Politics Yellow vests in europe, who are they?

Ailchu

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Since there isn't a topic about them already i'll start one because i think there is quite a lot to discuss about this movement and it puzzles me a bit. and after looking around a bit, many other people outside of france, maybe even yellow vests from other countries, do not know what exactly is going on in france either. what i read and heard about them until now is that most french protesters are against higher taxes for example and feel like macron is only doing politics for the rich. however it seems like the political right in europe tries to picture these protests as a politically right movement while the left is doing the opposite. it looks like these yellow vests are only united until macron is gone and then everything starts again? this brings up the question how justified "yellow vest" protests are in other surrounding countries and if they all have the same intentions. does anyone believe that these protests will change something and if they do change something, what will change?
 
There are three kinds of violence. The first and the mother of all others is institutional violence that bequeaths and perpetuates the domination, oppression and exploitation. The one that crushed and rolled millions of men in its silent and well oiled wheels.

The second is the revolutionary violence, that was springs from the will to abolish the first.

The third, is repressive violence, who’s aim is to stifle the second by being the auxiliary and the accomplice of the first violence, which engenders all the others.

There is no worse hypocrisy to call violence by the second, by pretending to forget the first one, which makes it come into being and the third that kills it.
 
Since there isn't a topic about them already i'll start one because i think there is quite a lot to discuss about this movement and it puzzles me a bit. and after looking around a bit, many other people outside of france, maybe even yellow vests from other countries, do not know what exactly is going on in france either. what i read and heard about them until now is that most french protesters are against higher taxes for example and feel like macron is only doing politics for the rich. however it seems like the political right in europe tries to picture these protests as a politically right movement while the left is doing the opposite. it looks like these yellow vests are only united until macron is gone and then everything starts again? this brings up the question how justified "yellow vest" protests are in other surrounding countries and if they all have the same intentions. does anyone believe that these protests will change something and if they do change something, what will change?

The French people believe that they are born this way. If they are discontent about something they protest to make their point. I even know French people who live outside of France and flew back to France just to join the protest. It is a French culture. :hahaha::strong:
 
IMHO, the Yellow Vests are are just a group of whiny troublemakers, the epitome of the French universal protester who is never happy about anything and tries to blame it all on the government. They are self-deluded, attention-seeking anarchists and rebels who do not really give a damn about their country's well being.

Officially they are mainly demonstrating against the increase in diesel taxes, which aims at making polluting diesel about the same price as the cleaner gasoline. I don't even understand why they are so outraged about this. The aim is to make the air cleaner because diesel fumes has been blamed for causing many diseases, including a great number of cancers (nose, throat, lung, stomach, kidney, bladder, bone marrow, blood) and neurological diseases like ALS and dementia. Many big cities around world have already banned (some) diesel or planned to progressively ban it (based on emission standards) in coming years, including Tokyo, Los Angeles, Mexico, Delhi, Cape Town, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Hamburg, Barcelona, Madrid, Athens, Rome and Milan.

In other words the Yellow Vests are fighting against environmental and health measures to improve quality of life. Their selfish behaviour has already caused millions of euros of physical damages (acts of vandalism against French citizens and shops) while French retailers have lost about €1 billion due to the decline in restaurant trade.

Francois Asselin, head of the confederation of small and medium-sized businesses, told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper (in French) that overall the protests could cost his members €10bn.

Personally I think that the French government should be much tougher against these anarchist vandals. It is the government's duty to protect its law-abiding citizens and their properties against rioters, vandals and looters. There should be severe punishments to deter them for causing more damages.
 
IMHO, the Yellow Vests are are just a group of whiny troublemakers, the epitome of the French universal protester who is never happy about anything and tries to blame it all on the government. They are self-deluded, attention-seeking anarchists and rebels who do not really give a damn about their country's well being.

