Do some French people see what's going on? Yellow Vest Protests

[loreta]

With a thought for those people who have nothing to do with it, we can only observe, after the flop of the presidential speech, that this attack comes at the right time. Of course, as reasonable people, we cannot say it, but we will not refrain from thinking that the cynicism of those in power has no limits.

Cynicism is the right word. And I like to see how cynics the are because them being so cynics is like they are giving us the chance to see how deep and black are their souls. How "mechants méchants" they are.

 

[Ca.]

Live:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1073313672070660096

https://twitter.com/x/status/1073322916752826368

 

[zak]

Yellow vests: the Assembly rejects the motion of censure, voted by only 70 deputies
The National Assembly unsurprisingly rejected Thursday evening the left-wing motion of censure against the Edouard Philippe government for its management of the "yellow vest" crisis, voted by only 70 deputies.
During the day, to make the "people's cries" thrown by the "yellow jackets" heard, the left had submitted to Edouard Philippe, in a sometimes stormy atmosphere, to the test of a motion of censure, which however had no chance of bringing down the government.

The executive is "disconnected from the people" and it is "our responsibility to stop you in your stubborn race for capital", André Chassaigne (PCF), the first signatory to the motion tabled with the Insubmissives and the Socialists, said in front of a small Chamber.
DeepL.
Gilets jaunes : l'Assemblée rejette la motion de censure, votée par seulement 70 députés

 

[Corvus]

As for the vice-president of the Republicains, Damien Abad, he called for a "truce" in the mobilization of the "yellow vests". "A truce is needed, out of respect for the victims' memory, and because our police forces are mobilized," he said on Sud Radio. For Damien Abad, after the attack, "we need a call for calm and responsibility, and we need a truce because we also need to protect our law enforcement agencies, we need to ensure security", he said, considering that "the French would not understand if our police forces were not fully mobilized on this fight against terrorism".

It is also convenient that he was on the run so that public be kept in fear of protesting through another potential terrorist attack, but not too long it seems to not look too incompetent in the eyes of public. To me it seems like an ordinary distraction from protests to be served for mass consumption.

"So you have cameras everywhere, police and intelligence people everywhere and this little man shoots at you and then disappears ? That does not compute."

What is contradictory is that they recognized him through cameras and even if he "ran" away the available cameras could be time synced to get his route and possible going, not mentioning that that has low possibility because every car patrol in the city would be dispatched for the taxi. And that is only after the act not mentioning all the tracking intelligence agencies do before if he is on the potential list so it is not even wrong (like bugging your mobile phones with trojan horses programs if encrypted that data-mine your photos, videos, information, triangulating your position through GPS satellites with accuracy of 3 to 5 meters, etc...)

According to information from BFMTV, Cherif Chekatt, 29 years old, with an S record for his Islamist radicalization, reportedly spoke with the taxi driver. "After admitting the facts, he alledgedly told him that he had acted because he wanted to 'avenge his brothers who died in Syria'," says the news channel.

Yeah right, in the meantime they also went to drink a coffee in such a short time while he told him his whole life story. That sounds logical because every criminal says everything he can about his deeds to total stranger so there is more evidence that can be used against him.

That's about it. It has to be en masse! And that won't happen until enough people find themselves under the jackboot of the pathocracy to make it the majority in resistance.

United in suffering, that is only uniting I can see, even if it is too late for any change, at least there is satisfaction in seeing those high ups sweating in their ivory towers.

 

[Hi_Henry]

Ha ha ha ha ........................... I Love It. Maybe Macaroni could be photographed changing a tire on the highway.

How this poor soul Chekkat got pulled into this mess I don't know but never the less I say "Rest in Peace". Macron is a truly stupid manipulator and it is a shame if people do not see through it.

'Spider-Man' hero rescues baby dangling from Paris balcony

Note, it is not "Man saves child...." but it is "Spider-man ....". Yes, lets tie it into the heroic movie about a fictional heros because probable this incident was pure fiction. Love that watch. A mark of success at
Rothschild & Cie Banque.

