Discussion > Macron riots
stewgreen, for any society to come close to that, it would have to be able to maximise power generation, and use it efficiently. Non productive wasters and consumers of power and money would need to be removed from the Taxpayer's Payroll, to do some productive work.. That would include the likes of Ms Yamide Dagnet and over 97% of those present at COP24.
golf charlie
Anybody the BBC puts up to explain what's going on has to have an agenda that they "like". Andrew Neil spends quite a bit of time in France - I'd like to see him interview Ms Dagnet
tomo
stewgreen, thanks for doing the heavy lifting.
Back to her blog quote:
"While the unrest initially erupted as a protest against the latest rise in fuel taxes, which the government has now agreed to postpone, some are attributing the riots to a backlash against carbon taxes and climate action. This is a misguided conclusion.
The Yellow Vests’ chief concern is social inequity. Their demands go well beyond the suspension of fuel taxes, and many of them call for more ambitious and fair climate action. The movement is a reminder to governments that in a context of worsening social disparities, climate action cannot advance without ensuring benefits for all."
I think the first sentence of that second paragraph is justified by the list. The next sentence, especially ..."and many of them call for more ambitious and fair climate action" doesn't seem to me to be at all justified by that list of demands.
The final sentence really should give the climate alarmed serious pause for thought, rather than being a rallying call.
Mark Hodgson
Ms Dagnet wrote her words. The BBC printed them as though they were an official response from COP24. It was pre-emptive retaliation, before somebody else pointed at the big elephant in the room, that the BBC had not noticed despite having the expertise of Matt McGrath and camera crews present.
Trump has now pointed at the elephant, and still the BBC still refuses to see it.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/12/10/trump-says-paris-climate-accord-isnt-working-out-so-well-for-paris-as-riots-engulf-the-city/
golf charlie
For those who are interested les gilet jaunes, there's (IMO) a very interesting discussion on the subject over at cliscep:
https://cliscep.com/2018/12/04/technocrate-moi/#comment-30650
Mark Hodgson
Mark +1 on that
I've a bit of the deplorables vs. the new aristos over the years in French multinationals and rural France - nail firmly struck there imho.
tomo
stewgreen, I think that was the page. The rest came from golf charlie's sleuthing regarding her other output.
Mark Hodgson
stewgreen & Mark Hodgson,
I was intrigued by this from the BBC page that Mark Hodgson linked to:
"We are really angry and find it atrocious that some countries dismiss the messages and the consequences that we are facing, by not accepting what is unequivocal and not acting upon it," said Yamide Dagnet from the World Resources Institute, and a former climate negotiator for the UK.
I was intrigued to know more about the qualifications and experience necessary to be a UK "climate negotiator". With further assistance from Google, disMay set in. Why does the UK need to import useless policy wonkers, when we already have a surplus?
golf charlie
looks like Macron now has a third front opening up (after gilets jaunes , EU vs. Macron's gilet jaunes policy) we see the French military purportedly on Macron's back over the UN's latestest migrant wheeze.
Anybody know about the veracity of the "grumpy generals" story?
tomo
French military see the 'EU Army' v. NATO moves as a threat to the effectiveness of French armed forces?
They might not get to play with our second ( "convenient target") no-aircraft carrier.
French people not defended against known wolf attacks.
Charly
Dec 12, 2018 at 11:19 PM tomo
Link is 404 ?
Dec 13, 2018 at 6:01 AM Charly
Without US support, NATO's future was not looking good. An EU Defence Force would rely on Aircraft Carriers if it was going to play away from home. This would have been part of the accountancy package when the UK decided to buy new Aircraft Carriers, and scrap the old ones.
golf charlie
"Climate change: Protecting the poor from green taxes
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst"
"As President Macron caved into the yellow vest fuel tax protests, President Trump was triumphant.
The French humiliation showed people rejected the sort of carbon taxes supported by the UN’s climate deal, he tweeted.
Of course it’s more complicated than that, because it depends on what sort of carbon taxes and how they are imposed.
Green economists say carbon taxes are a good idea - but they insist that governments must protect the poor from the side-effects.
Why are the poor vulnerable to green taxes?
It’s a question of disposable income. If a government imposes a flat tax on motor fuel as Mr Macron did, that hits the poor hardest because it eats their disposable income.
The fuel rises were doubly galling for the yellow vests in their suburban and rural homes because they can’t rely on good public transport like rich city slickers do."
