Yellow Vest Protests in France because President Macron hiked up the tax on fossil fuels

Duppy

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missing the point
What is the point exactly, other than trying to take away legitimacy of a mass populist movement that's protesting for a wide variety of things including an end to France's global exploits in Africa, using the billions sent to EU projects on France instead, larger wages and pensions, more taxation for the rich, spending money on fixing public infrastructure, ending the flow of migrants and refugees under the current situation which is not able to take care of the average Frenchman as it is among other things?

If everything was working out great for the French, a negligible number of Russian shills on social media couldn't get this many people to protest for this long. People would be too busy being happy and complacent.
 

Liu Kang

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The French had to decide between a white supremacist who would’ve been as bad as Trump and a globalist investment banker who married his teacher that groomed him sexually. They were fukked either way. I guess they thought because he wasn’t as appaling as Le Pen that he was going to actually give a fukk.

He doesn’t.
This was in the second round. First round had 15 or so candidates and the two legit leftist parties didn't make the cut.

Simply, the rise of Macron was explained by the slow death of the Socialist Party (PS) which was the governmental left (compared to the Republicans aka the governmental right and yeah they actually named themselves after you guys party a couple of years ago :snoop:). Both basically exchanged power since WWII. The PS died because Hollande was a sub par president and its legacy made it that any candidates from its party would have been obliterated. On top of that, for the last election, the members of the PS decided as their candidate a relatively charisma-less dude who actually leant left but was not good enough of a candidate to make any wave. So on the PS' left, Mélenchon thrived while Macron did on their right basically splitting the vote and killing the party. That means that now, on the left side of the policial compass there is a dying PS and the main force is now the Melenchon party which leans very to the left (Melenchon was always on the left of the Socialist Party and his party also took members from the Communist party). On the right, you still have the Republicans, the far right that has been ever growing since 81 but you also somehow have Macron which is center-right. So on the left, there is only one legit party that is Melenchon's LFI.

The issue with the LFI is that they are too much on the left to actually be able to govern the country at some point. It might be surprising but it's a bit of a myth that France is leftist. We did have socialist presidents but it was not the 1936 kind of socialism, it was a socialism (Mitterand in 81 and 88, Hollande in 2012 and Jospin as the prime minister in 97) that accepted capitalism as the main economical model but with emphasis on social and state-driven progress. Unfortunately too mellow to actually be leftist and not enough capitalist to be center so it was a kind of center-leftish ideology. I don't mind to be honest, I think it's a kind of left that is reasonnable and trying to fare and make social progress on an economic model that is far too much ingrained in our societies to be able to be changed.

But if you take the candidates and their ideology in the first round of the past elections and make totals, the right has almost always dominated. Simply, the Socialist Party being the second French party, it was always the alternative to the (ex-RPR, ex-UMP) Republicans the same way Dems are the alternative to you guys Repubs. But really, the French lean right on average.
 

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What is the point exactly, other than trying to take away legitimacy of a mass populist movement that's protesting for a wide variety of things including an end to France's global exploits in Africa, using the billions sent to EU projects on France instead, larger wages and pensions, more taxation for the rich, spending money on fixing public infrastructure, ending the flow of migrants and refugees under the current situation which is not able to take care of the average Frenchman as it is among other things?

If everything was working out great for the French, a negligible number of Russian shills on social media couldn't get this many people to protest for this long. People would be too busy being happy and complacent.
Look, I'm open to the argument that they have legitimate gripes, but after Trump, I'm not so convinced of the wisdom of crowds.

People hate elitists until they realize elitists have uncomfortable factual plausible solutions, like medicine.
 

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As usual, covert action only exploits fissures, it can't create them. So Russia is fukking around and not helping, I'm just sharing what is a real problem. I AM NOT SAYING RUSSIA CAUSED THIS.

As for the French issue at hand...I think people are too quick to just "give people what they want" without asking how shyt got this way.