 

[Hi_Henry]

Yeah right, in the meantime they also went to drink a coffee in such a short time while he told him his whole life story. That sounds logical because every criminal says everything he can about his deeds to total stranger so there is more evidence that can be used against him.

I had no idea he had time to take some coffee. I hope it was Yirgacheffe Premium (sarc all the way)

 

[loreta]

Me I have the impression that the culprit was killed since the beginning. I can not believe at all that he escaped so many military men. And maybe the guy they killed, who knows who he was, maybe someone who was passing, a total stranger, an innocent person that was there at the wrong moment. I don't believe at all what they are saying. What is sure: the deaths don't talk and the deaths don't take a taxi.

 

[thorbiorn]

So, I reckons we should all be tweeting about Act V.

"Internet users are calling for a takeover of the public media. The objective ? "To ensure the communication of ideas in all their diversity in France and not to spread propaganda for all the predatory interests""

An idea that should spread everywhere.

I tried the Twiter suggestion, but wondered if the above Act V program could read like it was inspired from the script for the movie V for Vendetta, I refer to the reasons why V went on TV. Remember the amazement of the people when the propaganda took a break?

Recall also the V speech, introduced most fittingly with the French word Voilà: which in English means: "—used to call attention, to express satisfaction or approval, or to suggest an appearance as if by magic" Here is the speech with words to better appreaciate the V factor:

Talking about V, which is five in Roman letters. France is now in the period of the French Fifth Republic which is described as:

"The Fifth Republic, France's current republican system of government, was established by Charles de Gaulle under the Constitution of the Fifth Republic on 4 October 1958.[1] The Fifth Republic emerged from the collapse of the Fourth Republic, replacing the former parliamentary republic with a semi-presidential, or dual-executive, system[2] that split powers between a Prime Minister as head of government and a President as head of state.[3][4] De Gaulle, who was the first French President elected under the Fifth Republic in December 1958, believed in a strong head of state, which he described as embodying l'esprit de la nation ("the spirit of the nation").[5]"

Macron appears from the outside as if he wishes to be a De Gaulle, but he has difficulty embodying the spirit of the nation.

 

[caballero reyes]

Loreta said in reply 286:

... "being so cynics is like they are giving us the chance to see how deep and black are their souls"
------------------
More than cynical, it seems that, if they have a soul, perhaps they have it in an embryonic state, because they show no mercy or remorse.
Like most politicians in the world.

 

[Nachtweide]

Polizeipanne? Straßburg-Attentäter war bei geplanter Festnahme in seiner Wohnung

That is crazy. In the morning they do not discover him in the attempted arrest. After the fact, they immediately know who it was and storm the same apartment. You will find EVERYTHING except the culprit, who is allegedly on the run. Now it turns out that he was in the apartment. There is nothing left to say

 

[Adaryn]

A "soldier" of the Islamic State

"Sherif Chekatt was a "soldier" of the Islamic State (IS), as announced by the propaganda media of the terrorist group Amaq shortly after the announcement of Chekatt's death. According to this statement, quoted by the SITE (the extremist network monitoring group), the young man "was part of the soldiers of the Islamic state and he conducted this operation in response to the call to target the citizens (of countries) of the international coalition" which is fighting the IS in Syria and Iraq."

 

[Ca.]

[MEDIA=twitter]1073336112180006912[/MEDIA]
Translated from French by Microsoft Graphic
#France: Street #Lazaret, #cherifchekatt lying on the ground. #Strasbourg #Neudorf

https://twitter.com/x/status/1073318834545848322

https://twitter.com/x/status/1073477206096007168

Unlike the 2014 Ukraine uprising, which witnessed invasive meddling on the part of US politicians and diplomats, Western support for the French Yellow Vest protests has been conspicuously missing in action.

The streets of Paris are ablaze for a fourth weekend in a row, as a swarm of Yellow Vests assert themselves against a French government which, they argue, has become increasingly detached from the cares of ordinary citizens. Yet support among Western capitals for the protesters is nowhere to be found.

