**Several thousand riot police were overwhelmed on Saturday as they fought running battles with protesters in the shadows of some of Paris’ fabled landmarks and through its fanciest shopping districts. More than 400 people were arrested and more than 100 injured, shocking Parisians and tourists alike. ** At the base of the 19th-century Arc de Triomphe, police kept the public back as cleanup crews set about erasing graffiti, much of it targeting President Emmanuel Macron and some exuding anarchist sentiment such as, “Overthrow the bourgeoisie!”
An immediate cause of the protests appears to be related plans to increase gasoline taxes to raise revenue and reduce global warming emissions. According to French media, 69% of the French expressed support for the movement. The highest support is in rural areas, which are most affected by the proposed increase in gasoline taxes.
For more details in French see:
It is not clear that the protests fit neatly into left or right politics. The strongest support appears to be coming from lower-income rural areas, which parallels support for Trump in the US, but there also appear to be elements of support from the far left as well.
What is going on in France?
Is it heading toward a revolution?
Are the protests and strong support a repudiation of the use of higher taxes to achieve global warming targets?
“This is the 50 percent of the French population, that we don’t really see very much. This is not those thriving in the big cities. This is not the impoverished people in the high immigration areas. This is the other 50 percent who live out in small towns, around the country. People who feel that they are completely forgotten economically, culturally, politically.”
Seems like left-wing snobbish libs in Europe are trying to screw over there middle class working people and using the poor as their justification.
“Overthrow the bourgeoisie” is something a Marxist would say.
Most anarchists are influenced by Marxist thought in some kind of way, be it the labor theory of value, the concept of wage slavery, analysis of family dynamics, colonialism/imperialism, or the Marxist theory of the state.
Yes that’s it in a nutshell! Those taxes are supposed to go up each year with no end in sight. It’s the moron Macron way and his approval rating is anywhere from high teens to no more then 26% so he is a real tyrant when it comes to global warming and is willing to inflict pain on the people of France at the alter of fanatical global environmentalism.
