem with these types of protests is that anyone can put on a yellow vest, but have an agenda much different than that of the protest organizers. Some just want to see things burn. Others that are dependent on the government, and who want even more from the government, are feeling the bite of the latest government actions but have little concern for, or common cause with, the people already funding the government.
Be careful what you wish for, Jerry. It's a nice picture, but the problem with these types of protests is that anyone can put on a yellow vest, but have an agenda much different than that of the protest organizers. Some just want to see things burn. Others that are dependent on the government, and who want even more from the government, are feeling the bite of the latest government actions but have little concern for, or common cause with, the people already funding the government.
Yep. There are a number of competing agendas here. The only common factor is Macron's fecklessness.
The French disaster reminds me, really, of the hideous reality that when you start giving stuff away, it's awfully hard to stop. Our country faces a reckoning with this as well.
BB, just try and take a bone out of a dog's mouth.
Macron "caved" today, but really he just postponed the implementation from January to May (after the elections). May is a lovely time of year to be out in the streets, setting fire to things. Macron cannot back down on the emission standards, the bosses in Brussels are true believers and will not brook it. If the French police and troops start siding with the protesters you could have EU "peacekeepers" (Warsaw Pact with better suits) on the scene. At which point the nationalists leaders in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland will say, "See! See!" - and Putin will cluck his tongue as he rubs his hands together under the table.
So if Macron caves again in May, you're going to get UN peacekeepers in Paris....OK, I'll be buying some popcorn if a bunch of them are from the other side of the Rhine! :^)
(why are there trees planted along the Champs-elysees? So the Germans can walk in the shade!)
Oops, EU. but you get my point....
I don't think the EU will let Macron cave on the emissions standards (and resulting increase in taxes and cost of petrol). The only thing it appears he could give back would be the pension benefit cuts, which won't address the underlying problem but merely add to the burden of the tax-payer. My sense is that the initial (and non-violent) yellow vest protests were the working bourgeoisie protecting their interests against government takings, but also respecting the property and heritage of their country. Then the hard-partiers joined in.
The EU knows that it's grand vision is fracturing. On the "legal" (civilized) level, you have the will they/won't they Brexit situation (for the record, my contacts in our U.K. office, having spent about a million dollars doing the legal and regulatory work to extricate Britain from the EU, are pretty much of a mind to "get on with it already"). In Germany and Sweden they have been able to suppress the news, but not the social unrest, of the immigration issue. France going rogue, or rowdy, could be final straw - in which case, troops sent by those-who-know-better is not an unlikely scenario - and the ghastly bones and animosities of Europe's fractious and ruthless past will be laid bare again.
FWIW, Powerline linked to a blog by an ex-pat who has been in the protest crowds, and they give a description of growing rage at the way the State has made it harder and harder to drive or motorcycle in the city. Rather than decreasing traffic lanes and eliminating parking ramps like Minneapolis and St. Paul have done (Paris did that long ago), they now have almost universal radar traffic monitoring and computer billing to the vehicle owner. This has been galling (or Gauling) enough, but part of the the latest emissions effort is to reduce the speed limits. There is a suspicion that this is as much about generating income as it is about changing lifestyles, and vandalism on these radar machines has been going on since last summer. Interesting read.
https://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/
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