The list of places where riots took place in France over the weekend feels like the list of places a couture house might boast of hosting its stores, but not right now.
Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Marseille and many more saw riots over the weekend. French police estimated half a million people took part. If their methods of estimation are similar to those used by the Metropolitan Police in the UK, many more did so.
The rioting went beyond France. It also occurred in Lisbon, Milan, and Tirana in Albania.
I don't condone rioting. Unlawfulness creates opportunities for the far right, and for those who will exploit such situations for straightforward criminality.
But, that said, the issue in this case was not about the minority of protesters who engaged in confrontation with the police. It was about the many more who took to the streets to say neoliberal France was failing them.
The reality is that, despite high levels of government spending as a proportion of GDP, France still cannot meet the expectations of its people. Underlying all of these protests is one simple fact, which is that the governments of the countries where protests are taking place, and those where they might do so, are set up with the deliberate intent of denying people the services that they need, based on claims being made that the government in question cannot afford to supply them.
Neoliberals convince themselves they are right because they claim the funding rules they created to restrict the role of government cannot be complied with and, as a consequence, they say they have no choice but to impose austerity on the people of their countries. They wring their hands in performative despair, and then loudly condemn those who complain through the media channels they control.
The far right embrace the cuts that the neoliberals propose, and suggest that they would go much further, simultaneously suggesting that they would impose draconian penalties on those who might disagree with them, which, if these cuts were to take place, might well include a great many of those they now hope will vote for them.
And the left? It, and the majority of unaligned people, who represent the vast majority in all countries, now ask a simple, straightforward question, which is why is government failing when it is so obvious that people and resources are available to create the better future most people desire?
And why is it apparently impossible to put those people and resources to use in ways that might create the well-being whose availability would provide the answer to the frustrations underpinning the massive disquiet in French society, and societies elsewhere?
These people know that there is a systemic failing in France.
They know that what is claimed to be impossible in terms of government is in fact a situation chosen to perpetuate a status quo that leaves the young without hope, most people in perpetual anxiety, and a few in positions of extreme fortune that decades of neoliberalism have delivered to them without creating underpinning prosperity for the community at large.
This is why, whatever President Macron might say, these riots are not unbridled violence, nor are they outbursts from a disgruntled few on the far left of politics, although the far left in question does very clearly understand the anger of those protesting. Instead, they are expressions of pent-up frustration with a system that has so obviously failed and is in desperate need of replacement.
What is that replacement? I have talked about it very often here. It is a politics of care.
A politics of care would put the well-being of people, society and the planet at the heart of government decision-making.
It would recognise that everyone needs care, everyone provides care, and that the purpose of government is to create the conditions in which we can care for each other.
That means we all need access to decent housing, properly funded healthcare, education that meets people's needs, social security that provides genuine security, and the right to a decent job with fair pay.
It means investing in the infrastructure that makes life work, from transport and energy to the public services on which we all depend.
It means tackling inequality, taxing wealth fairly, and ending the assumption that the interests of the wealthy must always take priority over those of everyone else.
It means confronting the climate crisis because there can be no well-being without a sustainable planet.
And it means recognising that the resources needed to deliver these things are not just money. They are the people, skills, technology and natural resources that we already possess, but which our current economic system so often leaves unused or misdirected.
Above all, a politics of care would restore the belief that government can make life better, because it would be willing to use the powers that it has to do so.
That is what neoliberalism has denied us. It is what the politics of care could restore.
People are not demanding the impossible. They are demanding that the economy and government work for them.
That should not be a revolutionary demand. The fact that it increasingly appears to be one tells us just how badly our politics has failed.
The time has come to move on from neoliberalism to a politics of care. That is what the people of France are, I think, saying, and if they are, they're right to do so.
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”despite high levels of government spending as a proportion of GDP, France still cannot meet the expectations of its people”
And of course, perversely, neolibs try to paint that costly failure as evidence that the state is too big and getting in the way of prosperity for all. It beggars belief. They live in a metaphorically geocentric universe.
‘And yet it moves’.
It is going to be very interesting to see what happens in the next presidential election in France scheduled for April 2027. Will a candidate from the centre or the left defeat Le Pen, because I seriously doubt we are going to get “politics of care” from the latter.
Before then we have the US midterms and a general election in Spain. And also next year, general elections in Italy.
The battle is on…
Thank you, both.
The le Pen family business is split.
Marine and her main consigliere Jordan Bardella, of Italian and Algerian parentage, go figure, are pragmatic, but the niece Marion is neoliberal and neocon.
Caring is better than fearing.
Any time.
Thank you, both.
Either side of mass last Saturday, we heard from friends.
One, just off jury service, reported that the defendant had been in care since 3 weeks old and under 22 different carers. Apparently, the jurors wondered what the authorities expected.
