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Violent Protests Spread from Paris to Belgium and now, the Netherlands
PJ Media ^ | 12/08/2018 | Rick Moran

Posted on 12/08/2018 8:06:57 PM PST by SeekAndFind

At least 700 people were arrested in Paris as 5,000 demonstrators faced off against 8,000 police in another violent demonstration by "yellow vest" protesters.

Riots broke out all over France despite the supposed cause of the violence being eliminated earlier in the week by the government of President Emmanuel Macron. The government had been claiming that a fuel tax increase was to blame for the protests, but the government rescinded the increase on Wednesday.

Donald Trump believes it was Macron's climate change policies:

But the protesters themselves were giving the real reason for the violence -- if anyone in Macron's government was listening.

Fox News:

"We are not here to destroy Paris, we are here to tell Macron we are f--king fed up," said one protester before the clashes with the police began, adding that the people are protesting ever-increasing taxes on the working class.

[...]

Many protesters slammed the French media for portraying the protests as led by violent agitators and for siding with Macron's government.

"We are not black bloc [black clad anarchists], we are ordinary people voicing our anger," said a protester who did not want to be identified.

Meanwhile, the contagion has spread to neighboring Belgium and the Netherlands.

ABC News:

Belgian police fired tear gas and water cannons at yellow-vested protesters calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Charles Michel after they tried to breach a riot barricade, as the movement that started in  France made its mark Saturday in  Belgium and the Netherlands.

Protesters in Brussels threw paving stones, road signs, fireworks, flares and other objects at police blocking their entry to an area where Michel's offices, other government buildings and the parliament are located.

Brussels police spokeswoman Ilse Van de Keere said that around 400 protesters were gathered in the area.

About 100 were detained, many for carrying dangerous objects like fireworks or clothing that could be used as protection in clashes with police.

The reasons for the protests are not entirely clear. Neither Belgium nor the Netherlands has proposed a hike in fuel tax — the catalyst for the massive and destructive demonstrations in France in recent weeks.

Instead, protesters appeared to hail at least in part from a populist movement that is angry at government policy in general and what it sees as the widening gulf between mainstream politicians and the voters who put them in power. Some in Belgium appeared intent only on confronting police.


The fuel tax hike was a "catalyst" for French protests only in the mind of the media, something they should now sheepishly admit given the spread of the protests to neighboring countries.

In the Dutch city of Rotterdam, a few hundred protesters in the high-visibility vests that have become a symbol of the movement walked peacefully across the downtown Erasmus Bridge singing a song about the Netherlands and handing flowers to passers-by.

Sisters Beb and Ieneke Lambermont, aged 76 and 67 respectively, were among them.

"Our children are hard-working people but they have to pay taxes everywhere. You can't get housing anymore. It is not going well in Dutch society," Ieneke said. "The social welfare net we grew up with is gone," she said.

"The government is not there for the people. It is there to protect its own interests," she said.

Are you listening, EU leaders?

The nationalist movements in Europe are not the stirrings of proto-fascists, or due to hatred for refugees. Certainly there is some of that sentiment present and it is worrisome. But the ordinary people who are paying for the grandiose schemes of the social planners in Brussels have had enough. And they are finally rising up to demand an end to it.

This is a continent-wide class protest, something Europe has been experiencing for more than 100 years. In that, there is nothing new.

What is new is that the grand social democratic experiment that began after the end of World War II may finally be coming to an end. Governments can only spend other people's money for so long before there is a backlash. I would say that the backlash is well underway.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Russia
KEYWORDS: agw; belgium; climate; climatechange; climatehoax; emmanuelmacron; europe; europeanunion; france; fueltax; globalwarminghoax; macron; netherlands; protest; publicallies; riots; russia; taxation; taxes; yellowvest
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To: SeekAndFind
*bimp*


41 posted on 12/09/2018 1:05:59 AM PST by Liberty Valance (Keep a Simple Manner for a Happy Life :o)
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To: thinden

Yeah, the “Obama Fedeyeen” … linked to a group Obama was involved with called “Public Allies” to train community agitators to pressure through intimidation “change” ...wanted to fund it like it was an army... give the youth health care and stipends....


42 posted on 12/09/2018 1:31:16 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: thinden

Yeah, the “Obama Fedeyeen” … linked to a group Obama was involved with called “Public Allies” to train community agitators to pressure through ntimidation “change” ...wanted to fund it like it was an army... give the youth health care and stipends....

