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Violence Escalates as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

nytimes.com

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Re: Violence Escalates as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

#31

Post by toomuchtodo »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #20
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #3

The French government has been raising taxes for years. People have been struggling to make ends meet. Macron comes off as a privileged president that has no clue about what his citizens are going through. Things are going to escalate further if nothing changes.

> Macron comes off as a privileged president that has no clue about what his citizens are going through. Macron is a neoliberal, it was obvious things were going to end badly. Yeah raise the gas tax, cut pensions and let the free market solve everything. Doesn't work with public policy. It was depressing seeing Mélenchon come in third in 2017.

I’m curious how France deals with the populist candidate who rises to power from Macron’s tone deaf policies.

Re: Violence Escalates as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

#32

Post by eli »

rasz wrote: post #12

"fun" fact: average earner in France can buy ~2K liters of diesel with one months salary, average earner in Poland ~600 liters. Half both numbers for minimum wages. French started this protest over expensive diesel ...

Is it truly about diesel or is it like how the American revolution was about tea?

Re: Violence Escalates as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

#33

Post by daleco »

rasz wrote: post #21
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #3

The French government has been raising taxes for years. People have been struggling to make ends meet. Macron comes off as a privileged president that has no clue about what his citizens are going through. Things are going to escalate further if nothing changes.

>struggling to make ends meet French wages are on average ~8x higher compared to the post 2000 join date EU countries, prices are same across EU.

Source? I don’t think you are correct. I’m French living in the US. Median net income is around 1,700 euro. Most people I know make around 1300-1900. And many retired are bellow 1k euro... People are pissed because they are struggling, and have nothing left at the end of the month. Politicians keep rising taxes, while cutting it for the rich.

Re: Violence Escalates as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

#34

Post by daleco »

rasz wrote: post #12

"fun" fact: average earner in France can buy ~2K liters of diesel with one months salary, average earner in Poland ~600 liters. Half both numbers for minimum wages. French started this protest over expensive diesel ...

The economy in France has been anemic and never really recovered since the last crash (high unemployment). Lots of hard working french people are struggling. They feel that they are not being listen to.

Re: Violence Escalates as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

#35

Post by closeparen »

rasz wrote: post #12

"fun" fact: average earner in France can buy ~2K liters of diesel with one months salary, average earner in Poland ~600 liters. Half both numbers for minimum wages. French started this protest over expensive diesel ...

France has only 479 cars per 1,000 people [0]. Only 13% of Parisians commute by car. [1]

Drivers are a minority of the population, whose choices cause immense harm to everyone else. Their getting steamrolled by national policy seems completely reasonable. Their attempt to hold the rest of the country hostage does not.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicle...

[1] https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/the-automotiv...

Re: Violence Escalates as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

#36

Post by closeparen »

mirimir wrote: post #5

> Added to that is the reality that many who say they are supportive have not yet come out to demonstrate. While it is possible that this reservoir of supporters will not become activists, if they did the government would be hard put to cope. > ... > Multiple surveys of public opinion released in the past week suggest that 70 percent to 80 percent of French people sympathize with the Yellow Vests’ contention that Pre…

A car can truly be a necessary lifeline in postwar American suburbs that were designed around it, but in France? In Paris? Wouldn’t you take the subway? Isn’t a car kind of a hassle/luxury there to begin with? I don’t understand the sympathy.

Re: Violence Escalates as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

#38

Post by bengalister »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #20
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #3

The French government has been raising taxes for years. People have been struggling to make ends meet. Macron comes off as a privileged president that has no clue about what his citizens are going through. Things are going to escalate further if nothing changes.

> Macron comes off as a privileged president that has no clue about what his citizens are going through. Macron is a neoliberal, it was obvious things were going to end badly. Yeah raise the gas tax, cut pensions and let the free market solve everything. Doesn't work with public policy. It was depressing seeing Mélenchon come in third in 2017.

What is depressing is seeing French people think the situation would be better with Mélenchon who has great admiration for Chavez and Maduro.

France has a huge debt. This guy's policy would worsen the situation very quickly.

France is the 2nd country in the world with the most public expenses after Finland (data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm).

And Melenchon says that liberalism doesn't work, we should just follow the path of communist countries. But France never applied liberal policies and we have all seen the results of communist policies.

Re: Violence Escalates as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

#39

Post by bengalister »

Most of the violence is coming from left extremists or black blocks. At every protest in France (and we are specialist), you can see them attacking banks, insurance companies branches, luxury stores, burning expensive cars... I don't understand why the governments are not tougher on them. Maybe intelligence services are too busy spying on islamists which are an even more serious threat.

Re: Violence Escalates as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters

#40

Post by masonic »

stdplaceholder wrote: post #6

At least now we have some idea of the fuel price needed to start a riot. $7/gal. That means there's plenty of headroom to raise the fuel tax in the USA!

Well before that price, you'd see a huge increase in diversion of home heating oil (untaxed) to fuel use.
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