This is what led me to think this issue is more than just "muh neoliberalism" talk

Reform is needed in the French state, and it resembles, to me, the shyt Greece was facing.

French got lazy and didn't fix the core of their civil society and its time to pay up

Tell me if I'm wrong


www.nytimes.com/2018/11/11/world/europe/france-mayors-quit-macron.html

Read that and give me your thoughts
The article seems to highlight how Paris is giving less and less to local municipalities, disrespecting them and cutting their sources of revenue out all in the name of progress with that progress seemingly not showing up :hubie: Cut taxes of the rich while imposing further taxation on workers and have your government officials tell them they're too stupid to understand when they complain :hubie:
 

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What is the point exactly, other than trying to take away legitimacy of a mass populist movement that's protesting for a wide variety of things including an end to France's global exploits in Africa, using the billions sent to EU projects on France instead, larger wages and pensions, more taxation for the rich, spending money on fixing public infrastructure, ending the flow of migrants and refugees under the current situation which is not able to take care of the average Frenchman as it is among other things?

If everything was working out great for the French, a negligible number of Russian shills on social media couldn't get this many people to protest for this long. People would be too busy being happy and complacent.

Sounds like you feel it shouldn't be brought up. You're wrong. Brexit and the US election and other event have shown a Russian hand influencing events often to the detriment of society.
It doesn't negate some popular sentiments but it should be known that it is happening and stopped. The Russians were planting tweets, rallies, and etc on both sides of the Black Lives Matter protests, that doesn't make the purpose of Black Lives Matter movement void. gtfoh with the hand waving bs.
 

Liu Kang

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III- HEALTH/ECOLOGY

Macron's approach of taxing the rich less, taxing the middle and poors of France more, and being extremely dismissive of any concerns with comments like "Cross the road to get a job" are driving forces behind the protests, and they're extremely bipartisan as far as ideology goes; You can find pictures of right-libertarians, fascists, communists and anarchists wearing yellow vests on the streets of Paris to protest the neoliberal policies of Macron's government.



The demands of a supposed 30k member delegation of this Yellow Vest movement, going to post a translation of it I saw floating around somewhere as well.

25 propositions to overcome the crisis

Since politicians pretend not to understand the claims of the Yellow Vests. Since the claims of some are far from sufficient to ensure a serious change and perennial change, void a non-exhaustive list but that has a guarantee of results in the long term. We are not naive, the plutocrats in power will do everything to prevent it, but it is nevertheless essential to enforce these few proposals.

I- ECONOMY/LABOR

1. GENERAL CONDITIONS of taxation. Enclose in the constitution the impossibility for the state to collect more than 25% of the wealth of citizens.

2. IMMEDIATE INCREASE of SMIC, pensions and the social minimum by 40%.

3. MASSIVE HIRING of civil servatns to restore the quality of public services before the RGPP: stations, hospitals, schools, posts…

4. HOUSING: plan construiction of 5 million HLM [rent-controlled housing] to lower the rents, the land and revitalize the economy by through hiring. Severely punish the prefects and mayors who leave homeless people sleeping outside.

5. BANKS: make them smaller in order to protect themselves from crises, break monopolies, separate the speculative deposit and prohibit public bailout.

6. CANCEL DEBT: this is not necessary, it has already been reimbursed several times.

II- POLITICS

7. CONSTITUTION: Rewrite a Constitution by the people and for the interests of the sovereign people. Establishment of referendums of popular initiative. Establish referendums of popular initiatives.

8. PROHIBITION OF LOBBYS and other networks of influence. Permanent exclusion from the political life for anyone elected with a judicial record, put an end to the cumulation of the mandates.

9. FREXIT: exit from the EU in order to regain our political ,monetary and economic sovereignty (respect of the referendum of 2005), regain our right to mint money coming out of article 123 ofd the Lisbon Treaty (50 billion euro savings per yer).

