Macron’s still in trouble
This article in The Sun has the following headline: “Beleaguered Emmanuel Macron predicts ‘major violence’ across France this weekend as approval rating crashes to record low of 18 per cent.”
That’s about as low as the approval for the MSM in this country.
And this is the sub-headline: “Protesters across France are set to take to the streets again on Saturday despite the government caving in over the controversial fuel price hike.” I would say that there’s no “despite” about it, since the protestors are protesting much more than the fuel price hike, and they intend to go on protesting until there is some sort of more fundamental change—although there may not be a lot of agreement among them as to what the change might be.
In addition, Macron’s caving in to the protestors isn’t going to make anyone respect him more; it’s more likely to make them respect him less. Weak horse and all that.
I’ve already written about the protestors and who they might be and what they might want, here and here. The Sun article mentions “disgruntled groups from Left and Right” as being involved, which is in agreement with what I’d learned earlier.
I don’t know whether this has any relevance at all, but the last time I can recall “disgruntled groups from Left and Right” uniting in huge protests, the result was the Iranian Revolution and the ascendance of the mullahs.
France is certainly not Iran. But I recall being puzzled by those Iranian demonstrations close to forty years ago, wondering how that alliance of Left and Right was going to play out. Now we know.
Plus, modern France has a long record of street demonstrations leading to the collapse of regimes. We can hope the current situation will not end as violently as did the one that overthrew the old monarchy.
Someone did hear him say, Let them buy Teslas!
Macron has caved on the gas tax but the unrest is not over and the blac bloc got rewarded for their violence. That probably means more to come and escalating demands.
Plus, modern France has a long record of street demonstrations leading to the collapse of regimes.
Actually, not since about 1848.
Most occidental countries face the same problem: aspirations exceed productive capacity. One thing M. Macron will likely fail at is persuading the French people to grow up.
Macron’s version of tax hikes, green fantasies, and Bureaucracy Rampant is not growing up, it is lying down and taking it, again and again. Good for the French who won’t accept it any longer.
“One thing M. Macron will likely fail at is persuading the French people to grow up.”
Why should they? He hasn’t.
Macron’s version of tax hikes, green fantasies, and Bureaucracy Rampant is not growing up,
He may be recommending the wrong thing. Now what happens when you recommend something right? Say, cohort by cohort increases in the retirement age, in order to stabilize the ratio of working adults to retirees. Or deregulating the labor market, rendering at will employment the order of the day in the private sector. Or lowering the minimum wage. Or putting public housing on the auction bloc. Ha ha.
Why should they? He hasn’t.
Not sure what to make of the deal with his wife.
Art…maybe it was him 0 was talking about with “mommy issues.” Birds of a feather & all that?
😉
The current issues transcend the traditional Right and Left. That is why you see League, center-right, and Five Star, anti-establishment with a Left orientation, in a coalition government in Italy.
Plus these French are always in a state of revolution and protest. Imagine the MSM in US if something similar was happening in US with Macron’s approval ratings. There would be countdown clock on CNN and MSNBC with a watch on all helicopter flights to ascertain when Trump would flee.
Given the French public’s attachment to socialistic liberal fantasies it cannot but descend into chaos and violence.
The European Supreme Court just ruled that freedom of speech does not allow for criticism of Muhammad or Islam. Islamists look upon W. Europe with hopeful anticipation.
I think I wrote it here the other day- it is the protests that are important, not the reasons given for them.
The scales are falling away from the electorates’ eyes in country after country, and you are seeing some previously unexpected coalitions forming. The reason is simple- the governing class- which is bipartisan- is being shown to be corrupt and incompetent. Revolutions are on the way in the next decade, I think, in several of the major western countries, and I think it probable that a lot of them will be extremely bloody.
It will be interesting this weekend in France- if the protesters push too far, will the police and the troops open fire on them? If you had posed this question to me a week ago, I would have dismissed it, but I am not so sure now- things might be spiraling out of control in France.
