Checking in on Macron, France

****. The racists ruin all the great protests.

People are going anti-Semitic against Bernie today on Twitter. If I could murder one person and get away with it, David Brock wouldn’t be long for this world. He represents the very ugliest human instincts.

I don’t even understand anti-semitism. I missed that day at racist orientation.

Really? Do they represent a real faction or is it just copycats and weirdos?

It’s the Correct the Record people—troll farms under the management of David Brock—an operation of concerted Twitter and Facebook attacks against Sanders funded by Clinton.

They continued working after the election. I guess the DNC is funding them now.

Quite nasty. Of course, they attract other people.

Edit: Funded by a SuperPac for Clinton.

I'm not sure fuel subsidies is a goal. Aren't the prices where they are to discourage consumption and promote clean air? Too bad price rationing affects the ones least able to pay.

No, fuel subsidies weren't the goal, raising fuel taxes was.

bloomberg
What I meant was that Macron's retreat will cost the treasury and the money spent on riot control might have been used to fund aspects of his climb down.

Hardly. Anyone who complies with instructions and doesn't try to murder a police officer has nothing to worry about.

France’s Far Right Sees Gold in Yellow-Vest Movement



nyt

I read yesterday that thousands were in the streets of Brussels protesting—water cannons were used on them.

Sad to see the far right profiting.

I read yesterday that thousands were in the streets of Brussels protesting—water cannons were used on them.

Sad to see the far right profiting.

Street demonstrations have a tendency to attract opportunists and are easily hijacked. Marches and rallies can certainly be useful and effective — the '63 March on Washington, the '17 Women's March — but scheduled protests that go one week after week seem to bring out the worst elements, attracting the severest repression.

Why yes, you can't demonstrate for a month and not damage the economy, and not attract nazis, anarchists, looters, terrorists, you name it.

The National Front has risen up several times over the past decade, but never enough to get a majority.

I believe they are trying hard to create a new political alignment such as happened here with respect to workers.

This is new.

Coming attractions: cops knocking on your door if you protest. Watch this, people.

“Did you yell to a police officer, “Kill yourself!”?
“No.”
“We have footage of you at a protest, yelling something.”
“I have a right to protest, and **** you, it’s three o’clock in the morning. I never told anyone to kill himself.”
(Five SWAT-attired cops grab Frenchman/ American) “You’ll come with us now”

Excerpt:

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/outrage-french-protesters-urge-police-suicides-62535701?cid=clicksource_4380645_null_headlines_hed

With French police suicides on the rise, Paris authorities are investigating yellow vest protesters who encouraged police to kill themselves.

Radical protesters have clashed with police nearly every weekend for five months on the margins of largely peaceful yellow vest demonstrations demanding more help for Frances beleaguered workers, retirees and students.
On Saturday, Associated Press reporters heard some protesters in Paris shouting Kill yourselves! at police firing tear gas and rubber projectiles and charging the crowd to contain the .

Police unions denounced the protesters call as an unacceptable insult to the officers who have killed themselves and their suffering families. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner called it a disgrace and pledged his support for police and their loved ones, who have been under extra strain as the yellow vest protests have sometimes turned quite violent.
The Paris prosecutors office said an investigation was opened Sunday to find those who might be prosecuted for group offense toward a person exercising public authority.

Police unions held silent protests Friday after two officers killed themselves last week. Unions say police ranks have seen 28 suicides so far this year, compared to 68 over all of 2018.

On another protest topic, the media rights group Reporters Without Borders and Frances National Journalists Union protested Sunday on behalf of journalists who were detained and roughed up by police during Saturdays clashes.

The , named after the high-visibility vests all French drivers must carry in their vehicles, started in November against a hike in fuel taxes. It spread to become a broad movement against high taxes and Emmanuel Macrons pro-business policies, and protesters see themselves as standing up for the poor while Macron is seen as representing the rich. The movement has been marred by protest violence and the extremist views of some yellow vest demonstrators.

Recent events make it look like you were onto something.

