461–470 of 553 posts
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Few months after the start of the Gilet Jaune, they were not "blocking the country" anymore (I was answering a comment about this)... And while not supporting the Gilet Jaune mode of action anymore, people still strongly supported and support the main ideas they pushed, like Citizens' initiative referendum, or the Solidarity tax on wealth
To be fair, wealth taxes are a pretty unworkable idea in the large.
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> the people arrested have a far left ideology, have been to Syria to fight against the Islamic state, own weapons and encrypt all of their communications Is there a place where we can read more about this? The article seems to explain none of that context, it only purports that people are suspicious and can be arrested for simply having good 'digital hygiene'. Edit: Some relevant passages from TFA > Likewise, the cr…
I believe the French Wikipedia page[0] is the most comprehensive place to get information on the subject. There is also a, much shorter, English page[1]. [0]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_du_8_d%C3%A9cembre_202... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_December_2020_incident
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I believe the French Wikipedia page[0] is the most comprehensive place to get information on the subject. There is also a, much shorter, English page[1]. [0]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_du_8_d%C3%A9cembre_202... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_December_2020_incident
Does the OP article refer to this specific incident? Or is this a larger phenomenon?
[0]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_du_8_d%C3%A9cembre_202...
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I believe the French Wikipedia page[0] is the most comprehensive place to get information on the subject. There is also a, much shorter, English page[1]. [0]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_du_8_d%C3%A9cembre_202... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_December_2020_incident
Does the OP article refer to this specific incident? Or is this a larger phenomenon?
However, it does make the point that it is akin to "L'affaire de Tarnac" that lasted from 2008 to 2018.
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Come on, this is so exaggerated. If you care about democracy, you have much more relevant menace in France. People are screaming about Macron for some reason. Because they were told he is a DiCtAtOr!! Because he didn’t fold to unions. Apparently unions are to be obeyed otherwise you are a dictator? While obeying to elected government is dictatorship? It’s a nice inversion. The true authoritarian menace in France come…
Well, democracy is not 0 or 1, there are shades... So for sure Macron is not a dictator, but French democracy "grade" was not super high and it did went down. French 5th republic is sometimes nicknamed "presidential monarchy"... Electing the parliament quite at the same time as the president did reinforced the power of the president. The rise of the far right basically made that the one in the best position against f…
I don't care if "quite 100%" of unionized people are in unions that were against the pension law, it doesn't tell anything reliable about their support. They mainly followed what the union told them. Same with polls, I don't care what they say as they are easily oriented, interpreted, ignored or promoted depending on opaque support from influential actors.
If only there was a reliable way for people to express their support and have some influence on who gets to rule... Hmmm, like votes and elections, maybe?Maybe we could call that democracy. We would equip it with super-rules, aka a constitution, that would define "democracy" with actual laws. Using the laws from the constitution isn't "twisting it". The ones doing some twisting are those who provoke massive outrage about something perfectly constitutional. There was a vote ultimately (actually several votes), called motion de censure, and the deputies against the reform couldn't form a majority. And I don't care it was only missing 9 votes, all the rules were followed. If you don't consider the rules should be the decider, then rules are meaningless. Then why bother with a constitution?
It's nice trying to think about how the constitution could define democracy differently that in the current one, but if you think that polls and unions should be part of the definition, it just doesn't make sense. The 5th republic was a response to the political instabilities that plagued France in the wake of the 2nd war, probably not helping France get a consistent stance against Nazi Germany. I don't see why it's attacked today, apart from some opportunistic reasons from actors with questionable and vague alternatives.
You are bundling many weak points together to make up for an actual strong one. "Many people are afraid to protest in France now.". Really? That's somewhat funny because according to unions, millions of people recently protested in France, for weeks. Are you sure you're not confusing with Russia? Protesting in France is not going anywhere, and outside of some twitter disinformation campaigns, people are more afraid of bad and violent actors mixing with the protesters, breaking and burning stuff, provoking police, than the police itself. Of course police is also guilty, their response can be completely inappropriate. But even then, is that because Macron is president? Do you think he personally orders the police to be violent? Why? I don't think he has anything to gain from increased police violence, as it's used against him by his political opponents. Attempts at forming a police brigade specialized against violent actors is possibly counter-productive. But what are you supposed to do when hundreds of people determined to burn something down for whatever political reasons are exercising power from violence and intimidation? And completely free from consequences? Are a few hundreds of radicalized people going to dictate what is allowed in a whole country? I don't know what the response should be, but it can't be giving up or blaming police every time.
Finally, I'm not sure where you heard about pressure against journalists from Macron, spying laws against them, or "terrorist" laws, but I'd be curious to know.
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Very interesting; it looks like these people went to Syria to fight ISIS, and got this ill treatment when they returned. Why does it seem like the French government is always supporting the worst actors in any conflict? ISIS is (was) so evil and barbaric, they make Putin seem like a great guy. Why would volunteering to fight them ever be seen in a bad light?
There are basically two sides to this conflict: ISIS on one hand, and the Syrian/Kurdish PYD/YPG side on the other. The latter has ties to the PKK, which is an internationally recognized terror org just like ISIS. Now, depending on who you ask, the PYD/YPG is "good, because they fight ISIS" (e.g. the official stance of the US) or "Terrorists, because they are basically just extensions of the PKK" (what Turkey says).…
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They have not been dissolved because they left their phone at home, they have been dissolved because it was a violent organisation that was systematically attacking the police and destroying property. And given the sort of stuff they brought to their protests: swords, machettes, baseball bats, jerrycan, bricks, fireworks, petanque balls, Molotov cocktails, fire bombs, etc, it is particularly disingenuous to pretend t…
Okay, so if the government ever wants to shut anything down for any reason, get a few dozen goon squad members to show up as fellow protestors with weapons and cause property damage and smack cops around a little bit?
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Impressive mix of lies. The total value of items destroyed has been estimated to be about 8 million by the French state. While not a small number, I haven't seen the antiterrorist police be sent to the FNSEA's headquarters for their history of violence and destruction ever since 1960. It is part of their methods ever since their inception, but greasing some palms high up in the government certainly helps. >And given…
> Violence. Is. Caused. By. The. Police. None of these, not a single one of these items were used until the police started indiscriminately tear gassing thousands of protesters, the vast majority of them peaceful. Five thousand grenades and weapons classified as war weapons used on protesters. It's obvious violence must have existed from both side. It's a bit obvious you're from the far left, just be neutral.
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The desire to be alone has been scientifically proven to be a disease of the mind and a sure sign of antisocial tendencies. (s,lr,d)
I don't know how you jumped from "privacy" to "desire to be alone", those two things are barely related. Locking the toilet door isn't antisocial and talking to someone in private isn't either.