I mean, the French revolution was only one of the most important events in the history of modern Europe… NBD! /s
@Avyctes, I know, right? That’s some lazy ass driving trollies there…
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Bienvenue en bOINGbOING, camarade!
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…and you know what ? When you are at the top of the Eiffel tower, you can feel it move…
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I think it’s interesting your understanding of France’s “warrior spirit” during WWII seems to come from some glossed over, single paragraph in a middle school history book.
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добро пожаловать ! Is good english ! And btw, in 1940 France had more KIA in six weeks than the US during the whole Vietnam war…
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The French may be be ‘living on the edge and barely surviving’, and Macron’s agenda may be way too business/money focused (he was an investment banker, for fuck’s sake), but it’s hard to blame the former on the latter.
The economic/wage/employment issues in France are long-standing. Macron’s policies aren’t likely to make things better, and there is an extreme distrust/dislike for him in France (he was elected mostly as a rejection of the far right), but to say that he’s responsible misses a lot of the reality.
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Glad to see that the Yellow Vest movement is telling the right-wing populist entryists that they’re not welcome and is (literally) chasing them out. Movement discipline like that tends to lead to the powers-that-be taking the protests seriously and makes it more difficult for MSM outlets to smear the demonstrators en masse.
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Initially, when the “gilets jaunes” started off, I intended to write a scathing blog post along the lines of
huge amounts of injustice and inhumanity are tolerated by the good people of this society every day, but HELL will break loose when the FUCKING petrol price raises by ten cents. This is the consumer’s revolt, burning barricades for the status quo.
However, since then the scope of this revolt apparently has become significantly broader, and they are voicing legitimate concerns. Many young frenchpeople apparently put their hopes in Macron, and failed to see that he was just a fresh face to the plain old neo-liberal douchebaggery that has been holding the West in its claws for 30 to 40 years now. They feel cheated, and rightfully so.
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Long story short, you realized context is everything. 
Beneath the paving stones, the beach!
I saw a communique about some torched cop cars, “not for the purpose of defending the old world and its cars” and “not in solidarity with Gilets Jaunes.” That seems stereotypically French enough.
Crimethinc posted a translation of a piece by some appelistes about the competing tendencies in the yellow vests (Contribution to the Rupture in Progress). There’s every reason to be wary of them after their authoritarian violence at the ZAD, but their on-the-ground analysis is nonetheless valuable.
edit: didn’t mean for that to be a reply to you; sorry about that
Save your misformed Francopohbic nonsense for some other community, like Breitbart or /r/thedonald.
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So, riots in Paris… something something fuel costs… Fuel causes pollution (unproven)… Paris Accords!
Ah ha! It all makes sense! The riots are because of those liberal third world conspiracy Paris Accords!
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…and then the US joins Russia, the Saudis and Kuwait in watering down the climate agreement this weekend.
Something something fossil fuel cash cow…
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