The Guardian discusses protests in France this morning, 8nckuding this comment and quote:
Isabelle, 41, a single mother, had never taken part in a protest movement before. She works at a sandwich stand at Toulouse airport for the minimum wage — less than €1,200 a month — and her daily shifts begin at 3am. She was among many who had deliberately spoiled her ballot paper in last year's presidential election final round, unwilling to choose between Macron or the far-right Marine Le Pen.
“This is now about so much more than fuel tax,” she said. “We seem to live in a world gone mad where the rich pay next to nothing and the poor are constantly taxed. We've had enough of the elite.”
It is fifteen years since tax justice campaigning began. But the attitude of the wealthiest has not changed. They still think tax ‘is for little people'. They are wrong. We said so. Now very large numbers of people are agreeing.
Macron made a major mistake in France. He cut the wealth tax. He really should not have done that whilst cutting benefits.
The fact is that nothing reflects the aspiration for the society you want more than the taxes you choose to levy. Macron indicated the society he wanted. He lost the French by doing so.
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Good for the French people like Isabelle I say.
I know it was ugly but sometimes it has to be that way. The Right has no problem with violence. What goes around comes around.
But my concern is the Left in Europe.
They still do not seem to have any answers. The previous president was a disaster.
Why are the euro-Left so tongue-tied?
‘Tis a pity.
Just a few observations from France (where I’ve lived for 30 years)
– Hollande was perceived by the left to be too pro big business and too influenced by lobbies. He wasn’t a total disaster, but as always as a Socialist, was trying to resist pressures that a right wing government would naturally comply with.
– France has some very sound left of centre politicians, but Macron managed to convince voters he was “centrist” and hoovered up their votes. We now know otherwise. A lot of politicians were taken in by his “youthful charm” and deserted their party. His lack of experience is now exposed.
– It is beginning to look like much of the violence is coming from extreme right movements(several were arrested last night)
– Finally: Benoît Hamon is worth watching with his GenerationS party….he has some very radical policies.(Taxation of robots, universal income). Sadly during the election campaign a lot of journalists didn’t have the imagination to study his proposals seriously. Society cannot transform with “more of the same”.
As a person who has always been Left leaning Gill all I can say is that the Left anywhere has not lived up to my expectations for some time.
The reason is quite simply that they have ran out of original ideas and can only ape neo liberal ideas in the hope of getting the support of swing voters.
The modern Left thinks that it can co-opt or contain vested interests via informal relationships and through the horse trading of outputs from policy. It is a cowardly stance.
They/it are deluded.
A real Lefist movement would see the recent riots in France as a justification to invest the far right out of existence. Spend some money on these people. Give them hope and the far right will go. Honestly. It will fall away.
It is unbelievable that Macron could have been elected as “the outsider” to sort out French politics when you couldn’t really have found a better example of a member of the elite with the elite’s interests at heart.
On a separate topic I watched some of Question Time last night (normally I avoid it because it tends to raise my blood pressure) and was amused to discover the only type of indirect taxes that the right don’t like – fuel duties and other environmental taxes. Charles Moore (of the Telegraph) put forward the argument that fuel taxes were unfair because they had a bigger impact on poor people than on the well off. Although this seemed to be more motivated by his denial of the reality/urgency of addressing climate change than any genuine concern for the less well off.
So perhaps we could get the right-wing to agree to abolishing VAT and transferring the tax burden back to income tax/corporation tax – just need to work out a way of convincing them that VAT is a lefty environmental tax!
True Neil, though a lot of people voted for Macron because he wasn’t Le Pen.
Hi Gill,
I agree regarding people choosing Macron because he wasn’t Le Pen. We went to stay with some French friends just before the election and this was very much their sentiment.
It was an unfortunate effect of the French presidential election rules that those two ended up running off against each other.
Rising inequality is increasingly destabilising our societies, yet the forces driving it show no sign of abating:
1) Automation and Globalisation of labour markets continue to drive down real returns to labour, pushing more and more working households into poverty. The old economic forces from the post war era, when full employment helped unions to drive up wages, no longer apply.
2) This throws far greater pressure on governments to intervene and redistribute wealth. Yet they have been doing the opposite, by cutting taxes for the wealthy while slashing public spending in the name of austerity.
The solution is a universal Basic Income that eliminates the threat of household poverty, without adding to the pressure of wages on businesses already struggling to compete in a Global market.
Building consensus for such a fundamental shift in policy will take time. But there are steps that could help take us in the right direction, starting with Carbon Tax and Dividend, which favours lower income citizens, at the expense of those who consume the most. Sadly this was the one option Macron completely ignored, as he rightly added to fuel taxes, but failed to give this revenue back to the poorest.
