Yellow Vest protest summary

France's Yellow Vest movement isn't over, but it is winding down.
So here's a summary:

11 dead (mostly traffic accidents)
2,500 injured (23 protesters lost an eye, five lost a hand, and one a testicle)
50,000 arrested
26% President Macron approval rate

So after more than half of a year of violent protests and strikes, what do you think Macron and the ruling elites have learned? Absolutely nothing.

In an interview with the New Yorker magazine published on Monday, Mr Macron said: “I think [my reform agenda] was, for me, a progressive approach and a progressive movement, but it was probably too abstract.”

Too abstract = The public is too stupid to understand my brilliance.
progressive movement = regressive neoliberal austerity

This is what Macron still thinks of striking workers.

French President Emmanuel Macron has come under criticism for comparing striking teachers to "hostage takers", as they blocked the results of the French high school exam to protest against a new education reform.

The teachers, Macron said on Sunday night, "cannot take children and their families as hostages" in their strike.

The real lesson that Macron has taken away from the Yellow Vests is that if you can survive the initial anger, you can outlast the public and get back to neoliberal policies.

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French business leaders called on President Emmanuel Macron to press ahead with his promised overhaul program even as the euro-area economy is showing signs of a slowdown.

Macron has shaken up the French economy with changes to labor laws and cuts to corporate taxes...
“The next major step is reforming the French pension system, and it will be harder than unemployment benefits,” Pierre-Andre de Chalendar, chief executive officer of building materials maker Saint-Gobain, said in an interview. “It’s about conducting a systemic reform and adapting to the new demographic context.”
...
“The pro-business strategy remains, and of course there can be adjustments in terms of pace, but not in terms of where he’s headed,” said Stephane Boujnah, head of stock exchange Euronext NV.

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Comments

Pricknick's picture

I find it doubtful. If it did, I have no doubt our government would quash it regardless of the violence needed.
Regardless, americans are more interested in reality tv and sports, sports, sports.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

edg's picture

@Pricknick

Bread and circuses. It works as well with Americans as it did with Romans.

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I was in France on their second week.
I thought they could do things.
They gave their lives, eyes, hands, and nothing changed, except Macron's poll numbers.
I thought they could set an example for us.
In an unintended way, they did.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Alligator Ed's picture

Pierre-Andre de Chalendar, chief executive officer of building materials maker Saint-Gobain, said in an interview. “It’s about conducting a systemic reform and adapting to the new demographic context.”

Which means:
1. Systematic gutting of social services and unions
2. Unemployed immigrants get jobs at wages lower than French citizens

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lotlizard's picture

in the polls (although a Bundestagswahl — election of a new national parliament — doesn’t actually have to be held until 2021).

https://dawum.de/

But while the Greens may talk climate crisis, in practice their road map is the same as Merkel and Macron’s.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=merkel+macron+treaty

A neoliberal, technocratic pan-European melting pot with a federal European military, taxing authority, and budget. With a token nod (mainly, new taxes) to the climate crisis.

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