[pif]

I live in France as well, and personally do not feel the same negativity as you.

What I don't appreciate at all is our share of idiots that think that blocking the country is a proper way of protesting (see "gilets jaunes"). That is not democratic, when a minority imposes their will to the silent majority.

[Qiu_Zhanxuan]

I'm always appalled by comments like these that justify their sympathy for authoritarian practices simply because they align with their interests. I'm in Paris, France, and police brutality has been increasing hand in hand with the corrupt nature of our government over the last decade, and it's horrifying. The apple is completely rotten; the way our election system works and all the dirty tricks you can do when you're in power mean people are not left with any other choice but to revolt. This does not bode well for our country.

[pif]

> sympathy for authoritarian practices simply because they align with their interests

Nothing personal, I'm talking about the interests of all the voters who freely elected the current president and parliament.

If you are not happy, it's our duty as a society to provide you a way to express your point. But the right to express your point does not involve the violence to get our attention. Most people just want to go on with their daily life, and putting obstacles to them will not gather any sympathy around you.

[skitout]

Polls showed that a large majority of French supported the Gilets Jaunes or supported the recent strikes. Foolowing your reasonning, the minority imposing their will to the silent majority is the government.

Furthermore, independently to our opinion about the Gilets Jaunes, the way this government use the police on the protest can be questioning for a democracy. Even the journalist of the right Figaro newspaper protested several times against police brutality against journalists.

Furthermore, independently to our opinion about the recent strikes (supported by 100% of the democratically elected trade unions), the fact that the government twisted the constitution to avoid a democratic vote of the democratically elected parliament on the legislative text is "puzzling"

[barrkel]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/945415/gilets-jaunes-app...

Those in favour went from 70 to 50% over the course of 5 months, opposition tripled, strong support went from 50% to 20%.

[skitout]

Few months after the start of the Gilet Jaune, they were not "blocking the country" anymore (I was answering a comment about this)...

And while not supporting the Gilet Jaune mode of action anymore, people still strongly supported and support the main ideas they pushed, like Citizens' initiative referendum, or the Solidarity tax on wealth

[pif]

> while not supporting the Gilet Jaune mode of action anymore, people still strongly supported and support the main ideas they pushed

Imagine how successful they could have been if they had behaved as civilised people from the beginning! I personally like some of those ideas, but I'll never trust people who think that violence is justifiable.

[dtoma]

I don't understand this point, and it's one we see very often. What would have happened if they'd been civilised?

1. We had a convention citoyenne pour le climat. Macron then mostly ignored it.

2. We have elected representatives who can vote on the laws for us. Macron then used article 49.3 to mostly ignore them.

3. Vote? For which candidate? None of them would cover all of the GJs' demands.

If you disqualify protests as a valid form of democratic expression, you also disqualify our famous revolution, the feminist protests that earned women the right to vote, the union strikes that earned us many worker rights, etc.

> I'll never trust people who think that violence is justifiable

Ah, that explains it. You only see violence in protesters who break windows, not in governments who enact laws on their people. Am I correct in assuming that you're ok with making people work 20 hours/week for the RSA as well?

[pif]

> 1. We had a convention citoyenne pour le climat. Macron then mostly ignored it.

The reality is: talking about CO2 emissions is talking about economy. That is the main job of the government.

> 2. We have elected representatives who can vote on the laws for us. Macron then used article 49.3 to mostly ignore them.

Macron did not ignore them. 49.3 means: "I'm ready to go on this point; are you ready, too?". And, by the way, you do remember that Macron was elected, too, do you?

> 3. Vote? For which candidate? None of them would cover all of the GJs' demands.

So what? This is democracy! If you can't, or don't want to, found your political movement, then you have to choose among the available candidates. Do you think Macron's program matched exactly my desires?

The revolution, the feminism and the union strikes were expressions of people who were oppressed and on the receiving side of violence. Gilets Jaunes was none of this.

[pif]

> You only see violence in protesters who break windows, not in governments who enact laws on their people.

A government trying to manage a country has a ton of compromises to make every day; I do not expect to be happy with every one of their choices, but I think the current government is doing OK.

On the other side, I fail to see how breaking a window can solve the problem of the protester.

> If you disqualify protests as a valid form of democratic expression

I'm afraid you confuse protest with violence. The ability to protest is fundamental for a democracy to stay a democracy, but protest must not imply violence and, especially, expressing your point does not make it automatically right.

[skitout]

Seriously ?

In France the only way firefighter got heard the last few times, after month of peaceful protestation, is by doing violent protest, including throwing heavy thing on the policeman. Then the government accepted to negociate with them. If you don't use violence in France, in many case you don't get heard at all.

Gilets Jaunes, aslo because of their violence did manage to get the government to made some concession.