Then it's followed by lots of stuff telling us that economists have worked out how to impose "green" taxes without hurting the poor. This could have appeared just as easily on the Climate Change Act thread, since in large part it covers the same ground, but it's ostensibly linked by the BBC to the gilet jaunes protests, so I've posted it here.
Mark Hodgson
"Why are the poor vulnerable to green axes?
It’s a question of disposable income. "
Dec 13, 2018 at 9:00 AM | Mark Hodgson
Green Blob Economists are in complete denial of that. They must get paid too much to understand the poor and vulnerable
golf charlie
Today's discussion between @Mark and ST
“If they can give dozens of millions to rebuild Notre Dame, they should stop telling us there is no money to respond to the social emergency,”@Mark said
trade union leader Philippe Martinez told France 24.
That last point is rather my view. I'm far from being entirely with the gilets jaunes, but whenever politicians tell the public there are no funds available for A,B, and C, they always seem to have funds available for their own priorities of X,Y and Z. HS2, which nobody but politicians seem to want, is a case in point.
=====================
This morning the Radio Sheffield religion prog was stirring big time
A big dog whistle : how come those French billionaires quickly gave to ‘Notre Dame & not Grenfell ..oh it’s not fair billionaires have money, they should have it taken off them’
#PoliticsOfEnvy
FFS comparing the two events is the fallacy of comparing apples and oranges.
#1 Notre Dame is a cash event
.. it just needs money and it will be rebuilt
The French gov set a target and the bilionaires turned up
#2 Grenfell is not a cash event
- money doesn't bring dead people back to life
- Those living people affected are largely covered, there's housing and govt cash for tenants
nad private owners have their own insurance
If they failed to insure ..there is a charit pot
Hence Notre Dame is €1bn , and Grenfell charity fund is £27m
Also Notre Dame is a one off icon event
People's flats burning down is not a one off in the UK , it happens hundreds of time/year in the UK
Grenfell was just a bunch of such tragedies happening on the same day.
stewgreen
As to the Gilet Jaunes point "the response to the fire only showed more inequality."
Well a €1bn is a one off charge
increasing 10 million peoples pension by €10 each week is €100m per week
that's €5.2bn /year
€52bn over ten years
The billionaire money would have relatively soon all gone.
stewgreen
It's not often that I agree with you Stew, but this time I do. There are few great man-made treasures in the world, and surely Notre Dame must be one of them. As someone famous once said "the poor are always with us". So no amount of funding will suffice to remove them.
For me there is an even stronger argument. Notre Dame is a near universally acknowledged wonderful survival of a bygone time and with a long and intricate history important to the French state. Before last week it still had the power to strike the modern visitor dumb with awe. Norwich cathedral does the same (both have impressive, long, tall naves). To refuse to restore Notre Dame to its former glory would be an act of wanton vandalism. When it was originally built (12th to the 14th centuries) the cost was enormous, especially relative to the income of the ordinary Frenchman. But who ultimately paid for it? The ordinary Frenchman. Not to restore the cathedral would be the ultimate insult to those medieval Frenchmen, including the many hundred workmen that almost certainly gave up their lives, during its construction.
Criticism by the French Left of those willing to assume the financial cost of restoration is misplaced. They should be lauded, not criticized.
Supertroll
@Mark just reinforced his point
\\ I read the gilets jaunes comments as being critical of the French government's pledge to spend money on Notre Dame, having previously imposed austerity on the French poor while cutting taxes for the rich.
My criticism, as I understand theirs to be (or as I may have misunderstood theirs to be) was of politicians who claim there is no money for things that other people consider to be worthwhile, but who can always find money to virtue signal or for their own pet projects.
Hence my reference to HS2 - a bottomless pit of expenditure to be paid by the taxpayer, but which, so far as I can see, barely a taxpayer supports; it's (yet) another example of the Westminster bubble. //
stewgreen
OK @Mark my point is the money the Notre Dame money comes from the billionaires
.. the French govt might put into €200m
the total €1bn is nothing compared to mega projects ;ile the £52bn for HS2
BTW That makes HS2 this massive naionalised industry
When it the last time a mega government project paid back it's initial investment ?
.. a bridge , a power station, n airport , a port ?
HS2 will nevr pay back direct
the private Chunnel company went backrupt.
stewgreen
"We are talking about people who, in the name of a religion, pursue a political project," he said. "A political Islam that wants to secede from our Republic," against which he asked the government to be "intractable." Macron also gave a ringing defense of French secularism, and called out "communitarianism."
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=macron+political+islam&atb=v104-1&ia=web
clipe
Various people draw our attention to Yamide Dagnet supplying the BBC with the fantasyland quotes they want.