Officially they are mainly demonstrating against the increase in diesel taxes, which aims at making polluting diesel about the same price as the cleaner gasoline. I don't even understand why they are so outraged about this. The aim is to make the air cleaner because diesel fumes has been blamed for causing many diseases, including a great number of cancers (nose, throat, lung, stomach, kidney, bladder, bone marrow, blood) and neurological diseases like ALS and dementia. Many big cities around world have already banned (some) diesel or planned to progressively ban it (based on emission standards) in coming years, including Tokyo, Los Angeles, Mexico, Delhi, Cape Town, London, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Hamburg, Barcelona, Madrid, Athens, Rome and Milan.

In other words the Yellow Vests are fighting against environmental and health measures to improve quality of life. Their selfish behaviour has already caused millions of euros of physical damages (acts of vandalism against French citizens and shops) while French retailers have lost about €1 billion due to the decline in restaurant trade.



Personally I think that the French government should be much tougher against these anarchist vandals. It is the government's duty to protect its law-abiding citizens and their properties against rioters, vandals and looters. There should be severe punishments to deter them for causing more damages.

I agree.

This isn't protest: it's anarchy.

yellow-vest-riot-paris.jpg


They deserve to be tossed in jail and made to sit in there for awhile.
 
Let's sort things out a bit...

82% of the French are in favor of what Macron dubbed "the ecological transition". Everyone is well aware of the necessity to evolve towards cleaner energies and to reconsider our old patterns of consumption. Who wouldn't be, in today's world?

Yet a week ago (last poll I have so far), after a pretty riotous weekend, 84% of the French still supported the Yellow Vests. Who can reasonably think that 84% of the French are anarchists ?

The extra 7 cents per liter Macron wanted to inflict on diesel fuel were just the last straw that broke the camel's back. It came after plenty of other tax rises on insurance premiums, electricity, gas, the compulsory (yearly) safety check-up imposed on used cars, and an extra 2.6% social contribution inflicted on old age pensioners. The problem is not ecology, or the carbon tax. The problem is just that fiscal pressure as a whole has become unbearable in this country. Compulsory contributions (both social and fiscal) now stand at an unprecedented 48.2% of GDP - the highest in Europe.

Besides, this tax burden weighs entirely on the middle classes. Among the very rich, tax evasion is rife. Google, Amazon, Facebook et alia make billions of euros in France, and pay a 0.5% income tax in Ireland. Not a cent goes to the national treasury. At the other end of the spectrum, illegal migrants (yes, illegal) are granted free (yes, free) medical coverage at the expense of the community. The very poor get loads of social benefits of all kinds.

So what happened was that the "France of the middle" took to the streets to very peacefully express their exasperation. People of all political leanings (factory workers, teachers, trade executives, butchers, carpenters, farmers, truck drivers, you name it) donned yellow vests and gathered at roundabouts, regardless of how different their votes could be at ballot times. Macron bluntly sent them packing.

So more formal demonstrations were organized. People went with their kids and dogs.

Unfortunately, the demonstrators were joined by gangs of extremists: a handful of far-right racists, a few hundred far-left anarchists, and "antifa" and Black Block fanatics. Those people mixed with the Yellow Vests to vanish quickly in the crowd when the police went for them. A few ill-advised demonstrators (not the brightest ones) unfortunately joined in the rampage. Then the yobs from the ghettoes came along and took advantage of the turmoil to loot the shops.

Altogether, we are talking about some 3 to 5 thousand extremists/anarchists/ suburban plunderers. 82% of the French population condemn the violence, the havock, the desecration of the national heritage, the damage to public and private property.

The original tax issue has not been solved, though. Macron is due to speak this evening. But he has remained silent so long that some people, among he lower middle class, some of them with IQs as high as an oyster's, have developed a form a hatred for him, and are now making absurd claims for his resignation, or for drastic constitutional changes. So that sooner or later, stupidity and violence will combine to discredit what was originally a fairly legitimate expression of discontent.