The same friend, who works in social services, reported how a family of five have been put in a one bedroom flat. The friend raised concerns and was told “that’s life”.
After mass, a prison visitor explained how many prisoners lack skills, so have little prospect of work.
PSR will be delighted to hear that the county CEO earns twice what the PM earns, works from home more or less permanently in Yorkshire and wants to outsource everything.
Depressing.
One question that I think needs exploring is whether a sufficient number of people would vote for a party that offered a politics of care? I found this article interesting:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/the-pathways-of-experience/201804/do-we-care
Humans are of course a caring species, but with caveats. We care much less about distant ‘others’ than our close relatives. We like to know our own place in a hierarchical society. Our ongoing failure to acknowledge the impact of our lifestyles on climate change even shows a lack of care for our own descendents.
Traits which have aided our past survival – tribalism, short-termism, entitlement and yes, selfishness – may limit how far we are prepared to support a politics of care. A depressing thought indeed, but I think one that needs to be faced.
I think care can prevail. I have to. What’s the alternative?
Care will prevail when fear begins to dissipate. Being worried for our own future and that of those most close to us inevitably raises the ancient desire to protect and defend our own, to provide for OUR needs, even at the expense of others if necessary. This is simple genetics.
When toilet paper is plentiful I will happily give my neighbour a few rolls if she is caught short. But heaven help her if she grabs the last pack in the supermarket just as I reach for it!
Really?
Now, now……………
My observation is that human beings respond to information/knowledge. This means what sort of information……..or no information at all (ignorance).
In other words, human beings’ good and bad traits have to be activated by an input.
Currently the inputs are negative from their own experience of austerity, then being exploited by the Far Right whilst so-called ‘centrists’ would rather you be kept in ignorance.
Obviously, this is not working for society.
The key is ‘the new song’. But it’s going to have to be played loud because people are in a lot of pain.
Noted.
Up the volume….
The main question for me is:
How can we promote it successfully?
Am thinking about signing up on social media again for that purpose as only writing to parties about it has proven nearly entirely useless.
Mostly no reply at all and if there’s one, it’s a standardized stupidity that doesn’t care about the topic at all.
What can everyone of us actually do?
I may make a video on this.
Thank you and well said, Richard.
With regard to France, let’s not forget that Macron, who calls himself “a Mozart of finance” and brags about being the youngest partner at Rothschilds, a job fixed for him by his mentor Jacques Attali, reduced taxes on inheritance and capital gains in his first term. Last year, French oligarch Xavier Niel, son in law of LVMH’s Bernard Arnault, said France was the best country to be a billionaire and that his tax bill was not even 15%.
The yellow vest movement grew out of frustration in rural France, especially Brittany, with increased taxes on fuel. I have cousins who are doctors in rural France and are finding visits, to homes and practices, expensive.
Readers may not be aware that some, if not much, of rural France is called a “medical desert”. In some cases, communes organise caravans and even helicopters as GP practices. Official and later finance minister Macron advised President Hollande to limit the number of medical students, so an ageing and ailing population no longer has the support it needs.
I do wonder what motivates the rich and what makes them quite so nasty to their fellow human beings. What is it that they want but can’t afford when they only have a few billion in the bank?
Fear of falling off their pedestals. That is it. They are terrified of having less.
I was pondering this very question myself – how much do they want, what exactly can you spend vast amounts of wealth on?
Where is the benevolent philanthropist, who wants to do good by people – if there is one, why does not come forward?
It seems those with wealth lobby and by into politics to dictate more wealth for themselves? Is it some sort of ingrained greed that more wants more?
I came across a book at the weekend called The Fair Necessities by a chap called Will Snell. I didn’t buy it, was tempted. On a first blush, he seemed to be singing from a similar hymn sheet – I assume you know of him Richard, his name his new to me – thoughts?
I do know him.
He’s a campaigner who worked for the Tax Justice Network as it descended into irrelevance.
If any (decent) politicians have read the above post, Richard, they should be asking to use it as a speech!
Bar the last paragraph, it reads like a Rallying Cry!
Kudos!
Dictated whilst still in bed this morning….
Given that France no longer issues its own currency, >could< a French government even attempt to deliver an MMT style administration?
Yes. I will explore this soon. I have a book to work on first.
Thank you so much, Richard. It is very much what the French People are saying……the vast majority and peacefully!
For those interested in listening to comments made by Jean-Luc Melenchon (presenting the position of La France Insoumise) to the media, regarding recent events and the deplorable rioting factions during these challenging times, you can watch videos (one recorded on the 17th of October.. with another quite hostile journalist to La France Insoumise… as always). These are ALL subtitled in English now… AI (!) so note that they are some errors as a result (e.g. distorted names etc, I even noted a ‘contradictory’ comment / translation but on the whole it is good enough)… https://melenchon.fr/
Thank you.