Saturday, March 23, 2019

REVOLUTION IN PARIS! FRENCH ARMY AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT DOWN PROTESTERS!

revolution!



The Yellow Vest protests have gone on every Saturday for the last 18 weeks now, and have seen Yellow Vest figures advocate storming the presidential palace and a helicopter being held on standby to help President Macron escape if such an event were to occur.

France: 72 Percent of Parisians Think About Leaving Capital



This picture taken on March 21, 2019 shows the village of Avapessa in the North of the French Mediterranean island of Corsica. (Photo by PASCAL POCHARD-CASABIANCA / AFP) (Photo credit should read PASCAL POCHARD-CASABIANCA/AFP/Getty Images)
PASCAL POCHARD-CASABIANCA/AFP/Getty Images
CHRIS TOMLINSON
299
2:21

A majority of French say they are fed up with their current living environment, according to a new survey, and they would much rather live in a rural village than a big city.

The study, which was taken by L’observatoire société et consommation (L’OBSOCO)revealed that six out of ten French were not happy in their living environment and that the overwhelming majority wanted a quieter life in the countryside, La Vie Immo reports.
In the French capital of Paris, around 72 percent of the residents say they think about living somewhere else a lot, compared to only 26 percent nationally.
“This is an important proportion, not all of them will necessarily go into the project, but it is a very strong aspiration,” said sociologist Simon Burell.
“It is clear that this aspiration emanates from the populations of large cities who deplore the rhythms of life that are too busy, living environments that are polluted and are in search of alternatives,” he added.
The overwhelming majority of those surveyed said that their ideal living environment would be in a rural village, with 82 percent favouring country life over urban areas. 70 percent said they would settle for a suburban area while only a mere 20 percent said they prefer urban centres.
There was also a distinct theme of self-reliance among the respondents, with 65 percent saying they would like to be self-sufficient growing their own food, while 73 percent said they wanted energy self-sufficiency as well.
The survey marks a distinct change from recent attitudes and trends which have seen people largely abandon rural areas for bigger cities across Europe.
Those who have remained in rural areas in European countries such as Germany have been labelled “right-wing extremists” by researchers and labelled “völkisch”, and have even been called a threat to the country at large.
Other countries are actively attempting to repopulate the countryside, however.
For example, in Italy the populist Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Matteo Salvini has introduced a new programme that could see families with three or more children given free tracts of land in the country.
Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com


Four in Ten French Say Revolution the Solution to Country’s Problems



e7a1f0_french-street-artist-pascal-boyart-created-work-based-on-delacroix-monumental
AFP
CHRIS TOMLINSON
406
2:17

A newly released survey has claimed that nearly four out of every ten French believe that a full-on revolution is the best way to solve the country’s political problems.

The poll, which was taken by polling firm IFOP, shows that 39 percent of French surveyed said that a revolution was needed to effect real change in the country, a figure much higher than elsewhere in Europe, Atlantico reports.
In comparison, only 20 percent of Germans agreed that revolution was a viable political solution, and the number was even lower for Austrians and Poles, at just 14 percent.
Consulting director at IFOP David Nguyen commented on the results, saying, “The first thing to say is that this is an absolutely spectacular number. Four in ten consider that a revolution would be a good solution: even if we do not know exactly what they put behind this word, it is the mark of a radical presence very present in the society.”
“What allows us to say that this is an important rate is that this figure is much higher than in all the other European countries that we tested,” he said.
Nguyen said that the numbers reflect the broad support for the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement, adding: “The government can not, therefore, bet on a major shift in opinion towards yellow vests, simply because their social demands will always be legitimate for a whole section of the population.”


The majority of those who felt revolution was a viable political solution, according to Nguyen, came from both the populist Rassemblement National (National Rally) party led by Marine Le Pen and the far left France Insoumise (Unsubmissive France) led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Opinion polls of the Yellow Vest movement have also shown broad support from Le Pen supporters and supporters of Mélenchon.
Nguyen said that the anger in France was much higher than other countries.
“This is very worrying because these negative feelings are even more shared in France than in other European countries. In particular, the feeling of anger which is a priori the main engine of a revolutionary spirit,” he explained.


Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com




‘A Fatal Decision’ – Macron Deploys Armed Soldiers for Yellow Vest Protests



Islamist
THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty
CHRIS TOMLINSON
192
2:53

French soldiers are set to be deployed for the first time during a Yellow Vest protest this weekend. Some reports indicate they are being told to avoid protesters, while others indicate they have been given permission to open fire.

The soldiers have reportedly been redeployed from anti-terror Operation Sentinel duties, and are expected to be placed to government buildings and other sensitive areas rather than engaged in regular law enforcement duties, but communication about their exact role has been poor, according to Le Point.
The military deployment, which follows renewed violence last Saturday and the Emmanuel Macron government’s decision to ban protesters from the Champs-Elysees and other French city centres this Saturday, has been slammed by many, including Les Republicans senator Bruno Retailleau, who labelled it a “fatal decision.”
“It’s a turning point, it’s mostly a failure! I do not know if we used the army in ’68, I do not remember, but using the army, including in static form to protect buildings, is extremely dangerous,” he said.
“The military is not trained in policing. They are trained in combat, to kill and neutralize. This decision is absolutely deplorable.”
“In what European democracy is the army called in to police a social movement?” added Raphaël Glucksmann, who will lead France’s Socialist Party, for which President Macron was a government minister under predecessor François Hollande, in the upcoming European Parliament elections.

Yellow Vest Claims 'Paramilitaries' Ready to Overthrow Macron



Colonel Guillaume Thomas, deputy spokesman for the Armed Forces Staff, also suggested that Sentinel soldiers would not be taking part in regular police action on Saturday, and were merely “continuing our anti-terrorist mission… there is no question of sending soldiers to maintain law and order: they are not trained or equipped for this purpose.”
Some in the media and elsewhere have raised fears of soldiers opening fire on violent protesters — fears Colonel Thomas claimed were unfounded, as the soldiers were not likely to be in contact with rioters.
“[T]he soldiers know how to anticipate situations, and if necessary appeal to the internal security forces if they witnessed looting or other abuses, or to escape a problematic situation,” he said.
However, when asked what would happen if a group of soldiers were cornered, Col Thomas simply remarked, “they are fighters.”
These sentiments appeared to be echoed by Paris military governor General Bruno Le Ray in comments to FranceInfo, with the commander remarking that Sentinel personnel are “subject to the same legal framework as the internal security forces” and can “go until the opening of fire… if their life is threatened or that of people they defend” .

Macron Had Escape Helicopter on Standby During Yellow Vest Protest



The Yellow Vest protests have gone on every Saturday for the last 18 weeks now, and have seen Yellow Vest figures advocate storming the presidential palace and a helicopter being held on standby to help President Macron escape if such an event were to occur.

