French protests over fuel prices etc.

[Lord Beria3]

Superb eurointelligence briefing... key being the whiff of revolution in the air and the Ceasarist mood within the French right. Talk of removing Macron with a general is very Spenglerian!

Fears that French protests could escalate this weekend

There is a real sense of panic in Paris ahead of tomorrow's demonstrations with a high chance of violence. Parts of the gilets jaunes have become more radicalised, some even announcing their determination to force entry into the Élysée palace. Radicals and conspiracists feed on each other. The government went public saying it expects people coming into Paris to destroy and kill. This worst-case discourse hardly matches the bundle of half-baked measures the government put out to calm the storm; if anything, this fuels more anger rather than soothes it, writes Mediapart. There is a real sense of violent insurrection, as the president's entourage talks about a putsch while MEP talk of death treats to themselves and their families. 

The police, understaffed after years of budget cuts, finds itself challenged to protect both the Paris districts and possible hotspots across the country. On the other hand they stand accused of heavy-handed tactics. Pictures of a strong clampdown on high school students by the police in Mantes La Jolie went viral on social media. No word from the government on the 80-year-old who died because of a teargas grenade fired into his apartment, or the three students hit by flashballs. Teachers and high school students are raising the alarm about abusive use of power. This all fuels the sense of public anger.

It is no longer about the diesel tax, not even about purchasing power. The main subject now is democracy itself. Fears of a quasi-civil war come up in the debates. Parties and seven trade unions denounced all forms of violence yesterday. Schools and businesses have been asked to call for calm in their organisations. Daniel Cohn-Bendit warns that the real winner of this insurrection is the right, not the left. Some right-wingers are calling for Pierre de Villiers, the former chief of staff of the armed forces, to replace Macron in the Élysée palace. He was ousted by Macron last year and has been in the news in recent weeks with a book about leadership.

[Little John]

This country is a gnat's whisker away from the same.

[adam2]

Edited thread title to keep it relevant.

[fuzzy]

This country is a gnat's whisker away from the same.

Well there are certainly millions of people in yellow vest careers. Basically anyone who isn't minded to wear a tie. Being over 50, I reverted to tie wearing.

In France people are allowed to riot. Not in the UK.

[kenneal - lagger]

I'm not sure that you can say that people are not allowed to riot in this country. We had the Poll Tax Riots, the occasional race riot, few other that I remember from the miner's strike but these were confined to only a few areas of the country. In the case of the miner's strike it was confined to mining areas. We did have inner city riots over the police shooting a man recently but when you consider the time span and compare it too the number of riots that we have seen in France over any thing from race to industrial relations to these fuel riots I don't think that we compare.

I think that we are less prone to riot for some reason.

[fuzzy]

Yes I don't think we compare. 1 nights looting that disappears when the rozzers get reinforced is the UK limit. The only time they allow days of it is when the lawyers/media play the race card over some injustice. Look up George Square 1919 to see what happens when workers want changes.

[raspberry-blower]

Tim Morgan: Are Yellow jackets the new fashion? Popular unrest in the age of falling prosperity

Of course, it cannot be stressed too strongly that the French predicament is by no means unique. Deteriorating prosperity, a sense of reduced security and resentment about the perceived favouring of the super-rich are pan-European trends.

In the longer term, trends both in prosperity and in politics suggest that the West’s incumbent elites are fighting a rear-guard action. The credibility of their market economics mantra suffered severe damage in 2008, when market forces were not allowed to run to their logical conclusions, the result being a widespread perception that the authorities responded to the global financial crisis with rescues for “the rich� and “austerity� for everyone else.

This problem is exacerbated by the quirks of the euro system. In times past, a country like Italy would have responded to hardship by devaluation, which would have protected employment at the cost of gradual increases in the cost of living. Denied this option, weaker Euro Area countries – meaning most of them – have been forced into a process of internal devaluation, which in practice means reducing costs (and, principally, wages) in a way popularly labelled “austerity�. The combination of a single monetary policy with a multiplicity of sovereign budget processes was always an exercise in economic illiteracy, and the lack of automatic stabilisers within the euro system is a further grave disadvantage.

