Macron Permanently Cancels Planned Fuel Tax Hike After Yellow Vest Protests, by Chris Tomlinson.
French President Emmanuel Macron has given in to the initial demands of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement and permanently cancelled the proposed increase tax on fuel … following a massively negative reaction to Prime Minister Édouard Philippe’s proposal to simply defer the tax for another six months. …
On Tuesday, representatives of the Yellow Vest movement said the temporary freeze on the tax proposed by the French prime minister was simply not enough. Benjamin Cauchy, a major figure in the movement said, “We will not be put to sleep by a moratorium, the issues are much wider than that,” and added, “the French do not want crumbs, they want the breadstick in full.” …
Now that they have tasted victory, it will be interesting to see what the protesting French normals do next.
Here we go, the native French people are fighting back:
Whether or not the cancellation of the fuel tax will end the protests is unclear as members of the movement have already called for a “fourth act” to take place on Saturday. …
The movement has also begun to cite other issues of protest on top of the fuel tax, including the UN migration pact set to be signed in Marrakesh this month. The Yellow Vests have spoken about “replacement” and “chaos” if the pact is signed by the French government with many opposing the agreement.
France is now at a critical juncture. The riots of the yellow vests have occurred each weekend, for the last three weekends. Then Macron backed down on the carbon tax. If the riots this weekend are smaller than last weekend, then the movement is subsiding and may be mollified for months or perhaps years. But if this weekend’s riots grow even larger, then Macron is effectively being overthrown and the mob are in control.
Notice how quickly the demands segued from ending the carbon tax to ending third world immigration.
France is currently consumed by this power struggle. Some yellow vests are calling for Macron to resign, for parliament to be dismissed, and a new popular assembly to arise. Notice too that the yellow vests are not associated with either left or right as yet — though both sides are claiming ownership. (The Tea Party in the USA started in 2008 in reaction to the unfairness and corruption of the huge bailouts in the GFC. It was initially in both the left and right, but the Democrats kicked it out and it only took hold in the Republican Party. It eventually morphed into the movement headed by Trump.) They simply want less taxation. and for the elite to listen to them — that is, a decent life and democracy that works.
Is this the long awaited moment when the West’s peasants say “enough!” to the globalists?
The French also led the way against corrupt monarchies and their “divine right to rule” in 1789. All of Europe had such monarchies (though not Britain, which had a stronger Parliament). After the crazy leftism of the revolutionaries of 1789 had burned out and crumpled under the guillotine and epic mismanagement, a strong man arose to take charge of France — Napoleon. But the monarchies of Europe wanted to crush France and restore the monarchy in France, because a non-monarchist France was a threat to them and their ideology. (Do they sound like the globalists yet?) Napoleon saw himself as the guardian of the French revolution, In order to defend France from imminent monarchist attack, Napoleon led attacks on all the other European countries — Austria, Spain, the German and Italian states, even Russia. He almost won, and for nearly twenty years he was the scourge of monarchs all over Europe. Eventually Napoleon lost, twice, and the other European powers re-installed a French monarchy.
History does not repeat, but it does rhyme.
Yellow vest riots have already spread to Holland and Belgium. Where next? The US and Australia are still too comfortable to riot, but it is not impossible that one day crowds of English speakers will be donning yellow vests.
UPDATE: The vast social and political earthquake that started in France, by Joanne Nova.
Geoff Chambers, a long time skeptic lives in France:
… I get the impression that the British press, Europhile, Francophile, and Remainophile, will do all they can to suppress news of the vast social and political earthquake occurring here. If you think I’m exaggerating, consider this:
I get my information largely from three “independent” rolling news channels, all owned by millionaire oligarchs, and financed by ads which are almost exclusively for fast cars and perfumes — the kind of luxury products which France produces par excellence. In France, less than 8% of the population reads a national newspaper. News is for the élite. I switch to SkyNews, and I feel I’ve descended ten rungs on the social ladder, with rather ordinary journalists feeding me rather ordinary stuff for rather ordinary citizens. It’s not particularly informative, but it feels democratic — sort of.
BUT, these French channels are devoting 95% of their time (I’m not exaggerating) to a movement supported by 85% of the population, which is now demanding the resignation of a president recently elected by 65% of voters, plus the dissolution of parliament, to be replaced by some kind of popular assembly. This situation, incomprehensible to the English, is easily explained by the sociological analysis of Emmanuel Todd.
hat-tip Stephen Neil, Barry Corke