11. IMMEDIATE END TO PRIVATIZATION and recuperation of public property: motorways, airports, car parks, SNCF… [state railways]

12. SPEED RADARS AND VIDEO VERBALIZATION: withdrawal of useless radars and verbalization video which is nothing but a disguised tax.

13. NATIONAL EDUCATION: to exclude all ideology from this ministry and to stop destructive educational techniques (global method…)

14. JUSTICE: quadruple its budget and limit in law the length of proceedings. Simplify and make justice entirely free and accessible for all.

15. MEDIA: break monopolies and media-political cronyism. Make the media accessible to citizens and guarantee the plurality of opinion. Put an end to the propaganda of the editocrats. Withdraw the public subsidy of the media (2 billion per year) as well as the tax loopholes of the journalists.

16. GUARANTEE the freedom of the citizens and inscribe in the Constitution the prohibition for the State to interfere in the teaching, the education, health, family…

III- HEALTH/ECOLOGY

17. OBSOLESCENCE PROGRAM: to extend manufacturer guarantees to 10 years minimum ensuring the presence of spare parts.

18. PLASTICS: prohibit in the very short term the commercialization of plastic bottles, glasses and other polluting packaging.

19. PHARMACEUTICAL LABORATORIES: to weaken their influence, general states of health and hospitals.

20. AGRICULTURE: ban on GMOs, carcinogenic pesticides, endocrine disruptors, monoculture…

21. REINDUSTRIALIZATION of France in order to eliminate imports and thus pollution.
I'm not feeling this list at all. Reeks of populism
IV- GEOPOLITICS

22. NATO: immediate exit from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and prohibition to engage the French army in wars of aggression.

23. FRANCFRICA: Stop the looting and the political and military interference. Give the money from dictators and ill-gotten goods to the African people. Immediately repatriate all French soldiers. End the CFA franc system that keeps Africa in poverty. Create equal status with African states.

24. IMMIGRATION: Prevent migratory flows that can not be accommodated or integrated given the deep civilizational crisis we are experiencing.

25. FOREIGN POLICY: scrupulous respect for international law and signed commitments.

These 25 proposals will immediately change the daily life of the French. The simple articles 9 and 10 of this charter can bring up to 130 billion euros per year to the public treasury. France is a rich country, its people valiant and hardworking, it does not have to live in misery.

Not feeling this list at all. Reeks of the far right.
 

Liu Kang

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Sounds like you feel it shouldn't be brought up. You're wrong. Brexit and the US election and other event have shown a Russian hand influencing events often to the detriment of society.
It doesn't negate some popular sentiments but it should be known that it is happening and stopped. The Russians were planting tweets, rallies, and etc on both sides of the Black Lives Matter protests, that doesn't make the purpose of Black Lives Matter movement void. gtfoh with the hand waving bs.
Well, bringing up Russia would be relevant if they actually created the issue though. You mean that they are surfing the wave in order to amplify it. I don't think we have a wide spread issue the same way you guys had with your election and Trump.
 

Duppy

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Not feeling this list at all. Reeks of the far right.
I think it's a largely bipartisan list with obviously far-right elements, after all legitimate fascists have also been a part of the movement but some of the shyt on there sounds pretty good :hubie:Feel like some level of concession must be made by the government, of course not all of these are going to happen, perhaps none even. Something is better than nothing in my eyes.
 

Duppy

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Look, I'm open to the argument that they have legitimate gripes, but after Trump, I'm not so convinced of the wisdom of crowds.

People hate elitists until they realize elitists have uncomfortable factual plausible solutions, like medicine.
Hillary did win the popular vote though, the American system is just extremely broken as it is

Worth noting that it's only an issue now that Hillary didn't win, she was fine betting on the system until it ate her up :mjgrin:
 

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Well, bringing up Russia would be relevant if they actually created the issue though. You mean that they are surfing the wave in order to amplify it. I don't think we have a wide spread issue the same way you guys had with your election and Trump.
Again, covert action never INVENTS situations. It exploits them.
 
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