I support the Yellow Vests, as they originally were, even though I am not much of a demonstrator myself, and never joined them in the streets. But I was downright revolted to see the Arc de triomphe vandalized and covered with graffiti, the museum inside ransacked, the cars burnt, the shops plundered. I just hate the thugs who scar my heritage, and the private property of my countrymen. I wish the police the police would forget about the truncheons, and rid us of those bastards for good.
 
yes indeed, at first the protesters blocked the streets, but they were peacefull
but when protest marches were organised, extremists mingled in the anonymous, unorganised crowd

the movement is unorganised, and it is not so clear what their demands are and who are their leaders
the protest is more an outing of frustrations

yes, the principle of eco-taxing has been explained, and most people agree
but it should have been a taxshift, not extra taxes, an easy income for the state spending ever more money and resources
nobody knows where the money of these taxes goes to, it is probably used to compensate for deficits elsewhere
people get the impression that politicians decide whatever

that being said, I also agree with Maciamo, the French universal protester who is never happy about anything and tries to blame it all on the government does exist
 
This war of the poor is a wake up call to the out of touch government Leaders.
Obviously a segment of the French population is STRONGLY against a “Generalized Carbon Tax”.

Instead, How about double taxing the Energy used by the owners of Private Jets, Private yachts, Top high-end luxury cars, the Mansions of the Super Rich, ......

Clearly a Private Jet pollutes way more than a mid-size economy car driven by a “Desperado”.

A Carbon Tax is just another excuse to get extra revenue, it won’t solve Climate Change, and people won’t change their habits.

IMO :)
 
I just saw Macron's concession speech: everybody will get a good job, you get to keep all of your benefits, but your taxes won't be high.

Go home.

They're saying basically the same thing in Italy.

And they used to say religion was the opiate of the masses.
 
I just saw Macron's concession speech: everybody will get a good job, you get to keep all of your benefits, but your taxes won't be high.

Go home.

They're saying basically the same thing in Italy.

And they used to say religion was the opiate of the masses.

When people work from January 1 to June 30 for the state, and start earning their first euro for themselves on July 1, there must be room for some tax cuts.

Macron's concessions will give the lowest salaries a hike. But the individual entrepreneur, the average family, the typical middle-class household will go on paying and paying and paying... 9% more than in Germany, and 15% more than in the UK.
 
Macron's concessions will give the lowest salaries a hike. But the individual entrepreneur, the average family, the typical middle-class household will go on paying and paying and paying... 9% more than in Germany, and 15% more than in the UK.

Perhaps... but in spite of this France still has the most egalitarian society in Europe after Scandinavian countries in terms of gap between the rich and the poor. The French population also enjoy the best healthcare in Europe (or maybe in the world) and some of the most generous unemployment benefits. If people want tax cuts, the most obvious place to make the cuts without lower health and education standards is to lower unemployment benefits. But then the poor will get even poorer. You can't have it all.
 
This war of the poor is a wake up call to the out of touch government Leaders.
Obviously a segment of the French population is STRONGLY against a “Generalized Carbon Tax”.

Instead, How about double taxing the Energy used by the owners of Private Jets, Private yachts, Top high-end luxury cars, the Mansions of the Super Rich, ......

Clearly a Private Jet pollutes way more than a mid-size economy car driven by a “Desperado”.

A Carbon Tax is just another excuse to get extra revenue, it won’t solve Climate Change, and people won’t change their habits.

IMO :)

Exactly.
82% of the French are in favor of what Macron dubbed "the ecological transition". Everyone is well aware of the necessity to evolve towards cleaner energies and to reconsider our old patterns of consumption. Who wouldn't be, in today's world?

Yet a week ago (last poll I have so far), after a pretty riotous weekend, 84% of the French still supported the Yellow Vests. Who can reasonably think that 84% of the French are anarchists ?
The message is clear, search for money in other pockets, not in ours.
 
If people want tax cuts, the most obvious place to make the cuts without lower health and education standards is to lower unemployment benefits.

Well, jobless people are not all of them jobseekers. On the one hand, we have some 3 million people on the dole (8.8 to 9.1% of the active population, depending on estimates). On the other hand, there are 300,000 unprovided jobs in the construction sector. Butchers, caterers, restaurants, car dealers are also offering thousands of jobs - spurned by people who prefer to stay at home and live on unemployment benefits. The difference in earnings is clearly too low between the bottom salaries and the social benefits.

Besides, we do not pay taxes to the state only, but to each and every administration level (commune, département, région) - all of them blatantly overstaffed. There's plenty of room for cost saving there.

