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It's sad...

 
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Dav
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 2890
Location: Rennes, France

PostPosted: Sat Dec 08, 2018 9:09 am    Post subject: It's sad... Reply with quote

That the lyrics to Crass's Banned from the Roxy fits to what french people are yelling to our government, to journalists and police in the streets of Paris. Nothing ever changes...let's hope it will...
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jefflewis



Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 1485

PostPosted: Fri Dec 14, 2018 4:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Dave! What is your opinion on the current situation there? It's hard to tell from the American media what the situation is, from your perspective, if you have time to tell us any more!
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misshelenc



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 943
Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

PostPosted: Sun Dec 16, 2018 7:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yes I'm interested too, do share.
British people haven't rioted like that for a while, maybe why nothing useful gets done!
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Dav
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Joined: 30 Oct 2005
Posts: 2890
Location: Rennes, France

PostPosted: Wed Dec 19, 2018 2:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well it all started with a tax raise on gas. People got fed up paying more and more just to take their car to go to work, meaning less money for all the rest.
Here the "smic" minimum pay you can get for 35 hours a week (that a month pay) is around 1150 € and gas can cost 150/200 euros just to go to work. (i'm spending 50€ myself, my job is not that far away).
So people got angry about that tax and started to get together, blocking roads, stores... people just want to be abble to live while having a full time job. But with taxes rising most people on SMIC can't even get through a month.
In the same time, our beloved president got rid of the tax forthe richer french resident, called the isf (was bringing 5billions euros a year, the same that gas price raise with bring).
All these french workers got mad, they have to pay more and more as the richer won't pay anymore...
The gap between the politics and the "real" people is getting bigger and bigger, Macron just redid the decoration of the elysée (our white house for a few hundred thousands of euros...his wife spends 10000 euros monthly for having a make up team taking care of her, same price for Macron hair team...)
The government didn't answer properly to people revendications about gas and was hoping that it will settle itself, with time, but it didn't. Fench got mader and mader, asking for pay raise, more power, more taxes for the richers folks and so on.
Macron answer was that the government will give 1000 euros for people willing to change their windows, knowing most of these folks are renting a place.
People got angrier and went to Paris, fighting the cops, burning stuff, breaking everything on their way (some of them did, not the majority thought)
After a few week Macron annonced that the SMIC will be up to 100 euros monthly, and that the taxes raises will stop...

If he had listen to his people insted of being arrogant,it could has gone smoothly.
the whole thing isn't finished yet, especially after we noticed that the 100 raised will not be for everybody etc etc etc...

Sorry if it isn't clear
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jefflewis



Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 1485

PostPosted: Tue Dec 25, 2018 1:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks so much for the explanation, I think it really helps me to understand it when I hear from somebody like you, it's too confusing to read things in the news and not see the whole picture, from the perspective of somebody who is living there.
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misshelenc



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 943
Location: Cardiff, Wales, UK

PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2019 7:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It helped me too, thank you for that! I got the gist of it from the news, sounds like it could have all been avoided if someone with a bit of authority had done the right thing in the first place.
xx
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jefflewis



Joined: 21 Nov 2005
Posts: 1485

PostPosted: Thu Jan 03, 2019 4:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

As usual...!
But I guess we're all just fallible humans, even those in government. Nobody knows how to make things right, and everything is difficult. Too bad that power corrupts. And greed... that's always a tough one to get around. I see my own corruption and my own greed and I can only imagine the deeper levels of all this human fault in those who have much more power and money than I do.
I just watched a really cool weird interesting movie, "Property Is No Longer A Theft", it's an Italian movie from 1973, it's sort of a drama/comedy/surreal but it also contains a lot of philosophy about society and economics. Strange movie, pretty unique I think. Highly recommended.
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