Posted on 01/27/2023 6:11:47 AM PST by karpov
PARIS—To fight President Emmanuel Macron’s pension overhaul, France’s most militant labor union is pursuing a radical strategy: cutting electricity to his political supporters and the wealthy while handing out discounted power and gas to the public.
During a nationwide strike last week, members of the far-left CGT union who work in the energy sector cut power to the office of a lawmaker from Mr. Macron’s party for more than three hours. On Monday, CGT energy workers in Marseille manipulated electricity and gas meters to cut bills for bakers who were protesting in the French port city against high energy prices. CGT’s leadership called such moves a “Robin Hood” operation and said they would continue as the country prepares for another national protest on Tuesday.
“Strikes are good, but they’re no longer enough,” said Sébastien Menesplier, head of the CGT’s energy division. “We have to take actions that are visible and impact those who are supporting the government.”
Philippe Martinez, the CGT’s national leader, this week proposed cutting power to billionaires and singled out Vincent Bolloré, a French tycoon who owns a host of businesses, including CNews, a right-leaning 24-hour news channel. “They can put themselves into the position of millions of people who face energy poverty,” Mr. Martinez said.
CGT employees are increasingly using their positions in France’s energy sector to pressure the French government and big companies. The union’s workers occupy sensitive posts across the country’s energy infrastructure—from oil refineries and power grids to France’s fleet of nuclear reactors—allowing them to shut production or supply energy for free. The tactics have drawn outrage from the French government—and warnings that union members who use their positions to pressure lawmakers would face legal sanctions.
“It’s not the CGT who decides in France,” said Bruno Le Maire, the French finance minister.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
If the government can ban natural gas hookups and gasoline-powered cars, you will be entirely dependent on the electric grid. Then the government can control you by threatening to cut off your electricity. A story from March 2020 is LA's mayor says he will cut off water and power to businesses that don't comply with the coronavirus lockdown.
When I see unions cutting power to the slime that screws us, I become an avid union supporter. Go CGT, make the b*stards freeze to death in the dark.
Good
When the government are attacking their own people it is not terrorism to fight back. These people are fighting for freedom and a better life. Good on the French utility workers for making the grifters suffer with the rest of us. If the globalists’ motto is “Let them eat bugs” then our motto should be “Let them sit in the dark.
Tampering with public utilities is a federal crime in the US
“energy poverty”
I have yet to get a bill from the Sun.
Was that said just before the power got cut to his office?
“Tampering with public utilities is a federal crime in the US”
Bidet should have been hauled off and thrown in jail the day he stopped the Keystone Pipeline.
If that isn’t “tampering with public utilities” nothing is.
Here in northern CT the cost per kilowatt hour just doubled this month.
That is not a typo.
Doubled.
This is certainly creative!
Turning the tyrant’s “energy for me but not for thee” upside down!
Maybe the tarmac refuelers and mechanics at Davos will catch on.
They whimper when forced to be subjected to their own evil plans for their servants.
May the suffering for tyrants escalate, continue and may the people find ever creative ways to inflict upon them the evil they desire to impose upon us.
...and I’m not pro union by ANY stretch of the imagination
“gasoline-powered cars”
A tree in my Florida backyard was used to make turpentine, which was used to run cars in WW2.
Run a car on wood or charcoal:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07341512.2022.2033387
Bottom line the wealthy elite control Macron like they do all “mainstream” politicians and in turn Macron is trimming spending on pensions so the elites don’t have to bear the burden of taxpayer funded pensions.
The problem of taxes, pensions too much government spending requires change in retirement systems workers need to fund them more.
But guys like Macron are just one-sided taking the pro-business approach of politicians bought by banks and business in the mainstream political parties of the world.
I recall the cutting off of water and power. Garcetti actually was threatening terrorism against those who would not comply to his orders. But I will have to hand it to the French, the citizens do some crazy things against their government to show them they are upset. Here in the US, they would just send in tanks and burn down cities and kill the citizens.
Regardless I find the World Economic Forum business elite control of the politicians unacceptable and above all contrary to the Constitution of the United States.
“We The People” is more than the Davos crowd by a long shot.
Do you and other union supporters in this thread think that a retirement age of 62 is feasible in France or the rest of the developed world? Macron has proposed raising it to 64. It’s not “conservative” to think you have the right to retire relatively young and live at the expense of others.
> Bidet should have been hauled off and thrown in jail the day he stopped the Keystone Pipeline. <
The Founders were quite clear. Congress was to make policy. The President was to carry it out. So I don’t understand how Biden (or any president) can just decide to cancel something that important on his own. A vote in Congress should have been necessary.
Unfortunately we live in the age of the imperial presidency. Presidents twist little clauses in the law to allow them to do whatever the hell they want.
Unions are bad—very bad.
However, they are saints compared to the Davos crowd that demands that all the peons eat bugs in the cold and dark while being tracked like farm animals.
I see the need to modify things but what I see in France is a drift towards Canada were the welfare state’s costs are borne by everything from income taxes to sales taxes to user fees on the little folks.
Business in Canada gets the gravy with that 15 percent corporate tax rate.
Trudeau may be socially to the Left but he is also a Crony Capitalist.
Can't believe I'm about to say this: I couldn't possibly agree more.
These so-called "elites" deserve every bit of this and more.
The Sun bills me through my dermatologist.
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