Popular protests in the EU

[Silurian]

But that would be German Jackbooted tyranny and fascism of the evil EU

Her sentence was already appealed from 15 to 10 years, unless she was stealing school supplies over the period of her employment, or not carrying out cleaning duties. This wouldn't surprise me as during the economic lending spree, public services workers collected wages without turning up to work. Essentially ghost workers on government payroll

The ECHR is not an EU body.

I would assume that they would have added theft etc to the charges if that was happening to any significant extent.

 

[Silurian]

Protests in UK, Spain, France Poland Germany, 23/11, against Amazon

http://fortune.com/2018/11/23/amazon-black-friday-2018-protest/

Protests in London; 21/11,22/11,23/11, against Global warming.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-46292819

Protest in London, 17/11, against racism and facism

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/protesters-march-against-racism-in-london

Protest in Teeside, NE England, 22/11, part of Industrial/Safety action

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/a66-protest-hit-school-college-15450783

Protest in Copenhagen, 23/11, against human rights abuse in Iran

https://www.ncr-iran.org/en/news/ir...ran-regime-s-human-rights-abuse-and-terrorism

 

[Hrothbern]

Seems we are now in the visible part of the ideological hijacking phase of the autonome grassroot French "Gilets Jaunes" protests.

 

[innonimatu]

Seems we are now in the visible part of the ideological hijacking phase of the autonome grassroot French "Gilets Jaunes" protests.

The ideology was always there: the rich are getting richer and the rest are getting poorer, the government is ruling against us, stop that.

The phase we are it is the usual one of the government creating the excuse of violence to repress these protests. Send in the police and the state intelligence both in uniform and as agents provocateurs. And have the obedient media painting the protests as aligned with some specific party.

Given that they have to push this propaganda upon the very people who are physically protesting and seeing things on the spot, and are deeply disillusioned with the tools used by the state and its media allies, it won't work.
But I do hope other political groups do get being an effort to put an end to Macron, they are necessary for that.
Protests "turn violent", as if a protest is an animal with a will of its own...

Thousands of demonstrators from all over France massed on the famous boulevard on Saturday to express their anger at the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his government. But what was supposed to be a peaceful protest by the gilets jaunes (yellow jackets) movement degenerated rapidly.
On one side, protesters reportedly infiltrated by far-right extremists and casseurs (rioters and hooligans) tore up paving stones and hurled them and other missiles at police before building barricades that they set alight. On the other, police used teargas, pepper spray, water cannon and bulldozers to clear the road.
Each time the police advanced, protesters rebuilt the barricades, using metal barriers from roadworks and construction sites, rubbish bins and anything else they could find. Many gilets jaunes attempted to withdraw as violence erupted, but were hampered by advancing police. Others retreated, but vowed to remain at the protest. “We were here as pacifists and we were gassed. But we will stay here all day because Macron has to listen,” said one man, who gave his name as Jacques.

Those are not merely "far-right extremists and casseurs". They are right insofar as they work for the state security apparatus. They get deployed every time the state is faced with the inconvenience of having to justify the use of violence against its own citizens who are protesting.

The demonstrators had been told to stay at the official protest site designated by the French authorities – the Champ de Mars by the Eiffel Tower – and to keep away from a number of sensitive sites in the city, including the Champs Élysées and Place de la Concorde near the Elysée palace.
The first arrivals were angry and frustrated, feeling abandoned by their leaders and determined to make their voices heard. Those who spoke to the Observer were of all ages, held a wide range of jobs or were unemployed, and of various political persuasions. None of those who spoke to journalists – on or off the record – appeared to be looking for a fight.

“We’re here because we’ve had enough,” said Joel Mouilleseaux, 24, a student. “It’s always the same people who have to pay for the madness of others. We have to work to pay, work some more to pay some more and it’s been like that for years. It’s been like it since I was born, president after president, and now we’re saying, that’s enough.”
He said he had voted for an independent candidate at the last election. “Left, right, for me it’s the same, always the same. I want to be heard, listened to and have a response.”
Bruno Binelli, 66, a retired carpenter from Lyon, said: “I’m not in any political party. I often vote Front National, but I’m not Front National. It’s not my mentality – and besides, I’m Italian by origin – but I do it out of protest, to say things are not good, and if you continue like this we will end up electing someone from the extreme right.
“But they don’t listen to us. Macron listens to nothing. He’s suddenly concerned about ecology, but it’s a lie: it’s a pretext to make us pay more tax. We no longer know what kind of car to buy: petrol, diesel, electric, who knows? I have a little diesel van and I don’t have the money to buy a new one, especially as I’m about to retire. We have the feeling those from the countryside are forgotten.”
Many talked of desperation at trying to make ends meet. As they passed the designer stores off the Champs Élysées, their complaints over inequality appeared to strike a chord: TV pundits spoke of an “insurrection of the people against the elites”.

France’s centrist government blamed the far right, who along with other politicians blamed Macron. Polls suggest the gilets jaunes have the support of almost 80% of French people.

