upheaval as President Emmanuel appointed new Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to lead a deadlocked parliament. Follow our liveblog for the latest updates.
Protesters joined demonstrations across France “many different reasons,” Anna, a 23-year-old-protester, told FRANCE 24’s Aurélia Abdelbost in Paris.
She said the government had “closed its eyes” to issues including climate change, the war in Gaza, and the situation in France. “
France is burning in terms of an economic crisis, political demands and promises that have been made to us that haven’t been kept,” she added.
Pitch fork & torch time?
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I doubt Les Français would pitch fork it over Gaza or changement climatique without inside political agitators. As for the rest of whatever they’re crying about? What promises? Lower taxes? Higher taxes? Is this an “eat the rich” boiling point? Climate despair and Gaza are rank luxuries one can politically afford to indulge only after everything else is OK and not in question. False consciousness? The medium is the message?
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France had huge protests in 1968 that seemed to me to be rooted in French student envy of USAian protests (wah! we are being left out), later joined by the French labor movement that simply reflexively could not not join in… 4 years later I asked one of the student leaders what it had all really been about and he replied “Irritation, boredom, and then rage against meaninglessness” as he laughingly shrugged with classic French je ne sais quoi. Then he leaned across our picnic table, lightly slapped my cheek, and said I took life too seriously.
So I would add to your FCorelli’s sensible musings the possibility that the French political system has a deep peristaltic rhythm birthed in its Revolution, and triggered more often by boredom mixed with frustration than by coherent political agendas?
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Macron has once attempted to rise the retirement age.
And he successfully cut taxes on the rich & cut the wealthy tax.
France’s pricy social welfare plus increased defense spending is reeking havoc with France’s budget and national debt.
The discontentment continues!
The scale of the protests will help the new prime minister gauge the depth of widespread discontent across the country. Authorities are planning to deploy more than 80,000 members of the security forces and 24 armored vehicles across the country, an impressive show of force rarely seen since the 2018-2019 Yellow Jackets protests