Last weekend’s protests across France may have done far more damage than just smashed windows and stolen iPhones. The depth of French anger at the neoliberal globalist policies of President Emmanuel Macron has finally been heard.
And Macron’s response may be exactly the thing needed to destroy what is left of imperial Europe’s credibility.
Macron’s handling of these protests have been nothing short of abysmal. He began November the darling of the globalist set I like to call The Davos Crowd, excoriating any sense of national pride, likening it to terrorism.
He also called for the creation of a Grand Army of the EU and pushed hard for banking federalization to consolidate power under Brussels over the currency, the true Achilles’ heel of the EU itself.
Then a planned tax hike on diesel fuel, which was sold to the French as a way to combat global warming, as part of the EU’s unquenchable desire to tilt at climate windmills, erupted in a nation-wide peaceful protest.
At which point Macron called the protesters ‘thugs.’
And now, after two weekends of violence and having scrapped the diesel tax, Macron emerges from his bunker to reaffirm France’s commitment to cracking down on the violence. But at the same time, as reported by Zerohedge, he’s calling for significant tax cuts and welfare spending.
Macron – whose approval rating is at an all time low, says he has asked his government to increase wages by 100 euros per month beginning in January as part of a series of new measures to be released in detail on Tuesday. He also announced that overtime hours won't be subject to payroll tax, and that his administration will scrap a tax hike on poor and low-income retirees. Furthermore, Macron asked companies to pay end-of-year bonuses which won't be taxed, and will suspend a CSG levy on pensions below 2,000 euros per month.Macron also said that immigration "must be debated" as well, as anti-immigrant sentiment has spread throughout Europe.Correct me if I’m wrong but France is already running a budget deficit that defies EU regulations. So, how is Macron going to pay for these programs and cuts?
Does Brussels even care?
No, they don’t because Macron is one of theirs so anything that can save his government from extinction will be tolerated. But what this move by Macron signifies is how close the Yellow Vests are to winning, because there’s no way these kinds of things would be on the table if the political winds hadn’t shifted far enough to leave him badly exposed.
With his approval rating dropping faster than Deutsche Bank’s stock price, Macron had to do something to stem the tide against him. It’s so bad even the rest of the French political establishment are sharpening their knives looking for a no-confidence vote and his resignation.
So, this is a desperate bid to quell the anger by throwing some money around and supporting tax relief for the very people who are rioting against him and turn some of the public’s opinion his way.
I note that Marine Le Pen has kept her mouth mostly shut while this is going on allowing the tempest to gather strength on its own. It’s been more than a week since she called for the French parliament to be dissolved for the first time in 20 years.
And, in my mind, that’s a very good thing. Le Pen is a divisive figure and by her staying out of this it doesn’t give the compliant European media any chance to link these protests to her and ‘far-right’ and ‘alt-right’ she’s supposed to occupy.
Instead they’ve had nothing at all to focus on but the protests themselves while test-marketing a tired “Russia hacked muh protest” narrative without proof or cause.
The best part about this move by Macron is that Italy’s Matteo Salvini, a man who walks through crowds in Rome like he’s the messiah, can use this to enflame Italian passions (not a difficult proposition, let me tell you) over just how unfair the EU is treating them with respect to their budget.
Salvini is looking at this proposal of Macron’s like it truly is manna from heaven. But for the EU, does it really have any other choice? When you’ve stepped off the cliff and are falling, anything you can do to keep from hitting the ground is what you do regardless of the long-term damage. Survival is all that matters.
And that’s exactly where the EU and Macron are now. Every action they take to try and hold this dysfunctional and tyrannical union together is only tightening the noose around their necks and hastening their eventual demise.
The more they struggle to maintain control in one place the more they empower their enemies in another.
When an event grabs headlines like the protests in France have I temper my reactions to it. I didn’t give the Yellow Vest protests much thought at first wanting to see where they would lead.
Protests like this and even bigger ones like Catalonian independence are invariably betrayed by the European political establishment. They become an excuse to move towards tighter control — more cops, more surveillance, crackdowns on free speech, etc.
So, sometimes it’s hard to separate the manufactured reality show from the spontaneous uprising of human frustration.
But after the past two weekends of violent protests, after the French government backed down on the new diesel tax which was the inciting incident of this story, it’s safe to say this is real and there is real fear brewing among the political elite of Europe.
As Rev. Steve Turley points out in this video, the media across Europe and the U.S. are scared of where this leads.
A return of national sovereignty across Europe is no longer coming. I think it’s here. This can no longer be stage-managed as a relief valve of the massive discontent at neoliberal policies rammed down Europeans’ throats as it has in the past.
Something far more significant is here. They can’t cordon off this movement in France and use it to demonize the leadership and, by extension, the people.
It’s jumped borders. It’s part of the zeitgeist now.
No matter how many times rags like The Guardian, Der Spiegel and Politico call these people ‘far-right’ or ‘alt-right’ and link them to Nazism it doesn’t stop them because the protestors don’t see themselves that way.
And well they shouldn’t because they aren’t.
Macron made numerous mistakes in handling this protests. But the biggest one was opening up his conversation with the French people with the same, tired insults used in the past to smear them and sow division.
Have they learned nothing in the past three years?
Brexit was not a fluke.
Trump was not a fluke.
Salvini isn’t a fluke.
Orban isn’t a fluke.
France is not a fluke.
These elections represent gut level revulsion to the path the political and economic discourse is on. And crying Nazi wolf too many times eventually gets you eaten.
These people are sick of the corruption and demand results, not words. Not campaign speeches, but results.
The majority of French people are not satisfied with a series of new economic policies unveiled by President Emmanuel Macron this week, and say that the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protests should continue, according to a new poll.
According to a poll by Odoxa, 59% of French say that they are not convinced by Macron, despite finding his proposal "satisfactory," according to Le Figaro. Just 21% found Macron's new policies convincing despite viewership for his speech jumping 40% over a speech last month.
That said, while Macron may have failed to win his people over - most of those polled agreed with his specific proposals; 61% favored the minimum wage boost, 55% liked the tax-free year-end bonuses and 85% of those surveyed backed no tax on overtime pay.
54% of those surveyed said the Yellow Vest protests should continue.
Many of the Yellow Vests have flat-out rejected Macron's proposals, according to European-Views.
Meanwhile, Macron faces a no confidence vote in parliament on Thursday, after left-of-center lawmakers moved against the President.
Approximately 4,100 of the 4,523 Yellow Vest protesters arrested since the Nov 17 start of the massive demonstrations across France were thrown in jail according to French television broadcaster BFM, citing police sources. Nearly 2,000 of those arrested were arrested last Saturday during the movement's "Act IV" protest, according to the Interior Ministry - over half of which, 1,082, occurred in Paris.
The 48-hour detentions have been criticized for denying citizens their right to demonstrate.
"By locking them up for 48 hours, they were denied the opportunity to go to a demonstration and that in a democratic country is shocking" Paris Bar attorney attorney Raphael Kempf told BFM (translated).
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