The vestes jaunes seem to be France’s Brexit. A piece with a slightly different slant but in similar vein here: http://www.progressivepulse.org/economics/worthless-of-the-world-unite
French riots! Over the years I have written quite a few essays on the subject. Marx said history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce. I am not sure where these riots stand. As a teenager in 1968 the naivety and passion of youth placed me firmly on the side of the French students. I do not regret the moral stance of that time only that it was not accompanied by wisdom. These riots evoke similar sympathies and it is disappointing to find that whilst I have accrued knowledge over the years I still lack the wisdom to offer practical solutions. Tom Payne who had first hand experience of revolutionary France said of Government that it “…assumes to exist for itself, and acts by partialities of favour and oppression, it becomes the cause of the mischiefs it ought to prevent.” It is obvious to me that this must change, but will it?
What marks these riots as different is the apparent absence of leaders. I am sure that figured in the strategy of a temporary withdrawal of the fuel taxes. What worries me is that without leadership to formulate policy the breadth of legitimate complaint will not be addressed and will be hostage to mischief. The establishment will seek to return to the status quo at the lowest possible expenditure of political and economic capital. The underlying causes will not be addressed and will erupt again in unpredictable ways. A colleague who specialises in maths tells me he thinks there is a mathematical coincidence in the nature of the spread of viral contagion and the nature of the spread of civil disturbance. It doesn’t progress in a contiguous form but jumps from one place to a seemingly unconnected place. If so should we be concerned? Our government displays a similar ideology, seeks a similar paradigm. After the 2011 UK riots Boris spent £350k on a water cannon and another £400k on rubber bullets. Is that an indication of the anticipation of the probability of civil disobedience? Can we think of any subject(s) where views are so fractured, leaders so obdurate, solutions so unattainable, that civil disobedience is a real possibility?
Be worried, I am afraid
I fear it’s just another varietal manifestation ‘of morbid symptoms’ that will appear increasingly across the globe, especially in the West. Threatened ruling Establishments will respond militarily. Can’t say we haven’t been warned.
After I reluctantly put that tick across Macron’s name in 2016, I told my friends that I hoped he had an experienced team around him, and that he’d be a fast learner.
I also said that I hoped the young arrogant technocrat would remember he’d been elected by default, and have some humility.
He had some groupies around him who showed signs of blind fanaticism for the brand of americanised gig economy he was pushing, so I wasn’t sure he would step out of his bubble.
I quickly realised he wouldn’t, unless forced to.
First there was that rich tax cancelled. A red rag to the bull, even though as they painfully and badly explained to people, they were going to hand out money to workers in other tax relief measures (cancelling council tax for low income earners for example).
The man constantly talked down to ordinary people, showing his arrogance was his hallmark and wouldn’t budge.
He is also seen to give business and bosses a free ride. They were given tax rebates on condition they employed more youngsters ( youth unemployment is high), but this has not happened to a significant degree, bosses are pocketing the tax relief, but not much gets done to force them to fulfil their part of the social contract.
As a pendant to that, employment laws are being changed so that the gig economy can thrive. Uberisation is being pushed, workers rights sidelined.
Macron is not just rejected for his politics though, people really don’t like him as a person, his communication has been disastrous (even Giscard was able to get away with conning ordinary people because he could communicate).
This partly explains the strength of feelings in the blockages on the roundabouts and in shopping centres. He will have to give ground, he already has.
Whatever happens today (Saturday) I hope no one dies.
I also suspect this Saturday will not be the end of the story. Anything is possible, even the fall of the government.
Extremists are waiting for Macron’s fall to take over.
Mélenchon is salivating, Le Pen is jubilating. Both are irresponsibly ‘throwing oil on the fire’ as we say in French, even though clever Mélenchon gives the appearance of wanting to calm things down.
Le Pen may be dim, but he isn’t. Both are equally dangerous. Both are authoritarians who will limit liberties. Macron is doing some of that already, mind you.
The lack of organisation in these riots leaves the door open to insurrection. Wouldn’t be the first. They will be met by the full force of the CRS, who have been instructed to respond this time.
Trade Unions have to step up to the mark, even though they have tried to act as reps, they have not been trusted. Political parties aren’t either.
I’m quite pessimistic, and a little scared too. I don’t really know where to turn right now, both my countries in turmoil.
So occasionally I listen to Bernie, to Caroline Lucas, and dream of a way out of all this.
@Marie Thomas:
Thank you Marie for putting all that so well. I fully agree and feel exactly the same.
After voting for Benoit Hamon in both the PS Primary & the first round of the Presidential election, like you I reluctantly put that tick against Macron’s name when faced with having to choose between him & Le Pen in the second round (the only other option being a ‘vote blanc’ with the risk of letting in Le Pen by default). The result, as you rightly point out, was that Macron was elected by default as without doubt the lesser of two evils. He would indeed do well to remember that, but I see little sign that he has or will. But we can always dream.