French army receives authoriz

ation to shoot “yellow vest” protesters

By Alex Lantier 
23 March 2019
Yesterday, the governor of the Paris military district told France Info that soldiers of the Operation Sentinel counter-terror mission had been authorized to fire today on the “yellow vests.” Asked about whether soldiers were capable of carrying out law enforcement duties, General Bruno Le Ray replied: “Our orders are sufficiently clear that we do not need to be worried at all. The soldiers’ rules of engagement will be fixed very rigorously.”
“They will have different means for action faced with all types of threats,” he continued. “That can go as far as opening fire.”
Le Ray added that soldiers will have the same rules of engagement for shooting protesters as those for gunning down terrorism suspects inside France: “They will deliver warnings. This has happened in the past, as in (attacks at) the Louvre or at Orly. They are perfectly able to assess the nature of the threat and to respond proportionally.”
These threats against a protest movement against social inequality that is largely peaceful must be taken as a warning by workers and youth not only in France but internationally. As mass protests and strikes erupting outside the control of the union bureaucracies spread across the world, the military and security agencies of the financial aristocracy are preparing to carry out ruthless repression. Even in countries like France with long bourgeois-democratic traditions, they are rapidly moving towards military-police dictatorship.
Soldiers from Opération Sentinelle on patrol in Strasbourg in 2015
Since the imposition of a state of emergency suspending basic democratic rights after the 2015 Paris attacks, the army’s Operation Sentinel has sent squads of soldiers marching in France’s streets, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying assault rifles. The current crisis vindicates the WSWS’s longstanding warnings. In every country, the ruling class has used the “war on terror” as a pretext to reinforce state repression that is aimed above all at opposition in the working class.
Amid yesterday’s European Union summit in Brussels, French President Emmanuel Macron spoke to downplay the significance of sending the army against the “yellow vests.” The army is “in no way responsible for maintaining order and public order,” he claimed, mocking criticisms of his resort to the army as a “false debate” fueled by “those who play at scaring themselves and others.”
French Defense Minister Florence Parly followed Le Ray onto France Info and also trivialized the decision to send troops to police the protests. Without explicitly contradicting Le Ray’s report on the orders given to Operation Sentinel forces, she said: “The soldiers of the French army never fire on protesters. … All those who play around with fantasies, who speak about opening fire, are only sowing confusion.”
It is impossible to know in advance whether or how many lives will be lost during army operations against the “yellow vests” today. But the soporific and historically inaccurate statements of Macron and Parly are being openly contradicted by certain soldiers, who are violating military discipline to tell the media about their anger and concern at the orders they are receiving.
“We have no business interfering in this ‘yellow vest’ business,” one soldier anonymously told France Info. “We do not have the necessary equipment, we just have truncheons and little pepper spray bottles like what girls have in their purses. After that, the next thing we have is our assault rifles. … So, if we go up against too many protesters, unfortunately we will probably see fatalities.”
Another soldier stressed his anger at receiving orders from Macron to target the French people: “It is absurd, it’s arbitrary. We are not prepared for this. In technical terms, we fight military enemies. And the enemy cannot be the entire population, that is not possible. That is the situation they are trying to put soldiers in today.”
General Vincent Desportes, the former head of the War Academy, made clear his skepticism about claims from within the Macron government that riot police will always manage to get between protesters and the soldiers, to ensure that the latter do not fire on the former.
He said, “Until now the security forces have not shown themselves entirely capable of controlling large crowds of protesters. If violent protesters come into contact with the soldiers, there is a serious risk that blood will be spilt. … The last time soldiers were used for law enforcement was in Algeria, more than 50 years ago. As you well know, at that point blood was spent, a lot of blood was spent.”
The result of the last intervention of the army against workers on what is currently French soil, in the insurrectionary strikes of 1947-8 against the bourgeois Republic established by the Gaullists and Stalinists after World War II and the fall of European fascism, was a massacre. As 350,000 miners went on strike, the army occupied the mines with an authorization to fire on the strikers. The resulting clashes led to six dead, thousands of wounded, and the firing of 3,000 miners, a decision legally recognized as discriminatory in 2011.
In Algeria, the use of the army to torture and kill Algerians rising up against French colonialism, barely more than a decade after these same methods were used in France itself by the Nazis and the Nazi-collaborationist Vichy regime, left over 300,000 dead in the 1954-1962 war.
These historical events are a warning as to the implications of mobilizing the army against the working class. They vindicate the strategy proposed by the Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES) amid the “yellow vest” movement. Amid widespread hostility of workers internationally against the union bureaucracies and established political parties, the PES called for building independent committees of action and stressed the necessity of transferring state power in France and across Europe to such organizations of the working class.
This also requires building the PES as the political alternative to the petty bourgeois political parties, rejected by a broad majority of “yellow vests.” These parties try to tie the workers to Macron by proposing to negotiate a democratization of society with him and the trade unions.
Many of these parties—including the French Communist Party, the New Anticapitalist Party, the Greens, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Unsubmissive France, and the Independent Democratic Workers Party—came together yesterday to issue a pathetic “united” appeal to Macron.
Criticizing “the government’s authoritarian excesses,” they begged Macron to cease ignoring them and negotiate more with them to try to calm the situation: “The sidelining of the social, ecological and trade union movements, contempt for those who speak truth to power, is a way of preventing all dialog, all positive outcomes to the crises of our time. … The calming of tensions we desire also requires the state power to respond concretely to the aspirations for social justice that are widely expressed in our country.”
But there is nothing to negotiate with Macron. By sending the army against the “yellow vests,” he is sending a clear signal that the financial aristocracy and the state authorities have no intention of realizing the social aspirations of the working class. They want to crush these aspirations, and if necessary to drown them in blood.
The current crisis exposes the utter bankruptcy of their strategy of tying the workers to capitalist politicians and the capitalist state. During the 2017 election, all these parties adapted themselves to the official propaganda presenting Macron as a lesser evil than neo-fascist candidate Marine Le Pen. Now that Macron has declared his admiration for fascist dictator Philippe Pétain and sent the army against the “yellow vests,” this propaganda is exposed as an utter fraud.