GB – you got a link there?
I’d love to read that story…Thanks.
Found it…;-) Google is sometimes my friend
One thing M. Macron will likely fail at is persuading the French people to grow up.
The people who started this are not the city dwellers who mostly live by the Socialist’s rules. The people who live in the country side and drive trucks are the ones most affected by the traffic rules and gas tax. I have not lived in France but I have driven through a few times and seen people working and b being much nicer than Parisians.
According to this, the French in the streets are driven by leftist impossible dreams:
https://pjmedia.com/blog/liveblogevent/live-blog-138/entry-247499/
This may not end well.
The people who started this are not the city dwellers who mostly live by the Socialist’s rules.
Are they willing to accept increases in the retirement age? At-will employment in the private sector? An end to public housing and rent control? How about more restrictive rationing of berths in higher education? Ou est le boeuf?
The guy who told me I had given him too many Francs for the gas I got in southern France was not thinking about which Ecole he would attend.
If I recall, it was before Euros as I would probably get that right.
According to this, the French in the streets are driven by leftist impossible dreams…
Kate: The classic slogan from the French riots in 1968:
Be realistic: demand the impossible
I’m hoping the Yellow Vests are a bit more sensible.
The guy who told me I had given him too many Francs for the gas I got in southern France was not thinking about which Ecole he would attend.
I hear you. The thing is, the hypertrophy of higher education has certainly hit Britain big time, and, if I’m not mistaken, France. Your contemporaries and my contemporaries may not have had much post-secondary schooling, but that’s no longer the case.
And you cannot have escalating shares of the population drawing old-age pensions. Something’s gotta give, and when you have increasing life expectancies, the retirement age needs to increase more-or-less pari passu. The last piddling effort in that direction was repealed after public objections. And, if it’s your insistence that when an employer hires someone he cannot discharge that person without running through a cumbersome process, you will have high frictional rates of unemployment. And why is the government the landlord for 17% of the population? Housing will be amply provided by the private sector unless prevented by building restrictions. Housing services are frequently replenished and their consumption is sensitive to considerations of taste and amenity. If you’re concerned about the real incomes of unskilled wage earners, cut them a check in the form of a tax rebate. That has less in the way of administrative costs than does a public housing authority and you get more utility bang for your buck because the recipient will allocate the money according to his preferences rather than the city government’s. Of course, you’ll need to take any residual rent controls off, end the collection of property taxes in poor neighborhoods, and enforce the penal code and the building codes in slum neighborhoods. Ha ha.
A very interesting essay at the WSJ about the French situation. This analysis says France has too much democracy and not enough politics:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/macrons-warning-to-americas-ascendant-left-1544139254
“Yet peripheral voters still are a substantial minority. And the widespread rioting in France shows the dangers of allowing a healthy dose of democracy to transmogrify into a brutal majoritarianism. Majority rule has its place, but it’s no way to knit together a diverse society.
Those special interests Mr. Macron derided turn out to have provided ballast. A center-right Republican Party under its failed 2017 candidate, François Fillon, would have effected some labor-law and civil-service reforms for which there is now broad support, but that party’s rural base would have precluded the green-energy follies that are sinking Mr. Macron.”
The author points out that too much democracy is precisely what our Democrat coastal elites are pushing for, yet they probably make a serious error in thinking that they can successfully dominate the whole country from the coasts.
This analysis says France has too much democracy and not enough politics…The author points out that too much democracy is precisely what our Democrat coastal elites are pushing for,
Then the author is talking rot. One thing we don’t have is ‘too much democracy’. We have dysfunctional expressions and modes of democracy. The Democratic Party has no interest in democracy per se. Stuff the ballot boxes, rule by judicial ukase, antifa bully boys, lying #metoo smear campaigns. It’s all good so long as Democrats get what they want.
