I wanted to make this post because sainte mère de dieu you guys can't imagine what shit is going on here in France, especially since the retirement reform.
TL;DR : This Is the biggest social movement in France since one century, AMA
So if you don't know, Macron is the “centrist” candidate that has been reelected last May against the far right party. It is important to know that in november 2018, the second year of his first mandate, a movement has formed, the yellow vests, independantly of any party or union, and progressively became a violent movement against him, forcing him to make concessions. If he was reelected in 2022, for the first time of the fifth republic no absolute majority has been formed in the low chamber, which is divided between the radical left coalition, the government, the center right and the far right.
So, in the early january, Macron purposed a law raising the retirement age from 62 to 64. However this is an extremely impopular reform. In fact the two largest french social movements after 1968 were in 1995 and 2010 and were provoked by, guess what, retirement reforms. So with Macron, surely the most hated of french presidents, it has to go wrong. And well, it did not miss.
I don't know how the policians act in your country, but here in France they surpass year after year the levels of indecency, through a great deal of lies, scandals and many others “foutage de gueule” (= taking the piss out). There are too many exemples I can remember, but like imagine even our budget minister was doing tax evasion, our minister of the interior is a raper and our justice minister is charged in several cases. This is one of the reasons the french have an enourmous defiance against their institutions and the medias, and so don't vote or vote for radical parties. Well this reform was not going to be an exception, and so the government did what they know the best, angry the people (they regularly call it “pedagogy”, I swear this isn't even a joke).
The movement has started with a rare thing : an alliance between the totality of the unions, even the most “reformists”, agreeing on the withdrawal of the reform. It has taken the form of one day of strike and demonstration by week, during 2 months. The Tuesday 7th of March, between 1.28 million (according the police) and 3.5 million of people (according the unions) was in the streets, making it the biggest demonstration ever recorded in France. The government totally ignored it, “the crowd has no legitimacy” as Macron has responded today.
Last week, being aware he couldn't have a majority in the Assemblée nationale (the low chamber) to pass his law, he used the sadly famous article 49.3 of the Constitution, allowing him to skip the vote of the chamber. This article is seen by 70% of the population as a denial of democracy. The vote of the motion of no confidence, that could overturn the government, has failed by 9 votes.
And this is where the real shit has began. A majority of the population is now convinced the peaceful demonstrations by the national unions were useless. Spontaneous movements has formed all over the country, including burning of Macron's mannequin, and of course clashes with the police. In fact the garbage men of many cities has began an unlimited strike, letting tons and tons of trash in the streets, especially in Paris. Well they have been revealed very useful, both for launch it in the prefectures or at the cops than to create burning barricades all over the streets, I recommand you to look at it, this is very spectacular. Not to mention blockades of great road links, ports, railroads, or the cessation of the TOTALITY of the refineries of the country. This joyeux bordel (Happy mess) results from local coordinations between unions, yellow vests and students. Oh and we can also speak about the energy workers, who regularly cuts electricity from MP and make it free for the hospital or poor populations, they call it “operations Robin Hood”. Today, the Breton fishermen charged at the cops with a tractor, the Norman dockers overturned a camping car and a bus to block their port, etc…
This post is already too long so I will just conclude by a word on the french police : The interior minister (yes, the raper one) admits to use illegal police methods, and will surely never be worried for it. The cops arrested, the thursday evening of the 49.3, 300 citizens. 97% of them were freed after tens of hours of detention because of the obvious lack of offence. Also, the law impose to give biometric datas to the police when in arrest. These mass arbitrary and illegal arrests and filings have continued ever since, every evening of “savage” protests (undeclared movements). I can't show you the tens of videos or testimonies about the police violences published every day, but this is really going insage for our country (some cops volontarily knocked over protesters, beaten up an homeless man because why the fuck not, …) everyone fears the arrival of the first death.
So here we are. Macron said today he will continue the “forced march”, unions called to “harden the mobilisation”, and nobody knows where we're going. I wanted to share it with you all. If you want to help us I can give you the strike fund, as you wish. You can ask me anything on the situation.