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France

Post by blindpig » Sat Dec 08, 2018 3:29 pm

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#giletsjaunes: Unions, CGT come out of the confusion

What happened on December 6 at the union level illustrates a situation of confusion that in a way comes from far away.
explanations by the Class Front Union

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First act
At the headquarters of the CFDT was held a meeting with the main leaders of 7 organizations: CFDT, CGT , FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, UNSA, and FSU.
To give birth to an appalling communique of submission, betraying all the militants are fighting on the ground since the communiqué resulting from this meeting:
condemns the violence that applies exclusively to yellow vests .
responds positively to the maneuvers of the Macronian power to enable it to get out of the situation in which it is cornered by the popular movement by emerging the old moon of the "social dialogue"
fact: Philippe Martinez General Secretary of the CGT has affixed the signature of his organization to this villainous text!

See the press release below.

second act
The attitude of the confederal leadership is immediately condemned by many activists and many structures of the CGT as the chemistry federation demanding the extraordinary meeting of the parliament of the CGT (the National Confederal Committee, CCN).

In order to have and debate and clarify the position of the organization on,

the struggle strategy and the mobilization process
the modes of decision-making and commitment of the CGT
See the release of the Federation of Chemistry below.

third act
Two hours later the CGT on its website issued a statement, correct that the opposite total of the joint statement intersyndical and screaming reactionary forces, Figaro in the lead, denouncing the double game of the CGT. *

And refuses to go to today's meeting with the Minister of Labor, Muriel Pénicaud, so as not to be let recover by the government.

See the press release below. We are here:

With regard to the CGT it is necessary to get out of the incoherence of a position that results from orientations taken in the 90s.

Because one can not at the same time subscribe to the orientation of a CFDT affirmed support of the Macronic policy of social reaction on all the line AND to organize the resistance to this policy, to build the necessary convergences.

And in our context with yellow vests, high school students, precarious to massively reduce the power and prevent the counter-reforms it provides as for pensions, unemployment compensation ...

In the 90s, to join the European Trade Union Confederation the direction of the CGT accepted the conditions imposed by its leaders and a Nicole Notat of the CFDT which consisted of accepting the rules of the capitalist market and its ruling class.

Rules confining the unions in the institutional role of controlling social conflicts in a " social dialogue " driven by the bosses and the power and which led only to defeats and the systematic questioning of ALL the conquests of the Release.

Unions, part of a global system of exploitation, oppression and social regression.

In part, this makes it possible to understand the rejection that the unions also face at a time when, in a diversified manner, it is the " system " itself that very many citizens are questioning.

As a source of hope and pride in the field, many activists, many grassroots union structures, local unions, federations, departmental unions are already engaged, seeking convergence with the current movement, working the deployment of struggles to the organization of strikes, to solidarity, denounce the repression and as in Marseille and the Var go to the rescue of high school students.

Here is the way and ONLY there, the path of victory for what we have been doing for years without success, and the possibility for the trade union movement to massively regain the support and support of the people!

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THE INTERSYNDICAL COMMUNIQUE

The trade unions CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, UNSA, and FSU met this Thursday, December 6 to discuss social news.

They recall that, for months, in the face of social and territorial inequalities, they have called for public policies allowing social justice. They also recall that, for months, they called on the government to listen to them through a real social dialogue.

Today, in a very degraded climate, the mobilization of yellow vests allowed the expression of a legitimate anger. The government, with much delay, has finally opened the doors of dialogue.

Our organizations will commit to it, each with its own demands and proposals, in common wherever possible. The subjects of purchasing power, wages, housing, transport, the presence and accessibility of public services, taxation must finally find concrete outlets, creating the social conditions for an effective ecological transition because that just.

Dialogue and listening must find their place in our country. This is why our organizations denounce all forms of violence in the expression of demands.

The CFDT, CGT, FO, CFE-CGC, CFTC, UNSA, FSU call on the government to finally guarantee real negotiations. This implies that they are broad, open and transparent, both at the national level and in the territories.

*********************

THE COMMUNIQU Ė OF THE CGT

The government plays the social arsonist: it's irresponsible!
The CGT is indignant and strongly condemns the attitude of the government, which responds by violence alone to the legitimate demands that are expressed differently throughout the country.
The youth is the victim of an unacceptable repression aimed at curbing the agglomeration of exasperations. High school students, who are mobilizing against social separation for university entry, who want means for education and have the right to hope for a future of progress, are the target of violent repression. The CGT can not accept that the power strikes and strikes our children, those of the Republic!

Governments and employers, who for years have been deaf to all social progress, who grab the wealth the workers create, are responsible for the desperation they are trying to make young people pay. The CGT has never advocated violent action. But violence is primarily social, it is urgent to increase the SMIC to 1800 euros, pensions, social minima, thaw point index. Urge to establish real tax justice that helps the richest, to develop public transport and housing policies that meet the needs of the population.

Responding to these emergencies is a prerequisite for starting a resolution of the current crisis. It is certainly not the invitation of Minister Pénicaud to trade unions and employers to discuss the method and schedule of implementations and decisions (but which?) Announced by the Prime Minister who can satisfy us. The CGT refuses any consultation. It now demands the immediate opening of negotiations on the social emergency. It confirms its call for workers to come together and decide on action in the workplace.

The CGT will not respond to this invitation. It will not be "recuperated" by the government trying to find national unity on the pretext of risk of violence during events and future actions. France's European champion of dividends to shareholders has the means to respond to the social emergency. The CGT is available, it has concrete and known proposals for everyone to have a job and that young people, active people, retirees live better today.

Montreuil, December 6, 2018

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THE COMMUNIQU Ė of the Federation of Chemistry

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2
History does not return the dishes
Class Front Union appeal to labor organizations and workers

Faced with the anti-popular power of Macron-EU-MEDEF,
history does not iron the dishes!

While the movement of yellow vests puts the government in great difficulty and has forced to first retreats, the trade union movement can no longer procrastinate.

