The NY Times editorial board, featuring racist Sarah Jeong, has finally chimed in on the riots in France, and it’s as wacky as you’d expect
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A relatively mild hike in fuel taxes, intended to lower France’s carbon emissions, proved to be the last straw for a broad swath of people in the provinces and suburbs who believe that government ministers, bureaucrats, trade unions and especially the political class in a wealthy, complacent Paris are deaf to their economic struggles. Cars are indispensable in their lives, and a fuel tax increase intended to reduce vehicle use was an insufferable insult. Mr. Macron, without much political experience or an established party behind him, failed to see the anger rising, and when it erupted, seemed to have few responses other than retreat.
They’re missing that people in Paris and other bigger French cities were also incensed, and that this mild hike was on the back of other hikes and diesel rising naturally via market forces.
But when the government tried to open talks, there was no one to talk to. Some unofficial interlocutors appeared but were pulled back by threats from other yellow vests. So Mr. Macron and Prime MinisterÉdouard Philippe were left with no choice but to retreat, suspending the fuel tax hike and tougher vehicle inspections and freezing gas and electricity prices, while warning that violence would not be tolerated. “I hear this anger, and I have understood its basis, its force and its seriousness,â€Â Mr. Philippe declared. “It is the anger of the French who work and work hard but still have difficulty making ends meet, who find their backs against the wall.â€
The retreat is a dangerous gamble. In the view of the demonstrators, Mr. Philippe and his boss heard their anger only when they started torching cars on Avenue Kléber, not when it smoldered in distant villages. Social media is already buzzing with calls for more. Demands now include Mr. Macron’s resignation and dissolution of the Parliament.
Can you feel the sneering towards those darned little people who are tired of the political elites mucking up their lives? But, they are correct in one thing: it does set a dangerous precedent when a duly elected government retreats in the face of riots. Funny how we never heard the same thing in regards to all the Leftist and Black Lives Matter and such riots here in the States.
Such steps would be big mistakes. Certainly Mr. Macron and his government have to pay much closer heed to the France outside Paris and other big cities, and they need to make far greater efforts to explain their measures and to lower their burden on the many people struggling at the borderline of poverty.
You can either explain the measures or lower the burden which had been caused by the same government: you cannot do both. That poverty is being caused by government. It is funny when the NY Times says the French government should listen to those outside Paris (being the capital and a big city), when the Times itself sneers at people outside in the suburbs and rural areas here.
But the power of social media to quickly mobilize mass anger without any mechanism for dialogue or restraint is a danger to which a liberal democracy cannot succumb. Mr. Macron and the Parliament were democratically elected only 18 months ago, and the reforms they have been pursuing, both within France and in the European Union, and on the environmental front, were what they openly promised in those elections and what France needs.
Maybe it’s time for the politicians to shut up and listen, rather than having “dialogue”, which often ends with government doing whatever the hell it wants, like mom putting her foot down.
One thing they are correct on is that Macron and co. are doing what they said they would do. And Warmists became very upset when they realized that all the climate policies would impact their own lives. That should be a lesson for Warmists, all the Progressives/Marxists/Socialists, let’s just call them Statists, who want the same. All these Big Government policies, including ‘climate change’ ones, aren’t just going to impact Other People, buttercups.
