So
it appears the privatization of France isn’t going quite as smoothly as
planned. As I assume you are aware, for over a month now, the gilets
jaunes (or “yellow vests”), a multiplicitous, leaderless, extremely
pissed off, confederation of working class persons, have been conducting
a series of lively protests in cities and towns throughout the country
to express their displeasure with Emmanuel Macron and his efforts to
transform their society into an American-style neo-feudal dystopia.
Highways have been blocked, toll booths commandeered, luxury automobiles
set on fire, and shopping on the Champs-Élysées disrupted. What began
as a suburban tax revolt has morphed into a bona fide working class
uprising.
It
took a while for “the Golden Boy of Europe” to fully appreciate what was
happening. In the tradition of his predecessor, Louis XVI, Macron
initially responded to the gilets jaunes by inviting a delegation of Le Monde reporters to laud his renovation of the Elysée Palace,
making the occasional condescending comment, and otherwise completely
ignoring them. That was back in late November. Last Saturday, he locked
down central Paris, mobilized a literal army of riot cops,
“preventatively arrested” hundreds of citizens, including suspected “extremist students,” and sent in the armored military vehicles.
The
English-language corporate media, after doing their best not to cover
these protests (and, instead, to keep the American and British publics
focused on imaginary Russians), have been forced to now begin the
delicate process of delegitimizing the gilets jaunes without infuriating
the the entire population of France and inciting the British and
American proletariats to go out and start setting cars on fire. They got
off to a bit of an awkward start........http://www.unz.com/chopkins/the-indiscreet-charm-of-the-gilets-jaunes/
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