Poor student was born after Miterrand lost socialism in the back of his desk drawer, no wonder he didn't knew anything but the business kleptocracy feeding on the state.

 

[r16]

well , this needs to be said , you know . New Turkey Foreign Affairs condemns the French Police for using excessive force , while Voice of Russia which is Leftist in Turkey in selected segments had explained a week before that in France there's a morbid fear of starting troubles with too much force . Though yet to hear eyes have been lost by aimed tear gas canisters .

 

[AdrienIer]

Lol. The police has mostly been mild on the protesters. If a bunch of black kids from the suburbs had done the same thing they wouldn't have been as nice. We'd be in "state of emergency" and the government would have outlawed the movement. The right would be crying about law and order. But they're not black kids from the suburbs so their anger is being listened to.

 

[Marla_Singer]

Lol. The police has mostly been mild on the protesters. If a bunch of black kids from the suburbs had done the same thing they wouldn't have been as nice. We'd be in "state of emergency" and the government would have outlawed the movement. The right would be crying about law and order. But they're not black kids from the suburbs so their anger is being listened to.

I totally agree.

I've been shocked by the violence of those which media still call "demonstrators" and by the forgiving tone of the journalists, insisting on the fact they are "despaired" people. If the dudes would be arab or black, they would be called rioters and the alt-right would denounce the decadence of society. But here it's totally accepted, it's juste insane.

 

[innonimatu]

I totally agree.

I've been shocked by the violence of those which media still call "demonstrators" and by the forgiving tone of the journalists, insisting on the fact they are "despaired" people. If the dudes would be arab or black, they would be called rioters and the alt-right would denounce the decadence of society. But here it's totally accepted, it's juste insane.

And you have been witnessing this "violence" personally? And you are obviously not shocked by the violence of those drivers who attempted to run over the people inconveniencing them? How dare they heap trash and chairs on the Champs Elysees? And nov moving aside when the police shows up? Order must be maintained, there is no allowance for unauthorized protests. Totally insane those!

Or have you formed that idea about the "violence" from the images this media is selecting to show you? They guard their words deliberately, to play neutral, but depict a narrative to serve the government. And you swallow it bait and hook whole. Macron has always been the darling of the media proprietors.

And the journalists are now so very pissed that people resent their propaganda for the government:

Depuis le début de la mobilisation des « gilets jaunes », plusieurs témoignages de journalistes insultés ou malmenés par des manifestants ont été partagés sur les réseaux sociaux. Samedi 24 novembre, à Toulouse, cette violence verbale et physique à l’égard des médias a pris une tournure inquiétante, cinq journalistes de BFM-TV et C-News ayant échappé de peu à des agressions physiques de la part de « gilets jaunes ».

They are no longer pretending to be neutral.

 

[Hrothbern]

I think these protests have most of all to do with the divide between urban and rural, between more open and more closed societies, between open to the bigger market and more believing in protection from the market.
And as a timeline development amplifying that:
We all developed post WW2 in more libertarian, and especially in more materialistic consuming societies. The sky was the limit in big GDP per Capita growth. Futuristic modernism and great innovations all over. Optimism.
The more urban areas pulling ahead on top, more believing in that miracle of our strenght. The rural areas also switching to that consumer materialism, but with some suspicion.

And now ?
That easy 3% annual growth has come to an end, the Climate development needing sacrifices on top.... the looming consequenses, the reality of a grinding end of our "the limit is the sky" growth.
The unbridled growth accompanied since the neo-liberalism by evermore mechanisms favoring inequality. The last ditch efforts to increase growth by the neo-liberals (incl Macron) at the expense of equality.

We lost our older closed societies for self-identification, replaced it by optimistic consumer materialism, but that is coming to a halt... the party is over.....what now ?
Go back in panic to nationalism and correlated "values", whereby we have forgotten how that really was ?
hmpff
Urban and rural are reacting differently to this ending of our party, the more and the less educated are reacting differently, the people more able to enjoy immaterial richness are reacting differently from the people more aimed at material values.
A divide that was always there, but is now becoming so manifest, that is is changing the traditional left-right, changing the grass and therefore the grassroots.

EDIT
and in above sense, no big surprise that the dynamics shows in France (a real rural country), or in Italy (the country of the villages), or in other more rural/less industrialised countries, more vulnerable from less industry from the ending of the post WW2 GDP growth wave.

 

[AdrienIer]

And you have been witnessing this "violence" personally? And you are obviously not shocked by the violence of those drivers who attempted to run over the people inconveniencing them? How dare they heap trash and chairs on the Champs Elysees? And nov moving aside when the police shows up? Order must be maintained, there is no allowance for unauthorized protests. Totally insane those!

Or have you formed that idea about the "violence" from the images this media is selecting to show you? They guard their words deliberately, to play neutral, but depict a narrative to serve the government. And you swallow it bait and hook whole. Macron has always been the darling of the media proprietors.

And the journalists are now so very pissed that people resent their propaganda for the government:



They are no longer pretending to be neutral.