Not only the yellow vests were able to create a balance of power as had not been known for a long time, using forms of struggle (renewable action, blocking the economy, national event in Paris) used sparingly in recent years not only is it the expression of the popular classes who participate and support it in an overwhelming way, but its evolution has put in the foreground slogans much closer to trade union demands than themes of the extreme right: refusal of a class taxation, requirement of an increase in the SMIC, pensions and social minima, the restoration of the ISF and more generally denunciation of a power of the oligarchy crushing by its policy and contempt the majority Population.

In reality, the movement of yellow vests, heir to the great popular movements of our country, expresses in its own way and with its forms of action the class confrontation germinated in our country for years (and already perceptible with the NO of class in the European constitution in 2005), opposing the ultra-privileged layers of large shareholders and wealthy CAC 40, their governments and their EU to all popular classes.

Of course, the oligarchy, in the tradition of the Versaillais, hopes to use the provocations it allows and staged as at the Arc de Triomphe and it counts dramatizing violence discredit the movement and as in 1968 rameuter the party of fear.

But the situation created by the unprecedented power of popular anger makes it possible to defeat power and open up a prospect of social change if one manages to combine popular revolt, demonstrations and mass strike to block capitalist profits.

Wages, jobs, pensions, public services, working conditions, mass unemployment, anti-popular taxation, privatization, health, education ... we are all attacked and in a situation to finally create a balance of power in our favor.

While high school students and students are also taking action against unfair reforms, it is from today that we should launch all the forces we have for the construction of a powerful general strike renewable. It can not be decreed, but it can be built very quickly. By filing strike notice renewals - like the one filed by the CGT civil service from 9 December - by immediately organizing interprofessional general meetings in all cities, reinforcing the convergences yellow vests and red anger which the popular movement needs to finally shake the power.

Time is not up for union meetings at the summit with a CFDT and a Laurent Berger discredited by their disgraceful support for Macronian power and their support for counter-reforms!

Yellow vests, red, white blouses, blue work ... right now, all together at the same time to impose social progress! All together to reinforce the current popular movement by the organized and decisive intervention of workers in struggle.

Front Syndical Class,

December 6, 2018

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3

The temptation of the oligarchy

It is in the show on the 5, " C in the air " daily vehicle of the dominant ideology and the interests of the macronie that one of the chroniclers, licensed publisher, Claude WEIL, with a sly smile evoked very recently the history of popular revolts.

And to say what?

Referring to the periods of popular intervention of the years, 1830, 1848, the Paris Commune in 1871 and 1968 concludes: these situations of confrontation between the people and the power in place always end with the victory of the party of the order.

So by a political victory and / or the bloody repression!

There is in this affirmation in the complexity and the diversity of the situations a statement in relation with the historical reality.

But that does not say anything about the methods used by the ruling classes to achieve this result and of which we can emphasize the recurrence ... and the actuality.

To stick to the more recent one there is a blatant paradox in what happened in 1968:
how the greatest mass movement of the twentieth century, the biggest workers' strike with occupation of factories, throwing in the action of millions of workers, parallel to undeniable strong social progress, finally ended on the political level by the overwhelming victory of the reactionary camp and the election of a room "blue horizon"?

Decisively, the massive rejection of Gaullist power ("10 years is enough") of the beginning of the movement has been transformed in a few weeks, probably not in support but in default support in the face of the refusal of the actual or fantasized disorder epoch as the "doglit".

And at the time, the right, standing up against the strikes and social conquests that strikes and occupations had inflicted on him, led his legislative campaign on an exclusive "program": restore order!


By making maximum use of the images of burned cars, material damage, street clashes ...

The parallel is not fake!

This morning Darmanin on France inter evokes for the demonstration next Saturday in Paris of thousands of people coming to kill.

While on the side of power and its supporters flourish accusations of factious, putschists and begins to rise the little music that there is more difference between the yellow thugs and vests, the Republic would be in danger ...

While O chance, in people arrested last Saturday at the Star there are only yellow vests and not a single breaker equipped yet from head to toe!

The provocation, the dramatization, the division of its adversaries the call to restore order have always been the ultimate weapon of the bourgeoisie when its class interests are threatened by the popular movement in open revolt.

This is why in the present situation nothing is more decisive than the unity around the objectives that emerge and susceptible of the widest gathering that can be summarized:

lower taxes
increase wages and pensions
restoration of public services
reform of institutions democratizing public life
At the union level, it is not the time for the alliance with a CFDT shameful support to Macron, ready to support its counter-reforms such as pensions or unemployment compensation and that the movement has already begun to neutralize !

The movement, the convergent struggles implicating the policy of breakage of Macron, the strikes must be deployed isolating the power for starting from the already imposed setbacks leading to a real victory of the popular movement.

By thwarting the traps set by a class that never abandons the fight to defend its privileges by any means!

https://www.initiative-communiste.fr/ar ... confusion/

Google Translator

From what I've seen CGt's local chapters are livid about this betrayal. I had questions but do not now. The only question is whether this energy can be harnessed and not be misdirected.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Tue Dec 11, 2018 3:57 pm

France's CGT union calls 48-hour energy strike in support of yellow vests

Protesters wearing yellow vests, the symbol of a French drivers' protest against higher diesel fuel prices, occupy a roundabout in Roppenheim, France, December 6, 2018. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler
PARIS (Reuters) - France’s hard-left CGT trade union on Thursday called on its energy industry workers to walk out for a 48 hours from Dec. 13, saying it wanted to join forces with ‘yellow vest’ protesters.

The CGT said President Emmanuel Macron’s long-term energy-transition plan would hurt jobs and increase France’s energy dependency on neighboring countries.

It urged its workers at state-utility EDF (EDF.PA), gas and power supplier Engie (ENGIE.PA) and all other companies in the sector to down tools. It had already called a 24-hour strike, but said it was extending that.

The union said its members were “joining the protests which the country is currently experiencing.”

It said it challenged “the choices of the Elysee and Matignon (President and Prime Minister’s offices), which are increasing inequalities and no longer allow a large part of the population to live with dignity.”

French authorities are worried that another wave of “great violence” and rioting will be unleashed in Paris this weekend by a hard core of several thousand ‘yellow vest’ protesters, an official in the French presidency said on Thursday.

There was no immediate reaction from the yellow vest movement, an amorphous group with no formal leader which so far has not associated itself with any political party or trade union.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fran ... SKBN1O517X

Past time & worth watching. Getting out ahead of things is what leadership is supposed to do but CGT central initially came out against the 'violence'. Many regionals protested that loudly, so this. Better not be no monkeybusiness...
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Tue Dec 11, 2018 6:31 pm

Macron did not seduce a majority of French, but support for "yellow vests" crumbles
By The Political Scan Journalist Figaro Update the 11/12/2018 at 18:20 published the 11/12/2018 at 12:05
Yellow vests: Macron has found the right tone?

EXCLUSIVE SURVEY - According to our Odoxa survey, 59% of French people were not convinced by the president. But the measures he has announced are considered satisfactory. Support for "yellow vests" remains predominant but falls sharply.

Listened to by nearly 23 million viewers Monday night, Emmanuel Macron was not allowed to make the mistake and had to convince a maximum of French. According to the Odoxa poll for Le Figaro and Franceinfo, the result of his speech is mixed: 59% of French people were not convinced by the president, which attracted, however, twice as many viewers (40%) than during his speech November 27, at the Elysee (21% of respondents were found convincing).

The announcements made by the Head of State have attracted all respondents: 55% of them favor the tax-free end-of-year bonus, 61% the increase of 100 euros net per month for Smic employees, 70% the cancellation of the increase of the CSG for pensions of less than € 2,000, and 85% the exemption from overtime. On the form, a majority of respondents seem to have been convinced overall: 58% of them found it "clear", 54% "responsible", and 54% and consider that it "took the measure of the gravity of the situation".

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What impact on the perception of movement of "yellow vests"? Still in the minority, 46% of French people now want an end to the dispute. However, this is 12 points more than in the survey of November 22, while the movement was gaining momentum. 81% of the sympathizers of France Insoumise and the National Gathering wish the continuation of the actions, but the majority of the sympathizers of the other parties wish henceforth the stop of the movement (52% at LR, 61% at the PS, 88% at LaREM).

http://www.lefigaro.fr/politique/le-sca ... ffrite.php

GoogleTranslator

"crumbles"?
Whose side is 'La Figaro' on?
Of course those concessions had some effect. Nonetheless, this is far from over, if leadership can come to the fore.

Doing some funky shit with the graphs, see link.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Thu Dec 13, 2018 2:42 pm

The PRCF calls to amplify and federate social struggles without being smoked.

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Macron's statement: how to pretend to let go on the immediate to better demolish the structural forever.

The PRCF calls to amplify and federate social struggles without being smoked.

"Reforms are the fallout of revolutionary struggles". Lenin

We must warmly congratulate the citizens in yellow vests who have managed to reduce the incredible cackling of a president even more antisocial, employers, euro-aligned and oligarchic than was the arrogant Sarkozy: that Macron pretends at least to learn the same. humility to try to extinguish the embers of popular insurrection, that he make certain concessions (some in the form of poisoned gifts ...) for the workers concerned, on the SMI C and on the CSG, shows that the fight pays when it is conducted with determinationthat it does not bow to intimidation and repression, that it sends violence back to the bourgeois state that organizes it on a daily basis, that it sweeps away from the bogus pseudo-social dialogue and the European formatting in which the trade union confederations, flouting their militant and local and combative trade unions, unfortunately end up discrediting themselves. Alas, the confederation CGT whose zigzags and the follow-up towards the pro-employer CFDT put this power station on the doorstep of an unprecedented crisis even though many activist structures of the CGT demand a general social offensive in the spirit of class unionism.

1) On the immediate aspects, several remarks:
The announced increase of the SMIC will not cost a penny to the employers: it is therefore the State, that is to say in the end taxpayers and public services already largely boned who will pay; already the suppression of Secur dues on certain wages was a poisoned gift because ultimately, it means new disbursements of care and an increased crisis for the public hospital. Ditto for the payment of the CSG for the small and medium pensioners if, in parallel with this return to the starting point in terms of indirect tax, the ISF is not reconstituted as well as a progressive income tax striking much more strongly the richest.
Promises to fight against tax fraud are likely, as usual, to be a pure announcement effect.

Regarding the tax exemption of overtime, this is not a measure of the future because it tends to use active employees without creating the necessary jobs, especially in public services. the

The end-of-year bonus of the companies is left to the good heart of each boss while the "labor law" has weakened the union representation everywhere still able to claim what is due to the workers.

In short, none of the Macron measures is a SOCIAL ACQUIS on which people can build the future. It's just crumbs to "go the extra mile" to stop a potentially revolutionary crisis!

However, we can consider that the yellow vests, AND BEFORE THE COURAGEOUS COMBATANTS TRADE UNIONS who defended the Labor Code, the public high school, the French University or the public character of the SNCF, have placed the power on the defensive. It is even Europe that is jostled because the announced measures, however inadequate they are, can only collide with the police of the euro, that is to say to the accursed criteria of Maastricht and the EU supranational whose "construction" has been bailing our country for decades. We must deepen the offensive at a time when high school students and students enter the dance courageously, unlike the dismal leaders CGT and FO truckers who have again sold the "all together" in exchange for a few crumbs corporate.

MORE THAN EVER, FOR SUSTAINABLE SOCIAL ACQUISITES, ENGAGED IN BUSINESSES ALSO, NOT ONLY ON THE ROUND POINTS, THE STRUGGLE FOR INCREASING WAGES AND PENSIONS , TAKING THE CAPITALIST PROFITS that Macron totally ignored.

2) As for the structural measures announced by Macron, they show the will of Macron to exploit the yellow vests movement to precipitate the march to Euro-disintegration of France.
It is :

The announcement that the serious counter-reforms "on the move" on pensions , on the statutes of the civil service, on public services, on unemployment benefits will be accelerated .
The very way of discussing future reforms "in the territories" is hyper-dangerous because it aims to bypass and to remove the central state and to proceed territories by dividing the movement and especially, by breaking the social unity and of our country. This at a time when mayors and municipalities are completely bypassed by the establishment of metropolises and major regions to the German .

And of course, the main thing is never touched: the capitalist exploitation that has been worsening for forty years of Atlantic European integration and which means that , from now on , 2/3 of the wealth produced will capital, not work.

That's why the PRCF and the JRCF calls ntall those who want a real change in the country, red vests or yellow vests, workers, students, small and medium entrepreneurs, to continue the action, to organize themselves democratically and to coordinate at the bottom, to put in debate thoroughly the European question, to exclude from the movement all those who save capital, big business and the EU, but who overwhelm with contempt our fellow citizens hit by unemployment (treaties of "assisted"), which sow hatred and racism, which continually denigrate public service workers (treated as lazy while they keep the services at arm's length), especially the odious leaders of the LR, who constantly calls for "the decline in public spending », Which means finishing the case of the public hospital, the National Education, the EDF,SNCF and other public services.

More than ever, all together and at the same time against the MEDEF, the EU and its small committed Macron, so that the social and sovereign Republic centered on the world of work is reborn !

PRCF - December 11, 2018

https://www.initiative-communiste.fr/ar ... r-enfumer/

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"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Thu Dec 20, 2018 4:03 pm

What Happens If the French Yellow Vests Win?
A View from Vietnam

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What if protesters in Paris win, and the French government gives in to all their demands?

What if taxes are reduced, wages increased, President Macron steps down?

I am not talking only about the fuel tax; attempts to impose it have been already abandoned. I am not talking about increase of the minimum wage – the government already agreed to rise it by 100 euro per month.

What I am talking about are real, fundamental changes which many protesters seem to be desiring: substantial tax reduction for the majority of French citizens, generous increase in wages and enhancement of social benefits for all.

So, if the Yellow Vests manage to win all this, then what will happen? Who would benefit? But also, who would lose?

One of my readers recently wrote to me that France should reduce its military budget and from those billions of euro saved, could easily finance demands of the protesters.

Another reader wrote that the richest citizens of France (or call them ‘elites’) should be taxed heavily, and the money saved in this way could be then distributed among the poor and the lower middle class.

Sounds ‘reasonable’? Yes, definitely; reasonable and logical. The only tiny defect is: we all know that it will never happen this way.

President Macron was elevated to the throne by precisely those so-called elites. In return, those rich folks expect their privileges to be guaranteed, even swollen.

And to imagine that a NATO member country (in this case France) would suddenly slash its military budget and from what is saved, start to finance various new social programs for the poor and the middle class, is unrealistic, even childish.

So where will the funds come from, if the French government decides to do something truly ‘radical’; radical at least by the standards of our era of turbo-capitalism: to listen to its own people?

Let me stop beating about the bush and ask my question brutally and concretely: “What if all demands of the Yellow Vests get satisfied; who will pay the bill?”

To put all this into a context: I write this essay in Hanoi, capital of socialist Vietnam.

Some time ago, I used to live in this city. I spent almost three years here, when it was still poor, and people remembered war, some even the French colonialism.

Right after I arrived, what shocked me the most was that while the Vietnamese people seemed to ‘forgive’ the USA, they had never forgiven the French colonialists.

“Why?” I asked my friends. “How is it possible? Wasn’t the US bombing and killing campaign during the ‘American War’ (which is known in the West as ‘Vietnam War’) terribly brutal, with millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians losing their lives?”

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“Of course, it was”, I was readily explained. “But we fought and, despite the terrible losses and hardship, we defeated Americans in relatively short time. And anyway, it was not only them; members of the coalition also consisted of countries like South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Thailand, and of course, France.”

And the story continued:

“The French were occupying and tormenting us for much longer. They also had been humiliating our people, continuously. They enslaved up, tortured us, took our women, they raped them, and they had stolen all that we had.”

Near where I used to live, was a notorious “Central Jail”, equipped with guillotines, torture chambers, solitary confinement cells. Now, on exhibit there, are monstrous instruments used by the French colonizers, to torture and rape captured Vietnamese patriot women: beer bottles, electric wires, walking canes.

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Whatever the colonized Indochina had, was stolen: taken to France, in order to finance construction of grandiose theatres, railroads, metro, parks, and universities. And yes, to subsidize formation of that famous French social system which, as the Yellow Vests are now correctly saying, is being dismantled by the French ‘elites’ and by the political system which they are fully controlling.

Vietnamese people fought bravely against the French, finally defeating them during an iconic battle at Dien Bien Phu. But the victorious Vietnamese Communist forces inherited ransacked, divided land, stripped of its resources and even of its art work (several French intellectuals, including famous writer and later Minister of Culture in de Gaulle’s government, Andre Malraux, confessed to stealing art objects from ‘Indochina’, when he lived there as a young man).

Needless to say, that until now, French companies are brutally pillaging many parts of Southeast Asia, through mining and other neo-colonialist projects, as they do in various areas of Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America.

Now ask in Hanoi, ask in Phnom Penh or Vientiane, whether people of ‘Indochina’ (what an insulting and bizarre name was given to this part of the world by the French, during the colonial era!) are supporting Yellow Vests in Paris? Ask whether they think that if they win concessions in Paris, it would improve life in Asia.

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Are you guessing what the answer would be?

I don’t say that demands of the people who are fighting in the streets of Paris are wrong. They are not. They are absolutely legitimate.

French elites are brutal, selfish, even perverse. Present French government is simply serving them, as the US presidents are all serving huge corporations, including those deadly military conglomerates. ‘They should go’, they should disappear, give way to what is logical human evolutionary pattern: a socialist, egalitarian society.

But they are not ready to go. On the contrary. They are robbing, for centuries, entire planet, and now they went so far as to plundering their own people (who were used to sharing the booty).

French citizens are not used to being plundered. For centuries they lived well, and for several last decades, they were living ‘extremely well’. They were enjoying some of the most generous benefits anywhere in the world.

Who paid for it? Did it matter? Was it ever important to those in Paris, in other big cities, or in the countryside? Were the French farmers wondering how come they were getting generous subsidies when they were producing excessive amounts of food and wine, but also when they were asked by the government not to produce much of anything? Did they often travel to Senegal, or elsewhere in West Africa, to investigate how these subsidies thoroughly destroyed agriculture sector in several former French colonies? Did they care that lives of millions there were totally ruined? Or that as far as Indonesia or Brazil, French corporations have been, aggressively, taking over food and beverage production, as well as food distribution, and that as a result, food prices in many poor countries skyrocketed to double or triple of what they are in Paris, while the local incomes remain, in some cases, only 10% of those in France?

And the food is only one example. But this essay was supposed to be about something slightly different: about the Yellow Vests, and what will happen if all of their demands would be met.

If we agree that the regime that is governing in France, entire West, and in many of its colonies and neo-colonies, is truly monstrous, perverse and brutal, we have to come to a logical conclusion that it is not going to pay the bill for better medical care, education, as well as lower taxes and higher wages of the ordinary French citizens.

If demands of the protesters are met, there will be someone else who will be forced to cover the bill. Most likely tens of millions, or hundreds of millions will be ‘taxed’. And they will not be living in France, or in the European Union, or even anywhere near.

Are protesters of Mouvement des gilets jaunes, thinking about this? Does it matter to them at least a little bit?

It did not in the past, either. Perhaps when few people like Jean Paul Sartre were still alive, these questions were periodically asked. But not lately; not now. Not during this rebellion on Champs-Élysées.

Do people in France question how many millions would have to die in order to improve the quality of life in the French cities and in provinces?

Or perhaps, to ‘compensate’, to cover the social spending, some country would ‘have to be’ invaded? Would it be Iran? Or maybe Venezuela?

The New York Times, in one of its articles about the French provinces, mentioned that people were complaining they cannot afford to even take their wives to a restaurant for dinner, anymore. That is truly serious, but would it justify a battle for Iran or Venezuela, and their consequent plunder, or would it excuse massacre of further few hundreds of thousands of West Papuans?

I would suggest something that would help to convince the true internationalists, as well as people all over the pillaged world, that the Mouvement des gilets jaunes is not just selfishly fighting for the benefits that would improve lives of the French citizens, at the expense of many others all over the world:

They should indicate that they understand; that they are not indifferent to others. Say clearly that they are against capitalism and imperialism, against colonialism and plundering of the people and their resources in absolutely all parts of our Planet!

Say that they are for freedom, equality, and fraternity of all human beings, not just French!

Say that this is true revolution, true battle for improving the world, not just for more money, lower taxes, and better benefits exclusively for people who are living in France!

Say that they would never accept any benefits or extra money, if they come from robbing poor and colonized nations of all that have left.

If they do say all this, and if they demonstrate that they truly mean it, I will have to shout Vive la Révolution! and join them - the protesters - wholeheartedly.

But until they do, until I am convinced that their victory would not harm others, millions of others, I’ll continue to be much more concerned about people of Vietnam and Papua, about Iran, Africa, Syria or the entire Middle East, than about whether someone individual in rural France can afford to take his wife for dinner to a restaurant.

(Gilets jaunes. Image credit: NightFlightToVenus/ flickr)

*This article was originally published on journal-neo.

https://ahtribune.com/world/europe/gile ... vests.html

I do not like or trust Vltchek, he is a left-com or something. But this is a valid criticism of all compromised working classes of imperial states. We part ways on 'support', his objections are idealist and prescription for paralysis.
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Mon Dec 24, 2018 6:00 pm

Pole of Communist Revival in France warns against 'poisoned gifts' by Macron

The Pole of Communist Revival in France (PRCF) analyzed the concessions of Macron against yellow vests and warned about the promises for reforms.

13 December 2018

The Pole of Communist Revival in France (PRCF) congratulated the citizens of France in 'yellow vests' who managed to force back President Macron, labelled as 'even more anti-popular, euro-aligned and oligarchic than the arrogant Sarkozy'. The PRCF asserted that Macron, compared to Sarkozy 'at least pretends to learn that in face of popular insurrection he has to make certain concessions, even though some are in form of poisoned gifts ... The fight pays when it is conducted with determination and it sweeps away with the bogus pseudo-social dialogue and the European formatting in the trade union confederations.' The PRCF criticized the confederation CGT (Confederation of Labour) ‘whose zigzags and the follow-up towards the pro-employer CFDT (French Democratic Confederation of Labour) put it on the doorstep of an unprecedented crisis even though many activist structures of the CGT demand a general social offensive in the spirit of class unionism.’

The PRCF said that the increase of the minimum wage will not cost a penny to the employers while the State, meaning the taxpayers and the public services already largely boned will pay. The suppression of security dues on certain wages was 'a poisoned gift' because ultimately it means new disbursements of care and an increased crisis for public hospitals. The same goes for the payment of small and medium pensioners if, in parallel with the return to the indirect tax, the ISF (Solidary Tax on Wealth) is not reconstituted together with the introduction of 'a progressive income tax striking much more strongly towards the richest'.

According to the statement of th PRCF, promises to fight against tax fraud are likely to have 'a pure announcement effect'. The tax exemption of overtime, on the other hand, is as a measure of the future because it tends to use current employees without creating necessary jobs, especially in public services. The end-of-year bonus of the companies is left to 'the good heart of each boss while the "labor law" has weakened the union representation'.

The PRCF also asserted that the structural measures announced by Macron show his will 'to exploit the yellow vests movement to precipitate the march to Euro-disintegration of France'. This means that the announcement of serious counter-reforms "on the move" on pensions , on the statutes of the civil service, on public services, on unemployment benefits will be accelerated. The very way of discussing future reforms is 'hyper-dangerous because it aims to bypass and to remove the central state and to proceed territories by dividing the movement and especially, by breaking the social unity and the unity of the country .... while never touching the capitalist exploitation that has been worsening for forty years of Atlantic European

http://icp.sol.org.tr/europe/pole-commu ... fts-macron
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Fri Jan 04, 2019 11:47 am

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Yellow vest movement is not just about fuel tax hike, it is a crystallization of a deep social discontent and distress
Posted Dec 27, 2018 by Eds.

