Let's Count To 10 000!

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fancy.
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5054"

Things are going badly in France

 

5055;

Could you elaborate?

 

5056.
There are huge movements of protestation coming from everywhere, that started from the movement of the "gilets jaunes" (yellow security jacket), that become more and more violent.
The "gilets jaunes" mouvement stated as a pacifist protest against an increasing tax on fuel, but then it expanded to a general despondency against the capitalist and liberal politics of the President, but mainly on the global decrease of the purchasing power compared to the very wealthy people (one of the very first measures taken by the President when he was elected was to suppress a considering part of the wealth tax, therefore people concerned by this tax saved around 10 000 € per year, compared to all these people that can barely cope with the difficulty gathering money at the end of the month).
Troublemakers make things even worse, but the manifestant themselves are acting violently. Last Saturday there was a huge protest in Paris, the Arc de Triomphe was pillaged.
Now a lot of movements are gathering, like the farmers, the truck drivers and the 15-18 students (my own school saw people setting on huge fires in the entrance, throwing cobblestones at policemen and firefighters, then the policemen attacked with tear-inducing gases and a student was hurt, they talked about it on the national news).
On Saturday there will be the most massive protest in Paris, the manifestants want to bring weapons and will try to break inside the Élysée Palace.
We have no idea of where we're going with all this stuff, but it's certain that we're indeed going towards there.

 

5057...
WOW

 

Wow indeed...

That doesn't sound nice for anyone... why isn't this stuff everywhere in our news!?
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It's really complicated. People are heavily criticizing the policemen for using tear-inducing gases and flash-balls, therefore hurting the manifestants, but some of these manifestants throw cobblestones at them, and of course it's always the guy that was trying to protest quietly that gets hurt.
I think that the revendications are - for the most - absolutely legitimate, but it's not a reason to act such violently. But on the other hand, contrary to how it works in the USA, pacifist protests are in 95% of cases useless. In the USA (I know I'm doing a caricature), you just have to say "Hey, maybe we'll do a strike next month" and the big boss comes to meet the workers in the following hour to find an agreement (at least talking about industries). In France, you protest for a full month and nobody (boss or politics) cares at all, so it fails. That's why American people tend to portray us French people as always on strike. So, facing with a lack of political answer from the governement, people start and smash things in the street.
Tomorrow will for sure be an important day in the history of France.

To be fair, I guess most American people can't even locate France on a map...
Yesterday I saw some "journalists" on Fox News talking about it and the main one called the French President "François Macron" instead of Emmanuel Macron, showing that he was truly an expert on the subject, and even adding that for him all French people are called François...

 

It's nice, isn't it, how complicated and messy everything has to be. While being correct, some people act on those thoughts in a way that makes what the say and do unagreeable with. Violence might be the only way for them to try to force change, but that does in no way make it right.

I'm not from there, so I have no idea, but where I live (Sweden) we have very constructed rules about strikes and such. We have semi-private departments which take the voice of their members and come to an agreement with the member's employers. Iirc it varies a lot in the US depending on where you work. You might have a lot of rights to call upon, you might have next to none. That depends on what you work with, what the company you work for has for policies and the thoughts and attitudes of your higher-ups. It sounds like it isn't structured to bring fairness to the people, and to instead favor the companies. (Hey, just like about everything :D)

It really sounds so... it'll be both interesting and scary seeing how far this'll go.

I wonder how true that stereotype actually is, as the only sources I've found on the question are recreational youtube videos. I'll have a search.

Heh.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2496427.stm
This might be pretty old, but if what it says is true then that stereotype is very correct. Guess it isn't that weird then that one of my classmates can locate every capital city in the world...

It sounds like they're taking it extremely seriously and that they really care about the subject.

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