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Thousands of "gilets jaunes" (yellow vest) protesters, often masked, riot in the streets of Paris and other major French cities for a third weekend. Hundreds have been arrested and injured (including police) in the often violent protests. Reuters documents the activities in some detail. This video shows a mob of protesters surround and attack a policeman (it's ok, he gets away, with help from one or more of the protesters).
The protests are over fuel taxes imposed to discourage fossil fuel use and help France meet its carbon emission goals under the Paris Climate Accord (which the U.S. is not party to.)
With the usual nod to common sense:
The U.S. embassy issued a statement urging citizens to be careful, saying that "violent clashes between police and protesters" continued in at least three of Paris's 20 districts, known as arrondissements. "Avoid all demonstrations, seek shelter in the vicinity of clashes, follow instructions of security personnel"
Chants and graffiti sprayed during the protests sometimes expresses frustration with the administration:
[Some] targeted the Arc de Triomphe, chanting "Macron Resign" and scrawling on the facade of the towering 19th-century arch: "The yellow vests will triumph."
And other times simply more general anarchistic statements:
Protesters smashed the windows of a newly opened flagship Apple Store (AAPL.O) and luxury boutiques of Chanel and Dior, where they daubed the slogan "Merry Mayhem" on a wooden board.
French President Emmanuel Macron commented Tuesday on the protests, saying that:
he understood the anger of voters outside France's big cities over the squeeze fuel prices have put on households. But he insisted he would not be bounced into changing policy by "thugs".
Those "conciliatory" words have no doubt improved the situation.
The protests enjoy widespread support inside and outside the major cities, including from many of the police even as they strive to keep order, and show no signs of abating.
Also at NBC.
(Score: 5, Informative) by nishi.b on Monday December 03 2018, @10:14PM (3 children)
Ok I'll try to give some context here (as a french).
Macron was the young finance minister from Hollande (previous president, socialist party). He did the standard (for about 20 years now in France) right-wing, "business-friendly" policy that included lowering taxes to companies and rich individuals, while easing laying off people and restricting worker's rights (e.g. an employer could not pay you the same for sunday work, now they can). Hollande was elected on a center-left platform and did mostly nothing except some right-wing reforms during his 5-year mandate.
Macron left the government a year before the election to avoid the usual "payback" that politicians in power get when they go back to the elections.
He presented himself as "beyond the right and the left" "not a professional politician" and all the "we are new and different from others, most of the candidates with me for the house will be non-politicians" and so on.
The presidential election was characterized by the absence of union of the left (so something like 6 parties competed on the left); Macron having the support of moderate socialists (that wanted to avoid the announced socialist party demise), centrist, and moderate right-wing politicians that did not like their own very conservative candidate (Fillon). Even though Fillon was the probable winner, but he was caught in a scandal over corruptions a few months before the election. Even though Macron was touted as "the only option against the far right", Macron got only 24% of the vote in the first run. As he was opposed in the second run only to the far-right candidate, he won because people from the full political spectrum considered him less dangerous than the far right.
Since the start of his presidency, his first decisions were to completely remove the overtax on the rich, remove 200 billions of taxes on companies and removing hundreds of thousands of government-supported jobs. He also froze all government employees pay and minimum benefits for retirees and unemployed (with inflation it means a net loss), increased a tax on retiree's revenue and said that all this would boost the economy and reduce unemployment (that did not work). He also continued a policy of reducing costs in the public service (hospitals, train lines, administration and so on), thus closing a lot of small structures like local hospitals in rural areas. At the same time he was boasting all the time, nicknamed himself Jupiter and gave the impression of taking all decisions without ever listening to anyone else.
Unemployment did not really decrease, but the rich got richer and the middle class got poorer. Since his presidency he already faced opposition from nurses, train company employees (privatization is on the way and he reduced the train worker's rights in the process), and unions opposed to his changes in worker's right (such as reducing the maximum amount a wrongfully discharged employee can get through the justice system).
He had a very popular ecology minister (former nature TV show presenter) that quit a few month ago after having all decisions taken against his wishes (pesticides, hunting protected species, pollution and so on) despise grandiose speeches on the subject.
A number of scandal from his party (a personal friend/bodyguard beating up protesters in the street, members of his party increasing their own pay to 5 times the average salary and so on)
Since a few months he increased another tax, the tax on gasoline. At the same time the prices were already skyrocketing due to worldwide petrol prices increases. And they announced that the tax will increase again in january.
A woman on facebook living in a small city said that she already had troubled making end's meet and that she could not pay for that increase just to go to work with her car, unlike people from the big cities who have public transportation, and that people should protest using the yellow vest that anyone must have in their car.
In France like in many other countries many people despise or hate unions and political parties since they form a kind of oligarchy where the friends at the top share public money and power and don't experience "ordinary life".
The call to protest was relayed by thousands but remains outside any organization.
It is thus really hard to say what "they" want because some were protesting immigration, ecological taxes, while others want more public service outside Paris, having more say in the decisions that are taken and so on.
Every time some people proposed themselves as representatives to go talk to the government they were violently rejected (death threats and so on) by other gilets jaunes.
During the whole thing, Macron and his prime minister said they would not cancel the next tax increase and basically rejected any dialog with the protesters.
Now about the violence, this is more violent than usual, but not that much, as it is very frequent to see violent clashes at demonstrations. Some wonder whether Macron wanted to repeat what he had successfully done in the past : let the violence erupt, have the media show the violence, and present himself as the stable president against the violent protesters so that the protesters become unpopular.
It seems this time this hasn't worked (yet ?) and it is extremely complicated now to respond to protesters that are not organized (political parties from all over are trying to be a part of it, but they are followers, not leaders).
Moreover, if I am to believe the french journals, many protesters are not used to protesting, many are retired, people from small cities and rural areas that feel their life degrading, and not the usual unions or suburbs-style rioters. Some find a lot in common between this and the start of the french revolution (protests against taxes considered unfair while the political elite lives in luxury) but I am not sure how much this applies.
I have no idea how things will turn out, but I hope that helps people outside of France understand a little more about this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 03 2018, @10:28PM
Thanks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Monday December 03 2018, @11:59PM
It's good summary.
I'd add that there's a chance the government is trying to wait out the end of Fall Strike Season (Sept-Nov, usually), and hope that some conciliatory moves during the Too-Cold-to-demonstrate winter months, will avoid a restart when Spring Strike Season comes.
Most people see, to agree that the "tax this behavior" approach of the French government has gotten borderline oppressive over the last few decades, vreating a giant burden on the working class.
The violence, however, is usually mostly from disenfranchised poor, who find an outlet for their boredom, frustration, or hate of systemic racism, by setting a few things on fire at the first excuse (penalties are pretty light). This case adds a few frustrated people worried to lose what they worked hard to get, and a sprinkle of extreme-right which would have preferred Marine Le Pen to win the election and want to delegitimize Macron.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday December 04 2018, @03:29AM
Many thanks, it's a clear coherent image now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford