Sunday, July 2, 2023

France in Flames: The Latest on the Riots

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What shocked me about the Yellow Jacket protests and riots a few years back was how few Americans were even aware of it. Today France is again dealing with a wave of protests that makes the Yellow Jacket uprising look like a parlor game.

If you read the stories, some media accounts call it protests, others call it riots.  This is an attempt to bring awareness to those who are unaware or who have only read headlines. I first share a dozen Tweets which show the variety of responses from unofficial observers. I follow this with two BBC references and then pull it together with comments from two explanations from people living in France whose identities I can't disclose.

First, some of the responses from Twitter

1.
It’s happening in France!!! 2 mayors mansions have been “burnt down” by protestors! 

The revolution, it seems will start in France. People are done with Macron. 
The protests are so so heavy that THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH POLICE to “contain” the protesters! 
Viva La Revolucion

2.

In western France, locals armed with baseball bats fight back against migrants looting shops and businesses, in scenes resembling outright civil war.

This is coming to the UK (and Ireland) soon, make no mistake about it. All by design, of course.


3.

U.K. leaving the E.U. looks better every year with the forced immigration policy.


4.

Who/what is behind this? It is not spontaneous as is being promoted. What is the global agenda here? Is it the Kochs, the billionaires?


5.

They’re chanting ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they torch France.


6.

This can't be good for tourism, remember when protesters used come out in the daylight with peace signs and said make love not war!!!;


7.

(photo of fires, Arab men with AK-47s) This isn’t Syria, Iraq, or Afghanistan. This is France where 9% of the population has brought down entire cities!

Where are CNN & BBC now?


8.

Rioters have set large residential building on fire in Grigny, France.


9.

The media gave us wall-to-wall nonstop propaganda coverage about the fake “Russia Coup” last week.
Now, they are silent about the coup and riots in France. Not surprised.


10.

There are reports about the death of a police officer who was lynched earlier in Nanterre. Here is another lynching of an alleged plainclothes policeman in France by Islamists, last night.


11. 

Zebras, giraffes and horses in streets after being let out of the zoo by rioting mobs in France


12.

Bus carrying Chinese tourists attacked in Marseille, France, amid ongoing riots.


* * * 


BBC:  France shooting: Clashes and tear gas in Marseille as chaos continues


BBC: A library was set ablaze on Friday night in a suburb of Metz in eastern France. The incident happened a day after a nearby concert hall and municipal building were ransacked. Metz Mayor François Grosdidier said firefighters who tried to reach the scene were attacked.  


* * * 

Unnamed Source Anthony
The French people are very unhappy with Macron's second term aggressive neoliberal Thatcherism. He only cares about GDP, consumption, full employment, financial objectives and the military. He also made a u-turn towards conservatism and top-down authoritarianism. This has been deeply irritating to the French for at least two years now, most of the population doesn't care about getting rich or consuming more, they care instead about saving the environment and improving their bodily and mental health and collective well-being. Forcing an unpopular productivist retirement reform down the population's throat was the last straw. The disenfranchised youth and ethnic minorities are specially hopeless. Intolerance and white-supremacy has been on the rise and the government does little to stop it.

Incapable of being in tune with current events, he slowly built a gigantic powder keg, just waiting for a reckless cop to light it up for him. I had predicted it would happen about 6 months ago, my only surprise is that the trigger event didn't happen earlier.

 

Unnamed Source Carla

In Lyon I saw a big fence in flames down on the ground floor of a building and the day after at the same place there was a motorcycle in flames almost burned! The quarter where I stayed was not in the center so it was calm and quiet. I only see the troubles on TV. They are people pretending to do it as a revenge for the killing of a young boy 17 years old who was trying to escape from the cops after some  speed excess by car. but in fact it's a protest against the retirement at 64 years. Some people are doing it just for the sake of robberies in the shops which sell food, hifi stuff, sport shoes that will go to  their families or be re-sold... mostly left wing people from immigration...


* * * * *

Interesting that Bob Dylan and his Never Ending Tour has been touring the EU and performed in France the 27th through the 30th. The times continue to be changing. 


Feel free to leave a comment if you have insights to help shed light on these events.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is from Wall Street Journal: "Young men of African and Arab origin across France complain of persistent police abuses in the working-class banlieues, or suburbs, where many of France’s minorities live. The French government says its police forces aren’t racist. But the tension created a tinderbox that ignited when police shot and killed a 17-year-old in a Paris suburb on Tuesday. From Saturday into Sunday, France faced a fifth night of unrest as rioters set fire to hundreds of vehicles and dozens of buildings across the country and attacked several police stations, according to the French Interior Ministry."

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