Millions of French people (more than Gilets Jaunes at their peak) marched several times peacefully against the recent Pension Law, supported by all the trade union democratically elected, supported by more than 70% of the population and more than 90% of the workers. Nothing happen. No concession. Not even a vote in the parliament.

For sure sometimes violence is efficient, sometimes violence in counter-productive. Justifiable ? that is something else...

[barrkel]

To be fair, wealth taxes are a pretty unworkable idea in the large.

[skitout]

Used to work just find in France before Macron

[pif]

> Polls showed that

The only polls that matter are elections. Apart from elections, people have the right to avoid any poll without risking any policy change.

[HourglassFR]

Elections are not, and should not, be the be-all end-all of a functionning democraty. Otherwise you just have an elective aristocracy.

And to be clear, I'm not saying pure polling driven policy is the solution, but saying politician should outright ignore them because not legally binding is a very weird stance.

[dtoma]

If anything, the origin of the 5th republic under its founding president used referendums to validate the president's actions. He literally resigned after losing a referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Gaulle#Retirement.

[skitout]

1) I was responding to someone talking about silent majority... polls is then relevant

2) Democracy is not just voting every 5 year for a president and a parliament

[beremaki]

What gilets jaunes or blocking whatever have anything to do with violating parliamentary rights ? Or making protests of disappointment (edit: disapproval) illegal everywhere the president go ?

What can anyone do about a president that abuses its power ? This is a basic democratic issue and I am pessimistic because a lot of people like you just don't seem to get it, so we won't address that and when it is going to be too late it will be too late.

You might like or trust the current government but what about the next one ?

[pif]

> making protests of disappointment illegal everywhere the president go

France is big enough. Having to avoid a few square kilometres around the president will leave you plenty of space to organize your protest.

[Beldin]

You mean like "free speech zones" - which seems to be defined as zones in the US where you do have freedom of speech. (Yes, I'm wondering "what about the rest of the land area" as well.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_speech_zone

[soco]

Next law: protest as much as you want but out of sight. In your own cellar maybe? Ok that was sarcasm, but the very point of a protest is to be visible. Same with all Last Generation or such protests: if they had simply marched on some side street, nobody would talk about them today.

[pif]

> the very point of a protest is to be visible.

And that's why the public space must be made available for protesters, it's part of the life of a sane democracy. Public space and free press are sufficient if you have a point that matters to other people.

But if you feel the need to hijack another event in order to get people's attention, maybe you don't have a valid point to start with?

[wholinator2]

I would argue the conclusion to that isn't that they don't have a valid point, but that the people cannot be sufficiently motivated, or that they are unsure how to protest effectively, or that they are unaware that disrupting often leaves people feeling disrupted, that feeling disrupted is not a positive feeling, and that associating Negativity with a movement too many times can really hurt it in the long run. Just look at the cultures idea of PETA in the USA.

[soco]

I argue that PETA succeeded to bring into the official discussion other, more moderate organizations, thus effectively moving "the cause" forward at the expense of their own organization. Probably that was not their goal, but from a 10.000 feet it looks like achieving that. I think the same goes with the "eco terrorists", they may get slaughtered in the process but ecology gets on everybody's tongues. Again not sure they are planning it like this or it's just a side effect.

[throwaway290]

When they came for the protesters you did not speak out because you was not a protester... Beware when they come for you there will be no one left to speak out. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_)

[pif]

When they came for violent people preventing other pacific people to move on with their life, nobody needed to speak because their actions were against the law.

[hbt]

Will you be celebrating the 14th of July buddy? Or will you be condemning the act of 633 angry French citizens "storming the Bastille in Paris, capturing its munitions, releasing its seven prisoners, lynching the governor and demolishing the fortress".

After all, they broke the law and since it's the law then clearly the government had full legitimacy... right?

Next, you should be defending the "Code Noir" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_Noir That was also the law at some point and only affecting a minitority of the population. The suffering of anyone in society shouldn't interrupt your daily life as any act of revolt is illegal and therefore illegitimate.

Are you even French? "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" unless it inconveniences my day-to-day.

[pif]

Your examples do not involve people living in a democracy with universal right to vote.

[hbt]

And your definition of democracy is nothing more than electing a master to rule over you for 5 years. As long as his actions are legal, you consider them legitimate despite being highly unpopular and imposed on people through police violence.

There is more to democracy than a vote every 5 years.

Consent of the governed: "Government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised."

The founders of the United States believed that the government of Great Britain should rest on the principle that government depended on the consent of the governed and that any government not based on that consent could be justifiably overthrown and replaced.

Pretty sure revolutionary France abides by the same principles.

[throwaway290]

Or defending the flattening of protesters who were occupying Tiananmen square...

[batch12]

I hope they come for the clichés and razors first...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

[pif]

What every programmer should know about "First they came" :-)

[throwaway290]

Deserves repeating. I learned of this poem first last month, seems relevant.