Particularly the way she alleges that the Yellow vests aren't anti-fuel tax
her blogpost : yellow-vests-movement-isn-t-anti-climate-action-it-s-pro-social-justice
Here are the 42 demands she references
I have no idea if these are followed by all the protesters or just made up by one of her friends etc.
They are quite difficult to find instead of being all over the place
I don't spot the references to Climate Change
1 Zero homelesness: URGENT.
2 More progressive income tax (more tranches).
3 SMIC at 1300 euros net.
4 Favor the little ones of villages and town centers. (Stop the construction of large commercial areas around major cities that kill the small business) + free parking in city centers.
5 Large Housing Isolation Plan. (ecology by saving households).
6 That WHOLESALE ( 7 Same social security system for all (including craftsmen and autoentrepreneurs) End of the RSI
8 The pension system must remain in solidarity and therefore socialized (No point-to-point retirement)
9 End of the rise fuel taxes.
10 No retirement below 1,200 euros.
11 Any elected representative will be entitled to the median salary.
His transport costs will be monitored and reimbursed if they are justified. Right to the ticket restaurant and
12 The wages of all the French as well as pensions and allowances must be indexed to inflation.
13 Protecting French industry: banning relocations. Protecting our industry is protecting our know-how and our jobs.
14 End of detached work. It is abnormal that a person who works on French territory does not benefit from the same salary and Any person being authorized to work on the French territory must be on a par with a French citizen and his employer must contribute to the same height as French employer.
15 For job security: further limit the number of fixed-term contracts for large companies. We want more CDI.
16 End of the CICE. (Tax credit for employment and competitiveness)
Use this money for the launch of a French hydrogen car industry (which is truly ecological, unlike the electric car.)
17 End of the austerity policy. We are ceasing to repay the interest on the debt that is declared illegitimate and we are starting to repay the debt without taking the money from the poor and the poorest but by fetching the $ 80 billion in tax evasion.
18 That the causes of forced migration be treated.
19 That asylum seekers be treated well. We owe them housing, security, food and education for the miners. Work with the UN to have host camps open in many countries around the world, pending the outcome of the asylum application.
20 That the rejected asylum seekers be returned to their country of origin.
21 That a real integration policy be implemented. Living in France means becoming French (French language course, History of France course and civic education course with certification at the end of the course).
22 Maximum salary fixed at 15,000 euros.
23 That jobs are for the unemployed.
24 Increase of disabled allowances.
25 Limitation of rents. + moderate rent housing (especially for students and precarious workers).
26 Prohibition of selling property belonging to France (airport dam etc....)
27 Substantial means granted to the courts, the police, the gendarmerie and the army. That law enforcement overtime be paid or recovered.
28 All the money earned by highway tolls will be used for the maintenance of motorways and roads in France as well as road safety.
29 As the price of gas and electricity has increased since privatization, we want them to return and prices to drop significantly.
30 Immediate closure of small lines, post offices, schools and maternity wards.
31 Let's bring well-being to our seniors. Prohibition of making money on the elderly. The gray gold is finished. The era of gray well-being begins.
32 Maximum 25 students per class from kindergarten to 12th grade.
33 Substantial means brought to psychiatry.
34 The People's Referendum must enter the Constitution. Creating a readable and effective site, supervised by an independent control body where people can make a proposal for a law. If this bill obtains 700,000 signatures then this bill will have to be discussed, completed, amended by the National Assembly which will have the obligation, (one year to the day after obtaining the 700,000 signatures) to submit it. to the vote of all the French.
35 Back to a 7-year term for the President of the Republic. (The election of deputies two years after the election of the President of the Republic made it possible to send a positive or negative signal to the President of the Republic concerning his policy, so it helped to make the voice of the people heard.)
36 Retirement at age 60 and for all those who have worked in a trade using the body (mason or boner for example) right to retire at 55 years.
37 A 6-year-old child does not keep himself alone, continuation of the PAJEMPLOI help system until the child is 10 years old.
38 Promote the transport of goods by rail.
39 No withholding tax.
40 End of presidential allowances for life.
41 Prohibition of charging merchants a tax when their customers use the credit card.
42 . Tax on marine fuel oil and kerosene.
Maybe construed as a NEW eco tax
This list is non-exhaustive but thereafter, the will of the people will be heard and applied by means of the creation of the popular referendum system which will have to be quickly setup. Members of Parliament, make our voice heard in the Assembly.
Obey the will of the people. Apply these Guidelines
another list