Anyway, to balance the accounts, the simple way would be to have Google pay their taxes in the countries where they make the profits, instead of letting them shift the money to tax havens through tax evasion strategies.
 
Well, jobless people are not all of them jobseekers. On the one hand, we have some 3 million people on the dole (8.8 to 9.1% of the active population, depending on estimates). On the other hand, there are 300,000 unprovided jobs in the construction sector. Butchers, caterers, restaurants, car dealers are also offering thousands of jobs - spurned by people who prefer to stay at home and live on unemployment benefits. The difference in earnings is clearly too low between the bottom salaries and the social benefits.

Besides, we do not pay taxes to the state only, but to each and every administration level (commune, département, région) - all of them blatantly overstaffed. There's plenty of room for cost saving there.

Anyway, to balance the accounts, the simple way would be to have Google pay their taxes in the countries where they make the profits, instead of letting them shift the money to tax havens through tax evasion strategies.

it's the same in Belgium

there is a labour shortage right now, yet a relative high number remains dependent of unemployment benefits

that is due to too strict labour regulations
and in France, they are always even more strict
 
I'm sure there is fat in the budget which could be cut, but if the cutting is of civil servants, they are then without a job, have less or no money, don't pay taxes, collect unemployment, etc. etc.

The bottom line is that if you're going to be mothered by the state from cradle to grave it comes at a cost. You could tax all the top 1% or 5% until they're bled dry and it wouldn't be enough. It might make people feel better, but it won't solve the problem, in addition to killing incentive. There just aren't enough of them compared to the rest of the population. The only way to maintain such a system is to tax the largest productive group, which is the middle class. It's not as if the numbers haven't been run: they're incontrovertible.

That's the dirty secret. Everything else is a distraction.

As for the quandary of able bodied people refusing to work because the benefits are almost as high as what they would earn, you could do as even Bill Clinton did at one point: if you are able to work and refuse to work, then no more benefits, and that would apply to the "natives" as well as the immigrants. We should prune the rolls on that basis again. However, I can't see the Macrons of Europe doing that.

So, I'm not optimistic.
 
I'm sure there is fat in the budget which could be cut, but if the cutting is of civil servants, they are then without a job, have less or no money, don't pay taxes, collect unemployment, etc. etc.

The bottom line is that if you're going to be mothered by the state from cradle to grave it comes at a cost. You could tax all the top 1% or 5% until they're bled dry and it wouldn't be enough. It might make people feel better, but it won't solve the problem, in addition to killing incentive. There just aren't enough of them compared to the rest of the population. The only way to maintain such a system is to tax the largest productive group, which is the middle class. It's not as if the numbers haven't been run: they're incontrovertible.

That's the dirty secret. Everything else is a distraction.

As for the quandary of able bodied people refusing to work because the benefits are almost as high as what they would earn, you could do as even Bill Clinton did at one point: if you are able to work and refuse to work, then no more benefits, and that would apply to the "natives" as well as the immigrants. We should prune the rolls on that basis again. However, I can't see the Macrons of Europe doing that.

So, I'm not optimistic.

Well, nobody is asking for the very rich to pay more than their fair share. But tax evasion in this country has been estimated at 80 billion euros, which is almost twice the amount collected in income tax nationwide. This leaves a margin before the very rich are bled dry and the incentive gets killed.

As to looking for guidance beyond the Atlantic, well, I remember that PhD student who once dropped unconscious in the street in Chicago. We called 911. She was taken to hospital and left on a stretcher in a hallway. Hospital staff gave her very public emergency care, then waited for her to come to. When she was able to provide a phone number, some secretary checked with the university that she did have an insurance, and after two and a half hours of waiting, she was at long last granted a room. And I won't mention that waitress at the university restaurant, who had three different jobs and couldn't cope. She also did the cleaning in a hospital early in the mornings, before coming to UIC. In the evenings she did some cleaning in a business tower. She explained how sorry she was her kids were on the streets while she was away from home.

