Grischa wrote:
These people are basically folks with basic needs
they are folks that work too much for too less money, they get 10 euros an hour, work long hours,
think about all those cleaning ladies, parcel deliverers, for amazon and so, Mc Donalds workers, working till after midnight
<etc.>
These protests are essentially about inequality
basic inequality in Europe
This raises some questions in my mind. So to begin, 10€ per hour is less than minimum wage in New York City.
SMIC en 2019 - Smic horaire et mensuel, brut et netIn general (from living in the US not as a result of formal research) the people who earn such a wage e.g. in NYC are either immigrants, teenagers, or young actors sharing an apartment with several other young people. I don't have this impression from what I've seen of the Gilets Jaunes. They seem to be overwhelmingly white and older. I wouldn't expect most of these folks to be earning minimum wage. Nevertheless, I don't deny that they are struggling. In this world, most people are struggling which has always been the case.
I have seen these protesters described as "middle-class". But from your description, they should be classified as "working poor" which to my understanding is a different economic category. Is this the case? Working poor don't generally focus their protest on taxes. In the US people who mostly complain about taxes tend to be well off but indignant that the government is taking money from them without providing any benefit in return. The Tea Party movement in the US ("Tea" is an abbreviation for "taxed enough already") was made up of affluent folks (overwhelmingly but not exclusively white) who were angry that a black president had been elected, whom they perceived as Socialist. If anything, they wanted LESS equality (and to a large extent, their wishes have been fulfilled).
EDIT: When I have seen genuinely poor people protesting, it is usually about wanting free health care, better education, better security in their neighborhoods, and against racism and police brutality. Also, in Paris, I understand the largest poor population to be North African and other immigrants from the Banlieue. I don't see these people wearing the vests (probably because most of them don't have any car!).
The apparent whiteness of the protesters strongly suggests anti-immigrant sentiment which is consistent with the anti-semitic messages we have already seen.
Is inequality really such a big problem in France or Europe in general? The only European country I know really well nowadays is Spain. Certainly there is inequality in Spain as there is in North America, but I haven't gotten the impression that people there are so angry and miserable.
So how does inequality in Europe compare to North America? In North America the vast majority of people are not desperate enough to go into major cities and protest about their economic condition. Are things that much worse in France? This is ironic because for a while it seems that we here in the US have been told about how much better quality of life is in Europe, with France being one of those countries cited.
What I see when I look at the Gilet Jaunes is the first step toward bringing about the sort of government they now have in Hungary, which would seem less likely in France as France is a much wealthier country than Hungary, but I can't assume they will fail. They are in a good position; they are causing massive misery in Paris, but if the government does anything aggressive to suppress them, it will be denounced as barbaric by "voices of the people" so it's a no-win situation.
I also want to mention climate change. An earlier post in this thread seemed to be championing the message of a well-known (in France) climate change denier. In North America, climate change denial is characteristic of the Far Right, and I am disturbed that these protests were, at first, targeted at a tax intended to help deal with climate change. Very scary to me.
11 Jan 2019, 11:16 am