Originally published: Peoples Dispatch by Muhammed Shabeer (December 20, 2018) |

Since November 17, France has been witnessing the massive Gilets jaunes or ‘Yellow Vests’ protests against the anti-working class policies of the Emmanuel Macron government. The protests against the rising economic burden on the people are also spreading to many other European countries. Peoples Dispatch spoke to Cyril Benoit, in-charge of international relations in the Mouvement Jeunes Communistes de France (MJCF), about the characteristics and the orientation of the ongoing protests. MJCF, the first political youth organization of France, which is close to the French Communist Party, is commonly known as JC.

Peoples Dispatch (PD): What are the characteristics and causes of the current unrest in France? What role has the left played in these protests?

Cyril Benoit (CB): The trigger for the current movement [Yellow Vests] was the announcement by the Emmanuel Macron government of an increase in the taxes on fuel, labeled “carbon tax”. This lead to a call on social media to oppose this measure by wearing yellow vests that are mandatory for motorists. All over the country, people mobilized–many of whom had never done so before–and occupied roundabouts and protested in cities, sometimes violently.

This movement is very heterogeneous. It was generated outside political parties and unions, with no leadership and no clear objectives apart from the cancellation of the hike in the carbon tax. Thus, its characteristics vary greatly from place to place. Particularly at the beginning of the protests, while some yellow vests protested the inequalities and pro-bourgeois policies of the government, others committed racist, Islamophobic and anti-migrant acts. We must always keep in mind this element and actively prevent the extreme right from applying its plan to lead the movement.

However, as the protests went on, and the repression increased and the government responded with its usual contempt, the demands evolved from purely anti-tax ones to broader, social and economic ones. For example, the demand for the reinstatement of the “solidarity tax on fortune” is now central. This tax that was applied to the wealthiest households was suppressed at the beginning of the year, a clear sign that this government is one of the rich, for the rich.

Another characteristic of the current movement is the strong use of repression against protesters. On December 8 alone, 1,723 people were arrested and 624 injured, according to official statistics. The police have used armored vehicles in the streets of Paris and all across the country, protesters and high school students have suffered head injuries due to the rubber balls shot at them. Many suffered broken jaws and ruptured eyes. In Bordeaux, a young man lost his hand because of an explosive grenade thrown by the police.

It is impossible to talk about a leadership of any specific political force in the current mobilization. Nevertheless, we communists are actively supporting the protesters and their demands, explaining the real causes of the situation in the country and promoting our proposals for a different social, economic and political system. This is of crucial importance to us, so as to counter the reactionary forces and give a progressive outcome to the movement.

To sum up, we can say that we have gone from a movement against taxes to one against fiscal inequalities and for better wages and pensions. A clear sign of this is that the announcement by the prime minister that the carbon tax would be scrapped did not weaken the protests. Similarly, the announcements made by Macron last Monday (cancellation of tax on pensioners, asking the bosses to give an exceptional bonus to their workers, etc.) have not had a significant impact on the social anger. However, it is unclear how the recent attack in Strasbourg will affect the movement.

PD: What is your take on Emmanuel Macron’s policies, especially on immigration, austerity and human rights, including the rights of workers, students, women and youth?

CB: Since he has taken office, Emmanuel Macron has implemented a real ‘social blitzkrieg’–a violent offensive on the achievements and rights of the French working class and people. These policies are inscribed in the neoliberal agenda that has been pursued by his predecessors for decades: less public spending, privatizations and deterioration of labor laws. However, Macron has used a more violent method, supported by his absolute majority in parliament. By implementing one reform after another, he has made it much more difficult for the left, the unions and popular movements in general to respond.

However, the first half of 2018 saw the first sustained and coordinated answer, with the strikes and movements of railway workers and high school and university students. Although they were not successful, they set an example and contributed to creating the possibility for the current protest movement by eroding Macron’s popularity and broadly identifying him as the ‘president of the rich.’ This image is now at the core of the Yellow Vests movement.

As always with neoliberal policies, the youth have been one of the most affected groups by the reforms. They have suffered attacks on public housing or the withdrawal of ‘aided jobs’, among other measures. But one of the main attacks of the government has been on public education, with a persistent lack of funding for public universities and the establishment of a selection to enter higher education, for which previously, the bachelor’s degree was the only condition. Approved last year, this reform has already deprived many youth of the possibility of studying, many of whom come from working class families.

Foreign students from non-EU countries are also being targeted through the current project of raising the registration fees up to 3,770 euros for a master’s degree. Until now, they were paying the same as French students. This has prompted a rejection movement that is currently growing in universitie

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A Gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) demonstration in Belfort on December 01, 2018. (Photo- Thomas Bresson)

PD: How do you see the rise of the ultra right under the leadership of Marine Le Pen in France? What are the characteristics of this movement and the reasons for the spike in their visibility?

CB: As elsewhere in Europe, and in the world, the rise of the extreme right poses a great danger in France. In the current crisis, Marine Le Pen and her party have been used by the government to try and both divide and soften the Yellow Vests movement. The participation of extreme right and fascist groups in the protests is real, but the media and officials have deliberately exaggerated their influence in order to prevent other kinds of groups from joining by saying, “if you go to the protest, you will be siding with fascists”. However, on some occasions, protesters themselves kicked out the fascists and, as I mentioned before, the evolution of demands towards more progressive ones has marginalized the influence of these groups.

As for the second aspect, Marine Le Pen has from the beginning tried to divert the movement from its social and economic goals by trying to make it an anti-migrant one. She then publicly rejected the demand that the minimum wage and pensions be raised, clearly demonstrating that she is in no way “anti-system” as she pretends to be. More recently, after the Strasbourg attack, she has called for the protests to be canceled at the very moment Macron is stepping back.

PD: What are the leftists’ initiatives in addressing this issue and the leftist alternative that you can propose in this situation? Could you also explain the position of the PCF (French Communist Party) specifically and that of the broad left in general. How can you achieve this by tackling Macron and resisting the ultra right simultaneously?

CB: At every level, the communists are actively supporting the Yellow Vests movement. For example, in communist municipalities, books have been put at the disposal of the population for everyone to write down their concerns and proposals. Similarly, communist MPs and senators have visited protesters and noted their concerns, which they then read out in the National Assembly or the Senate, so the voice of the workers could be directly transmitted to the highest levels.

The Yellow Vests movement is not just about the rise in the fuel tax. It is a crystallization of a deep social discontent and distress. It has already proved that a strong popular mobilization can force the government to flinch. The anger against the hike in one tax has already evolved into one against a government and a president “disconnected from the people” and their policies. The task is now to demonstrate that it is the neoliberal model and the capitalist system that are the root causes of this situation.

As the Young Communists Movement of France, we are particularly involved in the struggle of high school and university students, who are protesting against the reform of bachelor’s degrees, for the withdrawal of the hike in registration fees for non-EU students, for the suppression of selection in universities and against repression. This is for a free, universal and equal access to education.

Even if much remains to be done to achieve real change, it is the first time since Macron took office that he has been forced to do so. Despite the uncertainties, this first crack will strengthen our struggles and may well change the course of his presidency.

https://mronline.org/2018/12/27/yellow- ... -distress/
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:12 pm

France’s yellow vests fight on, despite concessions
Social unrest in France is being driven by workers’ anger at continuous attacks on jobs, wages and living standards.
Lalkar writers

Saturday 5 January 2019

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Yellow vest placard reads ‘All together’.

French president Émmanuel Macron has found himself in the international news quite a bit this year, mainly as his ‘hard man’ of French bourgeois politics act has blown up in his face, thanks to the resistance of various workers and students, and he continues to stumble from one crisis to another.

Recent events in France have shown up the chronic lack of a strong communist party, true to the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin, to guide the actions of the French masses.

Whatever it is in the psyche of French workers that allows them to take to the streets almost immediately that an injustice towards them is perceived – just think how much more effectively the actions of those workers would be if they had a dedicated Marxist-Leninist, unflinching proletarian party at their head.

Macron and his shrinking band of Thatcher/Blair-loving supporters have looked less sure and confident with every class clash, although they had until recently sufficiently managed to extract some concessions from the leaders of the workers’ and students’ organisations that have led the opposition to austerity so far to be able to claim that they have not been totally routed in the style of ex-president François Hollande.

Enter the ‘yellow vests’ (gilet jaunes). The yellow vest movement (named after the yellow and orange hi-visibility vests worn by the protestors) is a popular ‘disagreement’ with the French president/government/state that anyone and everyone can join in: simply don a hi-vis vest, or don’t if that suits you better, and take to the streets in protest.

There are no recognised leaders or even goals, and the reasons people give for their actions range from fuel prices, food prices, housing, education, wages, high taxes, employment, insecurity, health issues, greater welfare needs, etc.

Every journalist, every bourgeois politician is trying to find the common cause of the resistance and unrest to address the problem, but at the moment all that can really be said is that the drive towards austerity to safeguard the wealth of the rich by making the workers pay for the crisis of capitalism that is engulfing all capitalist states is creating a huge spark of anger and preparedness to resist among French workers who may disagree politically with each other on many issues but who are not prepared to be the scapegoats for the ills of ‘the government’ – ie, the bankers, or the imperialist ruling class (the name given to the oppressor is dependent on the political perception/knowledge of individual workers).

The yellow vests do not even agree with each other on tactics: some want to march and shout, others prefer confrontation, but all are willing to answer state violence to a certain individual degree and, at the moment, it seems that state repression is not breaking them apart.

The various representatives of the French government are alternately blaming the ‘left’ or the ‘right’ troublemakers and hardliners, sometimes even blaming both left and right at the same time. Perhaps they will soon be warning of the ‘hard-line middle-of-the-roaders’ as well?

The police have met the yellow vests on the streets with batons, tear gas and water cannons so far and the resistance is giving a good account of itself, but, at the time of writing this short article, while petrol bombs and the firing of gas grenades light up the Champs Élysées for another night to the accompaniment of the hoarse but undiminished chants of “Macron out!” we are aware that the Macron government is considering taking the whole thing up a notch by declaring a ‘state of emergency’, with all that entails.

Whether the state of emergency comes or not, whether or not Macron and his government can manage to buy off enough of the protesters to crush the rest, it must still be obvious to every class-conscious French worker that organisation is the real key to successful resistance, and that organisation must come from a totally trusted source that will always put the real interests of all workers first.

In short, the French workers (like the workers of every other country) need a communist party to stand with them, to lead them in struggle and to educate them for their future role as the ruling class. It is the job of the French working class and their allies to build that party. We know that our French comrades have the courage to fight, they must now learn the ideology that will take them to the next stage.

As we witness the fifth weekend of protest by the yellow vests it has to be said that President Macron has tarnished, perhaps irreparably, his ‘hard man’ image, which had seemed so shiny and unassailable not so very long ago. He has tried throwing scraps (concessions if you will) to the wolves, hoping to thin the crowd out enough to regain order, but in reality they seem only to want his head.

When Macron abandoned the fuel tax hikes and offered a package of tax and minimum wage measures as a sop to get peace, the protesters simply made new demands to address other economic issues that are hurting workers, retirees and students.

There seems no way out as a sixth protester has lost their life and Macron, not to mention the 0.1 percent of the ruling class he represents, must be wondering for just how long he/they will hold the allegiance of the gendarmes out on the French streets. Each week the numbers arrested grows, and each arrest, each injury and each death of a protester seems to inspire more to join the protest.

How many of his ordinary policemen have friends and family out on the streets in hi-vis vests? There has to be a tipping point if nothing else changes, and it cannot be far away.