As for France, their public administration is hyper centralized and they have conceded much discretion over policy to drones in Brussels. Their legislative caucuses are composed of deputies who may have a local constituency where they have roots or may have been assigned to that constituency by party barons after an application process. (The same applies in spades in Britain and Canada). ‘Too much democracy’ is not something they suffer. An astonishingly large share of the country’s chief executives the last 50 years have been graduates of just one of their grandes ecole, l’Ecole Nationale d’Administration, which typically has graduating classes numbered in scores. Makes our Harvard / Yale problem look penny ante.
More “democracy” is what the Democrats here are demanding: Elect the president by popular vote, eliminate the Senate, so that the majority can tyrannize the minority.
More “democracy” is what the Democrats here are demanding: Elect the president by popular vote, eliminate the Senate, so that the majority can tyrannize the minority.
No, they’re not. They’ve been stymied by the electoral college, so they want it out of the way. They’re now stymied by the Senate, so a scatter of them would like the Senate out of the way. Find someone among them who held to that view when Harry Reid was riding high. You’re confusing their improvisations with some principled stand.
(The Senate as is is an awful institution, so replacing it isn’t a disagreeable idea. As for the electoral college, it could use some improvements as well).
The Senate as is is an awful institution, so replacing it isn’t a disagreeable idea.
The Senate was bastardized by the Progressives. It was designed to represent the states. That’s why each state has two. Popular election of Senators opened the door to the destruction of the federal system, although the Civil War almost did it in. We would do well to go back to the selection by legislatures, as was intended.
I doubt anything will happen until the US splits into red and blue entities. It may happen peacefully, as in Mike Lotus’s book, America 3.0, or violently as in Kurt Schlicter’s novels.
The Senate was bastardized by the Progressives. It was designed to represent the states. That’s why each state has two. Popular election of Senators opened the door to the destruction of the federal system, although the Civil War almost did it in. We would do well to go back to the selection by legislatures, as was intended.
I’m sorry, doc, but the tricorn hat discourse on this issue never impresses me. You can replace the Senate with the original model. What I’ll wager you’ll get is the set of pathologies which induced the public and the politicians of the day (including state legislators) to pass the 17th Amendment. Then as now, constitutional amendments require supermajority. There wasn’t some wire-pulling cabal of ‘Progressives’ who Jedi-mind tricked everyone else. I’ll also wager that you’d replace men who are skilled at running fundraising and publicity campaigns with men who are skilled at building relationships with state legislators. That would be agreeable if it be your object to reduce the influence of big donors, but I’d be surprised if you got more public spirited Senators, or if you got Senators more inclined to provincial autonomy. Alphonse d’Amato was very talented at getting home state pols of both parties in his corner; he’s not otherwise the sort of person you want in any public office. (And I’m putting money on the proposition that mo’ money from the feds is of much greater priority to state legislators than more autonomy; election by state legislators means Cornhusker kickbacks and Louisiana purchases, and not much else).
A bicameral legislature was incorporated into the original constitution in order to reconcile opposed interests among the states. It would be ill-advised to impute any grand principle there. Medieval assemblies were commonly multi-cameral because society was commonly conceived of as composed of orders: clergy, nobility, burgesses, and peasants. That’s never been the case in this country. We did have castes at one point, but the subaltern population was never represented in conciliar bodies. In early America, it was modal for upper chambers to be elected by lower chambers, and to be functionally differentiated from the lower chamber.
I’ll also wager that you’d replace men who are skilled at running fundraising and publicity campaigns with men who are skilled at building relationships with state legislators. That would be agreeable if it be your object to reduce the influence of big donors, but I’d be surprised if you got more public spirited Senators, or if you got Senators more inclined to provincial autonomy.
Since McCain Feingold, federal legislators have done nothing but fund raise. Their staffs write the legislation, then shift over to the Administrative State to administer the laws they wrote.
I don’t think we could do any worse.