You appear to have the results of the recent national election in France in mind. Le Pen's national party did indeed do better than Macron's in the voting, but the big change was in the drop in support for Macron's Party.

In both the election for the European Parliament (with an unwieldy ~750 voting members) , and, as well the various national elections there appears to have been a movement from the political center to the extremes of the left and right. In a slight variation to this theme, the UK elections yielded mass movements from the Conservative and Labor Parties to the New Brexit party and the Liberal Democrats. getting on with Brexit appears to have been a driver, along with the shift from the center to the extremes.

This may represent a growing polarization of the voting publics among European nations (and the EU itself) somewhat similar to that has been developing here for the past few years ( We have only two parties, but both have become increasingly polarized by the Trump populism vs the massive shift to the left by the Democrats.

There many differences in the specific issues involved ( though immigration & asylum for self-declared refugees appears to be common to nearly all).

Hard to tell how all this may play out, both in the U.S. and in Europe.

It appears increasingly obvious that Brexit will occur. How that may change internal politics within the EU remains to be seen, however, without the UK as a balancing third party, the relations between the new duopoly of France and Germany leading the EU may well become somewhat unstable.

Here, is increasingly likely we won't soon see a significant resolution of the Trade issues with China, as they appear to resolutely resist any changes to their structure of government-managed capitalism ( not in my view a good long term solution for them). Some less significant changes may occur in a new agreement, but in either case it isn't clear (to me) how that might affect our next election. Instead it appears our political issues will be fought over the continuing, tiresome and politically motivated, "investigations" coming from both sides, and, as well, the ongoing struggle within the Democrat Party to coalesce emerging their New Left agenda in an electable Candidate.

You're writing from another planet. The Franco-German axis at the core of the EU is nothing new, it's always been like that; the UK was never a stabilizing force in the EU; and in general trios tend to be less stable than duets. You should know better than invent your own facts.

In the end, Britain's departure from the EU could very well prove a good thing for the EU: it could result in less free wheelers and better appreciation for the value of the project, less negativity and cynicism.

To paraphrase Hamlet's mother, I think you are here protesting a bit too much. The UK did indeed play a unique role in the EU, and I strongly suspect its departure will change the internal dynamics among the principal remaining players. What is the basis for your general proposition that duopolies are inherently more stable than trios? Intuitively the opposite appears ( to me ) to be more likely. Certainly three legged stools are more stable than those with only two.

My impression is that the longstanding north south tensions in the EU will continue unabated, now with additional ones involving the Eastern European nations ( which have formed their own nascent defense alliance) and a rising sense of nationalism that has already become a political issue within a fairly large collection of member states, France included.

"Mock" would be a better word than "protest". Who cares what you STRONGLY suspect, George, or what your "IMPRESSIONS" are? That language, in your writing style, usually codes for: "I'm pullin' this outa my rear end..."

Your anti-European prejudices are tired, banal and narrow-minded, and that's putting it kindly. They are precisely the kind of anti-continental, endlessly recycled British-exceptionalist BS that is sending the UK off that Brexit cliff. Some people will never change.


Life. In a trio, there's always one guy who thinks the other two are up to no good. Hence couples are more stable than threesomes.

What was the basis for your proposition that the UK had a stabilizing effect on the EU?

You are unduly sensitive. Why? Such overdone defensiveness suggests insecurity.

My use of qualifiers such as "I suspect" or "my impressions are" are simply a means of distinguishing my perceptions and things I merely believe from those that I know to be true. There's a lot too much opinion and BS offered as factual material here on A2K as it is, and I try to avoid that.

I'm just trying to make you understand a point, which is that your uninformed opinions are not particularly useful, neither to you nor to anyone else, and therefore that you may wish to consider informing yourself about the EU if you want to usefully comment upon it. That could involve unlearning some of the BS you currently spreading, and spending some time there to see it with your own eyes as opposed to through the lenses of FAUX Noose, and/or reading newspapers published on the continent.

Or is that too "sensitive" for you?