Public Allies is part of AmeriCorps. The idea was modeled after one of Bill Ayer’s youth ideas.
In Obama’s own words, he and Michelle wanted them to be “Just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded as the military”


43 posted on 12/09/2018 1:43:04 AM PST by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: thinden

“Hep me out here, but didn’t barack hussein bin soetoro propose ther USA should also have a national police force??”

Yes, that force is called antifa. Most people think they are just anarchists, but if you watch their behaviors and tactics closely, there is obviously some level of organization and training.


44 posted on 12/09/2018 3:43:13 AM PST by dsrtsage (For Leftists, World History starts every day at breakfast)
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To: SeekAndFind

Nobody dares to mention that the native peoples are also protesting the globalists slow genocide of the native peoples by subsidizing the islamic replacement of the natives by over taxing the natives.


45 posted on 12/09/2018 3:52:17 AM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: CottonBall

“The social welfare net we grew up with is gone,” she said.

Did she want something for nothing? Did she realize that it cost money that someone had to pay? Did it ever occur to her that socialism is unsustainable? She may be more part of the problem than she realizes.


46 posted on 12/09/2018 4:15:50 AM PST by djpg
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To: MarMema

Good.


47 posted on 12/09/2018 4:21:27 AM PST by RushIsMyTeddyBear
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To: MarMema

Which is why some of the Gilets Jaunes were using the dreaded F-word: Frexit.


48 posted on 12/09/2018 4:24:00 AM PST by mewzilla (Is Central America emptying its prisons?)
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To: SeekAndFind
Al Gore should be over there calming them down... His monotonous voice would be saying... "Don't these people understand that the snow on Mount Kilimanjoro melted away in 2016, just as I predicted it would".

Oops!... Ok, so it's still there right now, but there will be a day when it isn't there... LOL

49 posted on 12/09/2018 4:41:05 AM PST by jerod (Nazi's were essentially Socialist in Hugo Boss uniforms... Get over it!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Socialist policies drove these people to the breaking point.


50 posted on 12/09/2018 5:09:27 AM PST by servantboy777
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To: little jeremiah
Why yes, yes 0b0la did propose that.

I think the EU is dead, just twitching for a while.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

maybe the CDC can name a communicable disease after him as part of his "legacy": 0b0la

51 posted on 12/09/2018 6:01:56 AM PST by thinden
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To: Liberty Valance

funny


52 posted on 12/09/2018 6:04:16 AM PST by thinden
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To: SeekAndFind

“The paris agreement” in trouble?

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah...........................I think rather that it’s this whole “European Union” thingy that is the problem for everybody.


53 posted on 12/09/2018 6:38:35 AM PST by Flintlock (The ballot box STOLEN, our soapbox taken away--the BULLET BOX is left to us.)
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To: little jeremiah

Please post them


54 posted on 12/09/2018 6:58:26 AM PST by CottonBall (Thank you , Julian!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Awesome. Hope it spreads to the UK and Germany.

The EU needs to be trashed.


55 posted on 12/09/2018 7:02:35 AM PST by TADSLOS (I wish Adam and Eve had been Cajuns. They would have ignored the apple and ate the snake.)
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To: pepsionice

“One the demands I noted....earlier retirement ages”

Then they haven’t learned their lesson about socialism. If their demands are a mixture just wanting their country back and wanting more free handouts, I don’t think this movement will go far.


56 posted on 12/09/2018 7:10:51 AM PST by CottonBall (Thank you , Julian!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Oh, but we should be more like the “enlightened” Europenises, right, John Kerry?


57 posted on 12/09/2018 7:11:01 AM PST by Ancesthntr ("The right to buy weapons is the right to be free." A. E. van Vogt, The Weapons Shops of Isher)
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To: djpg

Seems like socialism is so ingrained that they don’t even know about they’re protesting. They don’t seem to have the big picture of economics in mind.


58 posted on 12/09/2018 7:11:44 AM PST by CottonBall (Thank you , Julian!)
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To: CottonBall

Why do you think they want to make body armour illegal here in the US?


59 posted on 12/09/2018 7:12:52 AM PST by Yashcheritsiy (I'd rather have one king 3000 miles away that 3000 kings one mile away)
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To: Yashcheritsiy

I hadn’t heard that one.

Although I haven’t kept up with all the idiocy from the California legislature since we escaped there. I would imagine it originated there.


60 posted on 12/09/2018 7:14:42 AM PST by CottonBall (Thank you , Julian!)
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