Finally, the challenge posed by deteriorating prosperity is made much worse by governments’ lack of understanding of what is really happening to the economy. If you were to believe that rising GDP per capita equates to improving prosperity – and if you further believed that ultra-low rates mean that elevated debt is nothing to worry about – you might really fail to understand what millions of ordinary people are so upset about.

Let them eat brioche indeed...

[Lord Beria3]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/1 ... n-d08.html

The WSWS is covering developments closely and these are nation-wide protests not just in Paris. There is a Arab Spring style revolt going on here.

Very exciting developments.

Interestingly, the Left seem to be rather quiet about these protests as it goes against environmental policies and taxes.

[fuzzy]

More data

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/e ... -1.3725114

[Lord Beria3]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/1 ... -betrayal/

Metropolitan Police commanders fear violent clashes if supporters of Tommy Robinson and Ukip, who are gathering for a ‘Brexit Betrayal’ march, come into conflict with counter-protestors.

Anti-fascist groups, religious leaders and trade unions have urged thousands to gather to oppose the Brexit Betrayal march, which they say will be used as a cover for racist and Islamophobic thugs to intimidate ethnic minority Londoners.

Complacency among some posters on this thread.

Little John is correct. There is a risk that should the establishment scheme to reverse Brexit the fears of the Met of violent civil unrest by the "far-right" will be just the start.

[raspberry-blower]

SOTT: The "Official" manifesto of the Yellow Vests

Some reasonable demands including:

Health/Environment •No more 'planned obsolescence' - Mandate guarantee from producers that their products will last 10 years, and that spare parts will be available during that period
•Ban plastic bottles and other polluting packaging
•Weaken the influence of big pharma on health in general and hospitals in particular
•Ban on GMO crops, carcinogenic pesticides, endocrine disruptors and monocrops
•Reindustrialize France (thereby reducing imports and thus pollution)

[careful_eugene]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/1 ... -betrayal/

Metropolitan Police commanders fear violent clashes if supporters of Tommy Robinson and Ukip, who are gathering for a ‘Brexit Betrayal’ march, come into conflict with counter-protestors.

Anti-fascist groups, religious leaders and trade unions have urged thousands to gather to oppose the Brexit Betrayal march, which they say will be used as a cover for racist and Islamophobic thugs to intimidate ethnic minority Londoners.

Complacency among some posters on this thread.

Little John is correct. There is a risk that should the establishment scheme to reverse Brexit the fears of the Met of violent civil unrest by the "far-right" will be just the start.

Can't agree with this, there are enough austerity measures oppressing enough people to provide an excuse for civil unrest already but it isn't happening. Betrayal by politicians is nothing new, what makes this so different?

[boisdevie]

SOTT: The "Official" manifesto of the Yellow Vests

Some reasonable demands including:

Health/Environment •No more 'planned obsolescence' - Mandate guarantee from producers that their products will last 10 years, and that spare parts will be available during that period
•Ban plastic bottles and other polluting packaging
•Weaken the influence of big pharma on health in general and hospitals in particular
•Ban on GMO crops, carcinogenic pesticides, endocrine disruptors and monocrops
•Reindustrialize France (thereby reducing imports and thus pollution)

That's basically asking for more state control. I'd hardly say those demands are 'reasonable'

[Little John]

The problem is not state control, per se. The problem is what the state is controlling and on whose behalf.

[kenneal - lagger]

...............There is a risk that should the establishment scheme to reverse Brexit the fears of the Met of violent civil unrest by the "far-right" will be just the start.

When the left meet a pre planned march by the far right why is it always assumed that the far right are the cause of the violence. There have been plenty of left wing marches which have ended in violence over the years with no right wing presence at all. This is not to say that I have much time for either extreme.