Bring back the guillotines! |
The days of guillotines are long gone but four have died and many have been injured as men 30 to 40 years of age march from their rural homes to storm Paris, burn some cars, vandalize the Arc de Triomphe with anti-government graffiti, and poke at and defile monuments while wearing Yellow Vests, Gilets Juanes in French.
It’s not only in Paris, but it’s also all over France for those who can’t make the trip. Across France, 89,000 police officers are on duty and armored vehicles are being deployed in the capital, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced.
President Emanuel Macron has for now canceled the gas tax to placate the desperate mild-mannered agrarians from the feisty barbarians who are ruthlessly exploiting the misery of some for their cause. They might be disappointed since the movement has won widespread public approval.
Macron hoped only the smashing-everything nihilists would show up, allowing police to put the anarchists down. That doesn’t seem to be the case. The armored tanks he’s sending to the streets present as bad optics but he has little choice.
Yellow vests were hung from windows this week, a CGT union called a 48-hour strike of union workers two days ago, and the French police labor union has called for an indefinite strike in solidarity. That gave a clear indication of what was to come.
It’s not tied to a political party yet, but it leans left, extreme left. It began because the French can’t pay their bills. Currently, this Saturday, at 2 p.m. Paris time, over 30,000 are protesting and rioting while more than 700 have been arrested. The good news is it’s not the 100,000 who said ‘maybe’ they’d come.
COLLECTIVE ARRESTS
Today, the collective arrests of students are now being used to keep public support at the expense of the police. Students are raising a commie fist — make note of that.
Right and left extremists support the movement but haven’t taken a role in the leadership. The movement first centered on fuel taxes but leftists have moved in with a push for social justice. The French are not opposed to State intervention in the economy as Libertarians might hope, they simply want it to be more even-handed, The far-left magazine, The Nation declares. The rich are getting richer and the number of poor is growing.
The right isn’t static and is claiming it’s time to rid themselves of climate change taxes. The people really don’t want to send their money to Third World nations in the name off climate change and that is considered extreme right.
The French are mostly people of the left but now the loons — leftist loons primarily — are moving in and exploiting the misery of those with very real complaints. The yellow vests issued 42 confusing and contradicting demands that only serve to create more chaos. The people have lost all hope in Emanuel Macron and labeled him ‘the establishment’.
Let this serve as a cautionary tale. George Soros can turn out a lot more than 30,000 rioters.