Posted on 12/03/2018 10:44:12 AM PST by RightGeek
Unemployment in France is not only at an alarmingly high level (9.1%)... The number of people in poverty is also high (8.8 million people, 14.2% of the population). Economic growth is effectively non-existent (0.4% in the third quarter of 2018, up from 0.2% the previous three months). The median income (20,520 euros, or $23,000, a year,) is unsustainably low. It indicates that half the French live on less than 1710 euros ($1946) a month. Five million people are surviving on less than 855 euros ($ 973) a month.
...
Another area in which Macron has acted relentlessly is the "fight about climate change", in which his targeted enemy are cars. On vehicles over four years old, mandatory technical controls were made more costly and failure to comply with them more punitive, evidently in the hope that an increasing number of older cars could be eliminated. Speed limits on most roads were lowered to 80 km/h (50 mph), speed control radars multipled, and tens of thousands of drivers' licenses were suspended. Gas taxes rose sharply (30 cents a gallon in one year). A gallon of unleaded gas in France now costs more than $7.
The spokesman for the center-right party, The Republicans, Laurence Saillet, remarked, "The French say, 'Mr. President, we cannot make ends meet,' and the President replies, 'we shall create a High Council [for the climate]' Can you imagine the disconnect?".
Marine Le Pen, president of the right-of-center National Rally (the former National Front party, and today the main opposition party in France), said, "There is a tiny caste that works for itself and there is the vast majority of French people who are abandoned by the government, and feel downgraded, dispossessed ".
The "yellow jackets" now have the support of 84% of the French population.
(Excerpt) Read more at gatestoneinstitute.org ...
The gas gas barely went up....the diesel tax...near 27 cents per gallon, which infuriated private drivers (70-percent of the nation has diesel cars) and the freight delivery folks. The diesel drivers were basically punished in a serious way, and they won’t go along with the deal. Whoever was advising Macron on this....really failed big-time.
If he does nothing and lets this brew through the winter and spring....there’s an EU election in June of next year and it’d be a disaster for French polling if this is allowed to simmer.
It’s not just him, although he’s terrible. The French labor rules make it impossible to do business there without being at a competitive disadvantage. To restructure a manufacturing plant there would have meant paying the fraction of the workforce that would be made redundant essentially the same as if they showed up for work for the rest of their working career. Insane. We sold the entire business instead, let it be someone else’s problem.
European elections are to be held this May, 2019. Polls show that Le Pen's National Rally party will be in the lead, far ahead of the party created by Macron, La République En Marche! [The Republic on the Move!].
I wonder if Mlle. Le Pen still wants the job?
cf. Bureaucratic central planning vs free market economy.
Yours is a sad story that, unfortunately, our up-coming generation is too ignorant to understand.
Yup - he actually proposed creating a Higher Council For The Environment.
People are sick of Macron and want him gone. Like 84% of the population.
His days in power are numbered.
Let them ride the trolley.
Let them walk.
let them eat bagettes
“I wonder if Mlle. Le Pen still wants the job?”
The stupid frog democrats had at least one chance to elect her but oh no they elected Maroon. They’ll probably do it again. Eat your $7 dollar gas you schmucks.
There remains a real problem here - Macron apparently said that he felt that the "lower classes" were suffering, but in fact it's the middle classes who are feeling the load. Marx was wrong, but not by much - when the middle class becomes a revolutionary class, look out, and and the French of all people should remember that. Louis XVI was unavailable for comment.
Of course people who have to juggle their dwindling budget from paycheck to paycheck grind their teeth to hear jet-set celebrities and politicians bleating "we're all going to have to shoulder the burden of saving the planet" when they really mean "you are." When a French citizen who needs to drive to make a living is told that he's going to be squeezed out of that by a government that knows better than he does what's good for him, and the fellow who is telling him that has just returned from an international conference in Buenos Aires with the carbon footprint of an entire city, he isn't going to be happy. This isn't difficult.
This is the type of thinking that some Americans in leadership positions hold.
Not to mention the POPE himself who dismisses the Islamic threat..
Very dangerous delusion for any Infidel to have.
If Macron successfully encourages this naiveness , France is a goner. - Tom
“Let them drink Diesel.” — Emmanuel Macron
Unemployment in France is not only at an alarmingly high level (9.1%)... The number of people in poverty is also high (8.8 million people, 14.2% of the population). Economic growth is effectively non-existent (0.4% in the third quarter of 2018, up from 0.2% the previous three months). The median income (20,520 euros, or $23,000, a year,) is unsustainably low. It indicates that half the French live on less than 1710 euros ($1946) a month. Five million people are surviving on less than 855 euros ($ 973) a month... On vehicles over four years old, mandatory technical controls were made more costly and failure to comply with them more punitive, evidently in the hope that an increasing number of older cars could be eliminated. Speed limits on most roads were lowered to 80 km/h (50 mph), speed control radars multipled, and tens of thousands of drivers' licenses were suspended. Gas taxes rose sharply (30 cents a gallon in one year). A gallon of unleaded gas in France now costs more than $7. The spokesman for the center-right party, The Republicans, Laurence Saillet, remarked, "The French say, 'Mr. President, we cannot make ends meet,' and the President replies, 'we shall create a High Council [for the climate]' Can you imagine the disconnect?". Marine Le Pen, president of the right-of-center National Rally (the former National Front party, and today the main opposition party in France), said, "There is a tiny caste that works for itself and there is the vast majority of French people who are abandoned by the government, and feel downgraded, dispossessed ". The "yellow jackets" now have the support of 84% of the French population.
Macron and Merkel should be strung upside down, side by side, so the angry citizens can beat them to death, like the Italians did to Mussolini and his concubine.
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