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Two things can be true at once.
I wish people wouldn't destroy priceless artifacts, buildings, and works of art as a means of protest. Destroying history in an act of passion makes no sense.
I still fully support the French and hope they guillotine some fucking billionaires and their collaborators. Everyone, everywhere is feeling the pinch and it's heartening to see people fighting for justice.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
Though I agree that it's sad these things are being destroyed, the people rioting were not being listened to. If the people in power care about these buildings but not your problems, then the only sensible solution is to make your problems affect these buildings.
The idea that a protest or march that inconveniences no one gets anything done has been largely disproven. I don't live there, but according to articles I've read the schools have active mold and pest infestations and are visibly leaking. If the students are mandated to be in buildings that are unsafe then the government should as well. I don't know know if this was an intentional act, or if it was just an agitator, but I am not going to shed a tear over the destruction of a building being used to protect officials who are unwilling to help the people they are serving, regardless of how irreplaceable the building may be.
I get all of that.
When peaceful action accomplishes nothing, people rightly (and smartly) turn to violence. I can't blame the French for going all 'Battle of Blair Mountain' because these fat bastards in power aren't doing their jobs.
Intentional or no, buildings like that are priceless and irreplaceable. I wish people had better sense, but poverty and oppression will rob people of good sense.
I checked a few articles about this. They're all very short on facts and very long on emotional reactions. This is most definitely being used to discredit otherwise valid protest. Mostly by far-right-leaning outlets. I found only one article that speaks of masked individuals, refrains from blaming the protests and adds overall context, and it's not in English.
This happened yesterday. It is now Sunday. I will withhold further judgement for a few days.
edit (Monday):
Police reaction to these protests has been described as escalating, violent and incompetent long before this occurence and I can see how that might lead to events like this one.
Taz.de meanwhile has some more context; your favorite nuanced news outlet probably has too.
The day after, however, all that was spoken of was the violence and the powerlessness of the state leadership. The actual topic and reason for the protests, namely the government's austerity policy with its draft national budget and the question of purchasing power, faded into the background - which is perhaps just fine with the government. (source)
I'd also like to add that these acts are not aimed at people, just property. Something that cannot be said about the police violence.
A group of masked protesters who had torched a police car outside the town hall were seen breaking windows and entering the building to set a fire, according to witnesses.
I can hear it now, "The extreme left hate free speech and like to burn things."
No false flags needed here. wp:Reichstag fire.
It doesn't even need to be false flag. All it takes are a few pumped up idiots who use the protest as a pretext for getting thrills and dopamine kicks out of chaos and destruction.
My kid's school burned down during a protest in a suburb (not in France). The perpetrators were youth from more affluent parts of the city, kicked up on drugs they used the protests and travelled all across the city to try to set fire to preschools, schools and residences.
Anyone see any Reddit posts on this? That site is becoming more and more unhinged. Front page is fine for the most part, but some of the other posts about this event that are not too far from the front page are just filled with islamaphobia. I was so lost as to how this is even related to religion until I realized that it’s a bunch of right wing Indian centric accounts. So just idiots fueled by propaganda just spreading more hate.
Reddit has stopped banning hatefarm bots and is instead promoting them. There is no longer a difference between Reddit and Facebook.
Yeah there's a push by rightoids to put blame solely on muslims on pretty much all platforms and not just Reddit, as in "look what happens when you let immigrants in!!", in reality it being completely bullshit. There's also blame being put on "radical left" by French officials, but that too is bs, especially when considering how the leftist parties have been calling for an end to the riot
Keep going guys, lead the way and hopefully the rest of the world follows.
Protesting is fine. Destroying beautiful places like this is a serious loss
You have no idea what protest is about then. When you have nothing and capital is entirely owned by someone else, you can burn your city and lose nothing. Peaceful protests are by definition useless and only Americans think it works.
Go burn the mansions of the billionaires then, sink their yachts. Why burn down your own history? It's like shooting yourself in the foot because you are mad. How the hell does that change anything?
In our defense, Americans are only TAUGHT that peaceful protest is the only viable way.
Our schools don't teach about the Battle of Blair Mountain, or Haymarket Square, or the Deacons for Defense, etc. etc. etc.
Do not fuck with your citizens then
Still don’ doesn’t excuse it
I mean ultimately destroying useful government property doesn't punish the government, because it's going to be rebuilt/replaced out of taxpayer money.
You really don't understand the French.
If they raise taxes because of this, the next one will burn as well.
Its just a building. Just like a flag is just a piece of cloth. Whats a building matter in the face of systematic grift country wide? They'll burn more of them till people wake the eff up.
And culture is just a culture. This building is lost forever, and it was a fine one.
Losing it won't grant social system a happy restart or fix unfairness. It's just a small, but sad result of the unrest, not a magical leverage.
Sabotaging logistcs, production, and operation of services might be way more effective without destroying cultural artifacts.
Except this is doing nothing for the cause of the protestors, and in fact is being used against them.
Just read interesting interview about the situation (in Spanish and probably paywalled).
TLDR: Macron in a Lame duck president now. Next presidential elections are in May and he can't run again. He doesn't have the time or mandate to start major reforms now.
France has the biggest debt in EU. They have the 3rd highest debt-to-GDP after Italy and Greece. They have worse debt-to-GDP ratio than Spain now.
While people are destroying private and public property causing billions in damages there is simply no one who will listen to them. There's no money in the budget to simply increase funding for education or lower gasoline prices, the debt is already overwhelming them. No one knows who will win the next elections so the current government has little interest in starting major reforms now. All they can do is to send police to the streets and try to control the situation (which they are failing to do, clearly).
The protests have very little chance to achieve anything. Macron will be out in May so how can he even promise anything to the protesters? The protests are mostly pointless. They will most likely just polarize the vote before elections pushing people to support the extremes.
The money is there, it just goes into the few already deepest pockets in the world.
Even though the riot has been questionable in terms of goals and it's character, it's been insanely funny to see liberals going mask off everywhere because property damage, especially on reddit and twitter. Really shows where their priorities lie
Coming from Limoges, things fell apart badly mainly due to police actions :
a group went apart tried to go and block the highway
the police decided to tear gas everyone, including the peacedul protest with families, babies and elderly persons
people where told by the police to stand back and to go to townhall neighborhood
building was unprotected, though it's usually is in case of protests
despite a few plainclothes police officers, no action were taken when first fires started
Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but everywhere in France things were so badly handled by the gov and police that it look almost intentional.