Many more students and children have now taken up the popular struggle, especially after seeing the pictures of armed police holding children, forcing them to kneel with hands tied behind their backs while their captors stood around them indiscriminately pointing guns this way and that.

Sixth-form colleges in Paris and other cities have seen students forming barricades against the police. The famed Sorbonne university in Paris was also closed after students, many in yellow vests, tried to storm the building and the gates were locked afterwards.

Over 150 schools have been blockaded, and in Marseilles in southern France three lycées (roughly equivalent to our sixth-form colleges) were shut in fear of occupation. Back in the capital, meanwhile, children have set fire to school bins and put padlocks on school gates, beating the authorities to closing them down.

The fifth weekend of protest saw some 8,000 police and 14 armoured vehicles deployed in Paris. The protesters in response set up burning barricades, and the protests in the streets spread from Paris to many other towns and cities.

The words “Give back the money”, which were written on the façade of a bank in Paris, have been taken up nationwide as the yellow vest protesters continue to demonstrate against the massive rise in the costs of living and taxes.

Macron, a former investment banker, has become almost the personification of the financial ills falling on workers and the middle classes, and there must now be some consideration going on in the real halls of power as to whether or not to ‘give his head’ to the people, as it were, in an attempt to buy off the protests. However, those rulers would be extremely reluctant to allow a popular victory against a government trying to shift the cost of the crisis of overproduction onto the workers’ shoulders.

If anyone should doubt the possible international significance of what is happening in France, we note with interest that the Egyptian government has decided to restrict the sale of yellow hi-vis vests in fear that Egyptian workers may be inspired to copy French protesters.

More seriously, certainly for the European Union (EU), France looks very likely to overshoot the EU’s budget deficit ceiling next year, having failed to push through the ‘necessary’ sharper public spending cuts that had been planned but which now seem impossible to implement after Macron’s partial step-back following the anti-government protests.

When Macron announced wage increases for the poorest workers and a tax cut for most pensioners in an effort to buy off the protests he blew a €10bn ($11bn) hole in the treasury’s finances, which will push France back over the EU deficit limit of 3 percent of national output and leave Macron’s reformist credentials somewhat tattered.

However, when Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced: “We are preparing a fiscal boost for workers by accelerating tax cuts so that work pays,” he also added: “That inevitably has consequences on the deficit.”

The protesters rightly fear that the ‘consequences on the deficit’ will be clawed back from some other part of public spending, as Phillippe did not give any details on the impact of the concessions on public finances or possible spending cuts but merely stated that the government “aimed to keep spending from increasing”.

And so, it is the sensible wariness of the protesters, who have seen so many broken and twisted promises by various governments, that is behind their collective, almost instinctive, decision to stay on the streets and keep making new anti-austerity demands.

If France cannot keep its budget under the EU deficit ceiling, we are told by faceless EU spokesmen, it could shatter France’s ‘fiscal credibility’ with its European partners (it has to be said that France has not kept under that deficit ceiling for the last ten years). Any sign of leniency for the French government from Brussels could start a crescendo of deficits shooting into space across the EU.

The European Union is to make a final assessment of France’s 2019 budget in the second quarter of next year with the release of new economic forecasts, but it is definitely jittery about the ‘goings on’ in France, both in terms of the fragile deficit ceilings and because of the example that is being set by the French workers on how to resist austerity.

Those defiant yellow-vested protesters may very well be fighting for us all more than they realise. More power to their collective arms.

https://www.cpgb-ml.org/2019/01/05/news ... ncessions/
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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 17, 2019 11:54 am

Fascist asshole Steve Bannon is trying to hijack this revolt in the media, here is the reality on the ground:

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Re: France

Post by blindpig » Sat Jan 19, 2019 2:08 pm

1000s of police on guard as Yellow Vests hit streets in France for 10th week in a row
Published time: 19 Jan, 2019 12:16
Edited time: 19 Jan, 2019 13:42

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1000s of police on guard as Yellow Vests hit streets in France for 10th week in a row
Yellow Vest protesters during a rally in Paris, January 19, 2019. © Zakaria Abdelkafi


For the 10th week in a row, Yellow Vest protesters filled the streets of Paris and other cities in France, with thousands of police standing guard. Earlier, President Emmanuel Macron launched his “national debates” on the crisis.
In what is being called ‘Act 10’ of the nationwide protests, the Yellow Vests gathered in French cities on Saturday. In Paris, they occupied the Champs-Elysees and the Esplanade des Invalides near the nation’s parliament. People were seen waving national flags and setting off firecrackers.

Some protesters brought cardboard coffins, in memory of the people who have died since the beginning of the protests (the majority was killed in traffic accidents during road blockades). They marched under a large banner reading “Citizens in danger.”

The Yellow Vest processions took place in Caen and Rouen, both in northern France. The rallies were also held in Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Toulon, Dijon, Beziers, Avignon, among other places.

Twelve people have been detained in Paris for carrying weapons, police told BFMTV. They were apprehended during “random checks.” But overall, the rallies in the capital have so far remained peaceful, police said.

Some protesters carried placards, reading "Freedom, Equality, Flash-Ball," referring to the type of ‘less-lethal’ guns used by law enforcement to quell the protests. The placards also contained pictures of Marianne – a national symbol of liberty – with an injured eye. That was apparently an allusion to a high-publicized incident in December when a young woman was hit in the eye by a projectile the activists say was fired from a Flash-Ball.

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© Philippe Lopez / AFP

The Yellow Vest protests began in November as a movement against planned fuel tax hikes, but eventually grew to include wider demands, including the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron and his government.

Previous rallies have seen violent clashes with police. There have been injuries on both sides, and over 1,000 people have been detained in connection to the unrest, which has at times spilled out into street battles.

Saturday’s rallies take place days after President Emmanuel Macron launched“grand national debates,” a series of public discussions about the government’s policies. He hopes the debates will help in reaching a compromise with the protesters, but many have expressed skepticism regarding the format and intentions. As a result, some protesters appeared with placards denouncing the debates as a “scam.”

https://www.rt.com/news/449190-yellow-v ... sts-act10/

Several videos at link
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