Footage of people rioting and beating up pigs right in front of the motherfucking Arc De Triomphe in Paris today. Part of the ongoing insurrectionary wave sparked by protests against a fuel tax last week. Let it not be said that people in France do not know how to throw the fuck down!!
Serious commentary: These protests actually represent a crucial dilemma as far as fighting environmental catastrophe goes. This fuel tax was put in place in order to discourage fossil fuel use and to encourage a transition towards a more eco-friendly France. But of course an increase in taxes that doesn’t have an immediate benefit is not popular with quite a few working class people. Point being theyre missing the big picture of what these taxes set out to accomplish and that they may have to sacrifice a bit to in order to prevent a disaster which is going to hit hard IN THIS CENTURY.
It tells me that if we truly want to push for enviromental sustainability we have to ensure the masses are properly educated on what climate change is, the threat it poses, and what and why we have to do and possibly sacrifice to combat it.
On the other hand. Since Macron is a neoliberal asswipe these taxes place the blame for climate change on the consumer and consumer habits instead of the actual major source of the problem – the capitalist mode of production. Within this context I can see why people would riot since as reports DO show countries with greater inequality will have harder times selling policies such as this.
In conclusion we need to expand education on the matter of climate change and harm minimization and deliver a leftist approach to climate change that targets it at its core instead of blaming the working class for a problem it is not creating
@property-is-theft They understand what climate change is and how we need to take action on it, they’re angry that the taxes are being raised for working class people and not the upper class. This extra tax will now be taken almost exclusively from people who have absolutely no other options but to continue buying gas. The working class of France is being torn to pieces with taxes targeted at them, and this is just one out of many examples. They want alternatives to gas and oil, and they think that forcing the people who drive a lot to pay more money is a direct attack on those who can afford it the least. Almost all of the people driving a lot are the workers who can no longer live near cities, as they become more and more expensive. No person who has the money to afford this tax will really care, but those who cannot afford it, who certainly cannot afford any alternative at their current prices, will be forced into deeper poverty. They’re not idiots, they are struggling proletariats.
Yeah, how will increasing taxes on something middle-class people have no relevant alternatives (due to various lobbying) be eco-friendly? Tbh the government had it coming, with the Loi Travail, the 49.3, Parcoursup and all that shit…people have been boiling for quite a long time now and the elites are absolutely disconnected from the reality and always so patronizing (sans mauvais jeu de mots)…
I don’t think this way of doing things will do anything else than making any reforms or concessions painfully slow and destructive. We’ll see in the next few weeks, I guess.
Plume de Lynx 