Foreign Troper
I'm happy to see that german Farmers aren't the only ones who decided to protest.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
Redmess
Calling it a siege seems to be a bit melodramatic, though.
Optimism is a duty.
That's the press for ya.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
It is the word the farmer unions themselves used: Le siège de Paris, it is not an invention of the BBC.
Edited by jawal on Jan 30th 2024 at 12:48:22 PM
Every Hero has his own way of eating yogurt
Maybe it is about the last controversy this month, when it was revealed that Amélie Oudéa-Castéra had her three children as students at a private Catholic school named Stanislas.
The Ministry was investigating that school over claims of sexism and homophobia, and some people feel that it is a conflict of interest to have the Minister's children studying there, and there are accusations that she lied or downplayed the number of homophobic cases in Stanislas.
........
Or maybe it is something else.
Edited by jawal on Jan 30th 2024 at 1:37:14 PM
Every Hero has his own way of eating yogurt
Yes and no. This is not the only controversy she's involved in. There's also stuff about her time at the French Federation of Tennis, for instance (her ministry also covers sports).
That, and the fact that literally the first thing she did after being appointed was to shit on the very public school system she is in charge of. By lying too − she claimed her youngest son’s teacher in kindergarten was absent all the time, which the teacher in question denied. THEN journalists found out she removed said son from public school after six months because the teachers refused to let him skip a class.
That was all in her first week.
Oh yeah, there’s that too.
Edited by Lyendith on Jan 30th 2024 at 1:33:17 PM
How are these protests comparing to the other major farming protests? The German ones have also been getting focus but I know nothing about the ones in the Netherlands.
It's gotten nowhere near the size of the Yellow Jackets in France so far.
Too old for this
It seems to have dwindled down quite fast anyway. The FNSEA (largest farmer union in France, and not the most environmental-friendly) got what they wanted, less restrictions on pesticides and whatever comes with it. So they stopped most of their actions.
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.
That's what they were protesting about? The freedom to dump as much poison as they want into the land?
I have to wonder if this was partly astroturfed or not
Edited by Xopher001 on Feb 6th 2024 at 11:40:17 AM
The FNSEA isn’t representative of most farmers… but they have the biggest guns and are the most listened to by the governments, alas.
Farmers' lobbies in Western Europe are insanely powerful, if Switzerland's example is to be generalized from.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
To be clear, they’re not protesting against "environmental regulations" but the fact that free-trade treaties (like the ones the EU recently signed with New Zealand, Chile or Kenya) put them in competiton with countries where those regulations don’t exist or are far more lax, a competition they obviously can’t win − especially when those countries’ wages are also much lower.
That doesn’t make sense to me re: New Zealand, at least. They’ve got very strong environmental and agricultural regulation (a year or so back they made free-range farming mandatory for egg farmers), and at least as high as wages as France would have. Prior to the recent elections they were up there with the Scandanavian countries as one of the most progressive developed nations.
(But as someone who couldn’t care less if my cheese was literally made in Parma as long as it tastes like parmesan, I tend to find the level of agricultural protectionism in the EU rather silly, and therefore to be skeptical of the idea that EU farmers are getting a hard deal.)
Edited by Galadriel on Feb 6th 2024 at 1:32:14 AM
Redmess
It seems to have died down in the Netherlands as well, leaving a lot of garbage lying around. Can't these people protest without polluting the environment?
Also, blocking highways is getting very dangerous. Several drivers have already gotten injured from collisions. Our government seems too timid to intervene, not sure whether that is the case in France too.
Optimism is a duty.
They seem pretty timid in this instance, unlike with actual environmentalists.
Too old for this
The contrast between how the government handled environmentalist demonstrations (sending an excessive amount of police force and calling them terrorists) and the farmers' (saying they understood their anger and asking the police not to intervene) has been... interesting to observe. Keep in mind some of the farmers unions have actually destroyed a few buildings (with no one inside) in addition to blocking the motorways.
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.
We're not demanding they treat the farmers like they treat everyone else. We're demanding they treat everyone else like they treat the farmers.
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
Redmess
Well said.
Optimism is a duty.
Khatun of the Azim Steppe
Since yesterday was about Missak and Mélinée Manouchian entering the Pantheon, I wanted to share this badass final quote from Marcel Rajman, one of the men on the Affiche Rouge, before he too was executed on the Mont Valérien.
"Je mourrai au moins pour quelque chose. Je ne regrette rien. Si chaque Juif en avait descendu autant que moi, il n'y aurait plus d'armée nazie"
("At least I'll die for something. I regret nothing. If every Jew had gunned down as many [nazis] as I did, there would be no Nazi army anymore.")
I can't recall for my life a protest inside the french agriculture fair, needing the CRS, and protesters Trashing the fair.
Granted, it's mostly the FNSEA being the loudest voice (and hijacking legitimate protests for their benefits), but it's to be expected when Macron refused to invite Les soulèvements de la terre, and finally cancelled the public debate altogether.
Oh, and he also claimed that the minimum wagers prefer to pay for VOD rather than for healthier food. I think they would prefer to eat brioche or cake.
Edited by Thesegougou on Feb 24th 2024 at 11:39:06 AM
I'm not crazy, just creatively different.
This is not the first time a French president is humiliated at this event. We still remember Sarkozy's "Casse-toi pauvre con !".
The French Parliament has voted to enshrine women's right to abortion in the Constitution.
The decision was passed by 267 to 50.
Abortion has been legal in France since 1974, but there was a growing concern that the law may get "eroded" like in other countries, so the right was added to the Constitution.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68431803
The farmers are protesting against falling incomes, environmental regulations, rising red tape, and competition from imports.
The goal of the farmer unions is to stop food from reaching supermarkets in Paris, but secondary roads were still functional.
15,000 members of the police force have been mobilized, but there was no sign of violence.
Similar protests happened in other French cities, as well as in Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands.
To be clear, they’re not protesting against "environmental regulations" but the fact that free-trade treaties (like the ones the EU recently signed with New Zealand, Chile or Kenya) put them in competiton with countries where those regulations don’t exist or are far more lax, a competition they obviously can’t win − especially when those countries’ wages are also much lower.
It’s like a double bind.
PS: It’s worth noting that France’s biggest agricultural union, the FNSEA, mostly supports big agro-industrial sectors and its discourse often does not reflect what the majority of smaller farmers want. They’re the ones most likely to gripe about "the norms".
Anyway, it looks we have another Yellow Vest movement on our hands, except more European. It even started (partly) with an increase in a gas tax for farmers here.
Meanwhile, the new education minister AOCnote is a walking shitshow the likes I didn’t think was possible even under Macron. Like, wow.
Meanwhile meanwhile, the Constitutional Council mostly censored all the concessions the Macronists made to the far right for the immigration law, meaning the bill is pretty much back to its original form… the one that was rejected by the National Assembly at the start. Yep, Macron found a way to implement a law that was rejected by parliament. Heads I Win, Tails You Lose indeed.
Edited by Lyendith on Jan 30th 2024 at 11:53:37 AM