This is a bit odd since the ‘gilets jaunes’ are not just protesting Macron’s (rescinded) plans for a fuel tax, but have releaseda list of 42 demands they want to see implemented. This includes an increase of the minimum wage, pensions and wages, as well as a halt to illegal immigration into the country. In other words, these are not anarchists roaming the streets of France, but regular citizens who have had enough. And the movement enjoys a high level of support among the French, with one poll showing 72 percent siding with the protesters.

The US and its allies will have trouble explaining their tone-deafness in the face of these legitimate concerns on the part of millions of French citizens. Their icy silence reveals glaring double standards and hypocrisy since the West rarely misses an opportunity to interfere in the affairs of foreign states – mostly in the Middle East – when ‘democracy’ is purportedly on the line.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1071382401954267136

Consider Washington’s starkly different attitude to Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan revolution, which brought down the government of Viktor Yanukovich through the explicit support of the United States, as well as a number of influential NGOs operating in the country.

Yanukovich committed the unforgivable mistake of thinking he would be allowed to pursue an independent course for his country, despite the fact that since 1992, the US had spent over $5 billion propping up ‘democracy-building programs’ in Ukraine.

Did Kiev really think that Washington would not eventually expect something in return for all those dollars, like maybe deciding who would eventually rule the Eastern European country on Russia’s border? And that is exactly what happened.

When Yanukovich signaled that he would not sign Ukraine up to an EU trade deal, he awoke a sleeping giant below his feet. Several weeks after the announcement, as his country was becoming increasingly divided over its options, the late US Senator John McCain appeared in central Kiev where he tossed dry wood on the smoldering fires by proclaiming at a rally on Independence Square, “Ukraine will make Europe better, and Europe will make Ukraine better…America is with you.”

What could have motivated Washington to pursue such blatant interference in the affairs of Ukraine, while ignoring the French ‘gilets jaunes’ that are now fanning out across France, protesting the neo-Liberal policies of President Emmanuel Macron? Could the answer have anything to do with something as simple as money? That certainly seems to be a large part of the equation.

After all, steering Kiev away from Russia, Western officials understood, would pay off handsome dividends for Western lending institutions, like the International Monetary Fund, which had already lent Kiev billions of dollars to stay afloat. The West was fiercely opposed to the idea of Russia and China becoming ‘lenders of last resort’, a financial and political function that the Western world covets more than any other, with the possible exception of military interventionism against sovereign states.


Fast forward one year after John McCain was agitating rallies in Kiev, and Victoria Nuland was handing out cookies to the protesters, and we find Ukraine, under the new leadership of the US-anointed President Petro Poroshenko, inking a $17.5bn (£11.5bn) loan deal with the IMF, together with the painful austerity measures that always accompany the bags of cash.


Presently, there are no such financial incentives in France that would convince Western capitals to ‘rally on behalf of democracy’ as it had done without delay in Ukraine.

This glaringly hypocritical position with regards to the French protesters reveals a deeply flawed, cart-before-the-horse Western axiom that commands: ‘whatever works to the advantage of Western institutions and its political elite is automatically good for democracy.’ This does not exclude social upheaval and revolution. If violence in the streets translates into the empowerment of Western institutions, not least of all the global financial institutions, then such actions will be rewarded with Western support without a moment’s thought.

Today, Emmanuel Macron, 40, the former Rothschild investment banker known as “president of the rich” by his countrymen, is facing the prospect of an early political demise, no less than Viktor Yanukovich faced in 2014.

Indeed, to say that Macron’s popularity among the French is in the toilet would be putting the situation mildly.

As one local English-language French magazine summed up his plight: Macron is “long-hated by the extreme-leftist groups because of his past as a banker… detested by the far-right because of his pro-European, globalist beliefs and now hated by many ordinary French people, who see him as arrogant, aloof and unsympathetic to their problems.”

Yet, not a single Western politician to date has appeared in the French capital, rallying the protesters and demanding Macron step aside; nor has any top-ranking US diplomat been spotted handing out cookies to the French rabble as Victoria Nuland did in Kiev at the height of Ukrainian tensions.

Incidentally, with such stark images in mind, it is simply outrageous that the US can actually accuse Russia of meddling in its political affairs, and without a shred of evidence to back the claims. But I digress.