Macron’s France Bans Yellow Vests from Champs-Elysees for 19th Week of Protests



yellow
FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images
BREITBART LONDON
153
1:06

PARIS (AP) – The French government vowed to strengthen security as yellow vest protesters stage a 19th round of demonstrations, following last week’s riots in Paris.

Authorities banned protests from the capital’s Champs-Elysees avenue and central areas of several cities including Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille and Nice in the south, and Rouen in western France.
New Paris police chief Didier Lallement, who took charge following last week’s protests, said specific police units have been created to react faster to any violence.
Authorities also deployed soldiers to protect sensitive sites and allow police forces to focus on maintaining order during the protests.
In Paris, yellow vests issued calls for a gathering on Trocadero plaza, next to the Eiffel Tower, and a demonstration from the south of the capital to Montmartre neighbourhood.





Yellow Vests: 15,000 Protesters, 100 Arrests, French PM Vows ‘Severe Punishment’



yellow
ZAKARIA ABDELKAFI/AFP/Getty Images
BREITBART LONDON
805
3:30

PARIS (AP) – The Latest on yellow vest protests in France (all times local):

5:45 p.m.
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe is vowing to “severely punish” the radicals responsible for rioting and setting fires around one of France’s richest neighbourhoods.
Philippe visited the Champs-Elysees on Saturday to show his support for riot police and firefighters struggling to get the unrest under control after it broke out amid yellow vest protests.
He estimated up to a few thousand troublemakers were responsible for Saturday’s “unacceptable” violence. Speaking to reporters, he praised firefighters who saved people trapped in a building set fire by protesters.
The situation remains tense Saturday along the Champs-Elysees after hours of violence and clashes with police firing tear gas and water cannon.
Armoured vehicles and about 15 police vans are lined up at one spot, facing down a mixture of yellow-vested protesters and black-clad people who seemed to be seeking opportunities to target police.
___
5 p.m.
Paris police say more than 100 people have been arrested amid rioting in the French capital by yellow vest protesters.
The violence started minutes after yellow vest protesters started gathering Saturday morning around the Arc de Triomphe. They set life-threatening fires, smashed up luxury stores and clashed with police firing tear gas and water cannon.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said on French television that an estimated 10,000 protesters were taking in protests in Paris and another 4,500 were demonstrating around France.
That was up from about 3,000 protesters in Paris last weekend.
But the yellow vest numbers paled beside the 30,000 people taking part in a climate march weaving through Paris at the same time, according to Castaner.
___
2:40 p.m.
A bank has been set ablaze as French yellow vest protesters clash with police in Paris and firefighters had to rescue a mother and her child as the fire threatened to engulf their floor.
Florian Lointier, spokesman for Paris’ firefighters, told The Associated Press that 11 people sustained light injuries Saturday in the blaze, including two firefighters.
The fire in the bank, which was on the ground floor of a seven-story residential building near the Champs-Elysees Avenue, was later extinguished. Lointier said a mother and her child were saved from the flames on the second floor and other residents were safely evacuated.
French yellow vest protesters are rioting in the 18th straight weekend of demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron.
___
12:15 p.m.
Large plumes of smoke are rising above Paris’ landmark Champs-Elysees avenue as French yellow vest protesters set life-threatening fires, smashed up luxury stores and clashed with police in the 18th straight weekend of demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron.
Police tried to contain the demonstrators Saturday with tear gas and water cannons. Fire trucks rushed and extinguished two burning newspaper kiosks that had been set ablaze. Several protesters posed for a photo in front of a kiosk’s charred remains.
The violence started when protesters threw smoke bombs and other objects at officers along the famed avenue in the French capital.
The violence comes after a two-month national debate that Macron organized to respond to protesters’ concerns about sinking living standards, high unemployment, stagnant wages and general income inequality.
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The past 40 years have seen the 

consolidation of a plutocratic elite, which has

subordinated every aspect of American 

society to a single goal: amassing ever more 

colossal amounts of personal wealth. The top 

one percent have captured all of the increase 

in national income over the past two decades, 

and all of the increase in national wealth since

the 2008 crash.

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