With all due respect this is a lot of BS. I don't blame you, but you don't seem to be following closely enough. The "gilets jaune" in Paris this weekend and in some other places these past few weeks have been about as violent as the black blocks (and other radical movements). Except 1) the response hasn't been the same from the police (softer than on other violent protesters) and 2) they destroyed public property while the black blocks usually go for capitalist emblems like mcdonalds and such. Amusingly the public property that they destroyed will be repaired with taxpayer money, when they are demanding less taxes. Rather counterproductive.
They don't seem to have a coherent message. They ask for less taxes in general, but want more public service. The obvious solution is to tax the rich, but they haven't dared ask that. It's because they're being used by the right and the far right, and many of the leaders emerging from their ranks come from this side of the spectrum.

Journalists are scared, and rightly so. A journalist on a blocked site was asked by protesters to lie and say that there were 2000 of them there, and when the journalist refused the protesters assaulted the crew. That quote of yours symbolizes that : the protesters hate journalists, but the journalists are still trying to do their job. They're just scared that they might end up in hospital for doing their job.

 

[innonimatu]

The idea that a protest should not cause any destruction of property, private or public, is funny. I guess they should have invited Macron for a cup of tea in the Champs Elysees? And they have "dared" complain about how the wealthy pay fewer and fewer into the state and they are squeezed for more.

This is not a urban versus rural divide, it is plain old class divisions. Workers on the one hand, and increasingly small business people who are squeezed, and big capitalists and their paid lackeys on the other. These lackeys happen top be concentrated in urban areas, and governments spend more money where they live. But they certainly do not make up the majority of those living in urban areas.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Yeah God forbid people even attempt to have a peaceful protest about anything. It's no fun if you don't get to smash things is it.

 

[Hrothbern]

People having their peaceful protest are typical not happy to find out, directly seeing it, or the next day from pictures in the newsmedia, that some people were happy to join with violence.
That's why I mentioned earlier in a post that the hijacking has started.
When you want to use violence... pick your own spot far away from the peaceful crowd to do your own protest.
But do not hijack the peaceful people. I find that fundamentally disrespectful and undemocratic.
Newspapers with people swarming everywhere just to get those violent pictures for their headlines, instead of reporting the true and bigger picture of the total protest a pittyful bunch.

 

[Silurian]

We have a thread on mass murders in the US, we can have one on popular protests in the EU. Anywhere inside the EU, because I really wonder where people are more displeased, with what, and how different governments are reacting. I'd like help keeping a record of mass protests, it would be interesting to compare them.

There was no mention in the OP that the protests had to be violent.
I have posted links to many protests most of which were non violent.

 

[innonimatu]

I haven't had much time in my hands, and have been noticing only those that seem larger. But I'm not discounting peaceful protests.

My point is only that protests need not be "peaceful". I should have phrased it "should never cause any destruction of property". Depending on the issue peaceful protests may be entirely useless. It's not as if governments care a lot about a protests when elections are distant. Nor the media. This one in France made the news for a longer time because it involved a lot of what we call civil disobedience, breaking the laws: cutting roads, erecting barricades, "damaging property"...

 

[mitsho]

It‘s an escalating scale: Media Comments -> writing your politician -> Petition -> Civil Disobedience -> Demonstration -> Violent, non-officialised Protest. Now France has a tradition of street protests, so they start higher than other countries. What is interesting is that those gilet jaunes are the same as Brexit-Voters or the German Wutbürger, Cinque Stelle in Italy, Syriza in Greece and to a degree also Podemos in Spain (though that populism is leftist). It‘s a sign that something is off - might be a late reply to the financial crisis of ten years ago - and that is scary. Macron‘s Policies seem right, but he obviously doesn‘t manage to convince the people. I‘m not sure how he could do that, but I hope (and believe) that our system is strong enough to withstand and reform itself by the transitiong to a more sustainable world and some wealth redistribution. Flank Elements are needed, policies that soften the blow for the (percieved) losers of that transition.

 

[AdrienIer]

Macron's economic policies are terribly bad for his image. Reducing the "tax on fortune" to almost nothing while increasing several flat taxes (which are worse for the least wealthy) is something you cannot spin to your benefit. And the fact that the prime minister, the minister of economy and the minister of finance are all right wing doesn't help.

 

[innonimatu]

Macron‘s Policies seem right, but he obviously doesn‘t manage to convince the people. I‘m not sure how he could do that, but I hope (and believe) that our system is strong enough to withstand and reform itself by the transitiong to a more sustainable world and some wealth redistribution.

Me I am sure Macron's policies are more of the same, transfer wealth and power to the richest. And I have become convinced that "our system" must be destroyed for things to improve for the mass of the population. "Reform" has been steadily towards more inequality, not less. More of this "reform" will only make things worse.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Do they have a trebuchet already? Because if they do, that means Macron has a golden toilet. And that means he is a bloody dictator. Bloody dictators must go. For them to go you have to kill their cop troops with molotovs first, also burn some loyalist peasant activits for barbecue, if you are a true connoisseur. Then bring in some randomly shooting snipers. Ah wait... American politicians to support the crowd first, snipers a bit later.

 

[Old Hippy]

don't know if already posted but...