Yes, indeed, our European systems are too generous, and too costly. But as usual truth lies somewhere in between. We have no doubt gone too far. But I can't see the point of jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
 
I could tell a lot of anecdotal stories about people in Europe dying while waiting on some list for surgery too, or the thousands of Canadians who come over the border for treatment.

Am I saying that we have the health care thing figured out? No, I'm not, but trust me, malpractice exists whether the care is public or private, and in all countries.

I'm not telling Europeans to change their benefit system. I'm telling them to stop complaining if they have to pay exorbitant taxes to support it. As Maciamo said, you can't have it all.

How much is being diverted from taxation in France I don't know. Get better tax enforcement people. You should take at least that advice from over the Atlantic: the IR are killers. It's very, very difficult to deceive them. Well, unless you're a drug dealer who doesn't pay taxes. I say the same about Italy.

I would note, however, that from what I remember of the rates that were imposed on high earners in the last few years it's confiscatory, and from what I recall there was an exodus of some of those people. Human behavior is to some extent predictable if you keep in mind that people follow their self interest. Part of the issue is that people cheat on their taxes more the more they think the tax is confiscatory, or they don't agree with where the tax dollars and going. If people here didn't think that a lot of it is going to the "undeserving" poor, the lazy, the drug and alcohol addicted, to support the children of fathers who don't support their own children, there would be less resentment over paying them. I don't know how it is there.

I don't mean to imply I have no sympathy for French people and other Europeans who are getting squeezed this way. At the exorbitant prices you already pay for gasoline and heating fuel, to pay more must seem unsupportable.

It's just that if things aren't looked at clearly and objectively, no solutions will be found.
 
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it's the wet dream of politicians to play Robin Hood
tax the 1 % wealthy rich and distribute it over the 99 % other voters
succes guaranteed
unfortunately, it doesn't work that way
still, it's a great story to tell, if you have the right audience
 
Get better tax enforcement people. You should take at least that advice from over the Atlantic: the IR are killers. It's very, very difficult to deceive them.

Our own income tax inspectors are quite ruthless on the average Frenchman. Don't worry about that. Going after the big companies is much harder for them, though, because those companies resort to fiscal optimization, ie legal (if not moral) ways of transferring their profits to headquarters in other, more understanding, EU countries. They have crews of expert lawyers who devote a wealth of energy and imagination to get around the tax laws. Politicians turn a blind eye, for fear of disgruntling the captains of industry who provide all those precious jobs, and who, incidentally, funded their campaigns.

It's just that if things aren't looked at clearly and objectively, no solutions will be found.

I am not sure you can see anything very clearly at all, let alone objectively, when you stand 6000 kms away from what you are looking at. But you are certainly liable to produce complacent, patronizing remarks such as...

I'm telling them to stop complaining if they have to pay exorbitant taxes to support it.

Yes, sometimes you do have a right to complain. Personally, I am sick and tired of the ongoing mismanagement round here. Just an example: in a small village I know of, in a god-forsaken mountain area, the municipal council voted for the renovation of a country inn. Population: 130 in the "commune", 19 in the village itself in winter time, most of them humble retired farmers past the age of 70. Cost of purchase and repairs: 600,000 euros. Since then, the inn has had two successive managers, who never made a penny and left. It was all so obviously absurd from the very start. Now the inn is disused. The municipal taxes were raised 6% to face mortgage expenses. It could be an isolated case, restricted to 130 people. It isn't. You have to generalize those practices to all local, regional, and national authorities, ie, to 67 million people. That's what the yellow vests movement is all about: stop spending thoughtlessly, as if it were nobody's money. And stop fiscal extortion.
 
Good grief. And you think Italians are touchy, Bicicleur! :)

Have it your way, hvclv. Since anyone else's comments are perceived by you as condescending, unwelcome, and unhelpful, figure it our yourselves, or not, as the case may be.

When you figure it out, do tell our Democrats how you propose to provide cradle to grave nanny care for everyone, protect the environment, provide good paying jobs for everyone, all without taxing people too much, and hopefully producing some real growth in your economy. They are promising us the same things but I don't think they have a clue how to do it.

I, for one, will be waiting breathlessly.
 

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