The simple reason that no Western country has come out to condemn Macron is because he toes the line on neo-liberalism and extreme free-market economics that has ravaged the French middle class to the breaking point. The fuel hike was just the proverbial straw that broke the voters’ back.

It would be no exaggeration to say that all segments of French society have become caught up in the protests. Today we see hundreds of French schools, for example, shutting down as students take to the streets to protest Macron’s unpopular education reform. Pensioners are also counted among the protesters after Macron lectured them to stop “whining” about spending cuts, at the very same time he was slashing taxes for the wealthy.

Sharmine Narwani on Twitter

Clearly, there is nothing about Macron that Western leaders can find not to their liking. He is carrying out painful liberal reforms and austerity programs with gusto, and only under pain of usurpation does he backpedal on his political program. Although the rudderless French president may fancy himself as a modern-age Napoleon, acting tough with his subjects to get what he wants, ultimately it will be the French street that decides his fate, which at the moment looks very bleak.

Such a brutal wake-up call may very well be in store for many more Western neo-liberal leaders, who fail to check the pulse of their people when advocating their deeply unpopular policies, in the weeks and months to come.

 

[Esote]

These last events in Strasbourg sure look like a false flag, but I wonder then why it didn't happen during a "gilets jaunes" demonstration ? That would have been so efficient to stop the movement !
So that it isn't the goal actually ? Just to add some more chaos may be...

 

[yumi]

controlled demolition of a house of cards ?

 

[Adaryn]

"Yellow vests": Emmanuel Macron calls for "calm" on the eve of a new day of mobilization

At the end of a European Council meeting, Emmanuel Macron called on France to regain "calm", "order" and "normal functioning" on Friday 14 December, on the eve of a new day of mobilisation of the "yellow vests".

Is the executive concerned? The head of state said Friday in Brussels that France needed "calm, order and a return to normal functioning", a few hours before the "Act V" of the mobilisation of the "yellow vests".

And he continued: "I have given an answer" to the demands of the "yellow vests". "Dialogue (...) is not achieved through occupation of the public domain and violence," he finally stressed.

A "truce" demanded by the "free yellow vests"

A vision shared by the "free yellow vests" collective, seen as more moderate than the "historical channel" and calling for a "truce". They believe that "the time for dialogue has come", after four Saturdays of mobilization, three of which were marked by spectacular violence and degradation, which plunged the government into turmoil.

The measures unveiled on Monday by the Head of State - including a €100 increase of the minimum wage, and an exemption from the CSG tax increase for pensioners earning less than €2,000 per month –

[note that the criteria of 2000€ isn't applied at the individual level, but at the level of the fiscal household, which means that a couple whose combined pension amounts to 2000€ or more WILL see their CSG tax increase… which means the government is really fooling people here]

as well as the calls to "put the movement on hold" after the Strasbourg Christmas market attack, have hardly weakened the yellow vests' determination".

"This is the moment when you just can't give up."

"This is precisely the moment when we must not give up," Eric Drouet, one of the movement's initiators, urged Thursday in a Facebook video: "What Macron did on Monday was a call to continue, because he is starting to give up something and, coming from him, it is unusual." On Facebook, the main channel for mobilizing this movement, the numerous calls for an "act V" still bring together several thousand "participants".

Some 15 left-wing organisations, including the Espace des Luttes LFI, the Left Party, the Solidaires trade union and the Attac association, have also called for a rally to be held in Paris, where a rally at the request of the "Mouvement citoyen des gilets jaunes" has been declared in the prefecture. On previous Saturdays, yellow vests had demonstrated on the Champs-Elysées.

Towards a referendum?

The initiators of the movement are now asking for a referendum on four proposals from Emmanuel Macron, including the introduction of a citizens' initiative referendum and the lowering of taxes on essential products. "The idea is not to impose anything on anyone, but to hold a referendum to see if everyone agrees on these points," Priscillia Ludosky, another figure behind the movement, explained on Thursday.

The determination of "yellow vests" is also a concern for retailers and the retail sector, which has been hit hard during the Christmas shopping season. Private sector activity fell in December to its lowest level in two and a half years, according to IHS Markit office.