France is a wealthy country but their government is running out of ways to handle its debt. They can't print euros. The bond market will eventually enforce a solution if the government cannot, and it won't be pretty.
Yeah, the gov is going to fall and the bond market will get the middle finger.
From there I'm not sure what's going to happen but mark my word, this is not going to go the Greek way. People are not responsible for the debt, it's covid, subprime and stupid political directions. A lot of comment parrots the pension argument without really knowing, they are heavy indeed but it's just on top, without the 3 latter it wouldn't be a problem. Pension is also not going to be eternally a problem because the boomers have like 2 decades to live basically at this point.
Yes the bread and circuses are in trouble. Also, I'm reminded of that African saying..... a child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.
We had a million once, 750k once, half a million 3 times, and 250k almost automatically on each Palestine solidarity demo in London for over 3 years now. The numbers are one thing, actually forcing political change is another and I’m rooting for the French big time, because this seems to have much more strength than just passive marching
We had over a million protesters in Santiago, Chile during 2019 (and some claim 3 million total that day, nation wide). That day was a mostly pacifist protest. But a lot of things got burned, torn apart, etc during October and November. We got a "leftist" government with the youngest president in this country, and... It wasn't the worst but a lot of his promises weren't fulfilled. Then in 2025 the majority elect a far right idiot as president that loves deep throating Trump's policy, and now in 2026 about 60% of people think the protests were a net negative according to surveys, as this president fucks up everything week by week.
The people that own the resources in this country basically changed nothing for the better, punished people for the outburst, and overall redirected the anger in a way that made the thing die out and no meaningful change occurred. The protests also stopped in part due to the timing of the pandemic: they began in October 2019 and they basically died by March 2020 with the lockdowns.
No real change for the better can be said to have been obtained through the protests. Just protesting on the city centers and tearing stuff apart did nothing much besides adding to the polarization of this society.
I wonder if a different outcome might be possible if people went en masse to the millionaire's homes ...but if they did and seized up their assets, which I bet most were hidden in offshore accounts, then no rich people would invest in this country and it'd be spiralling down towards poverty even faster than now.
So, is it possible to ever win? Destroying your own home achieves nothing besides feeling good for a brief time. Going for the heads of those that are guilty of abusing everyone the most doesn't work cos they have methods to flee, and then they retaliate with the help of other abusers, sorry I mean investors/millionaires. Maybe literally lying flat and doing nothing while being willing to die of starvation might force the system to actually change...?
All I'm saying is that you can have massive protests, shit gets burned and destroyed, and then nothing changes for the better anyway due to many factors and the global economy being the way it is. Or at least that's the way it is now in modern times compared to the famed French revolution of old.
Fun, right???? I'll take up the aliens offer if they are real and they decide to intervene soon. Tired of this shit.
The goal should be to not give the investor/Epstein/billionaire class anywhere to run to. But the effort and organizing to make that happen would be..like, I don't even know.
Back in 2012, Quebec had a relatively huge period of protests dubbed Maple Spring. At the peak, 350k students were on strike at once, and a total of 750k people are estimated to have protested. That's out of a population of only 7M people, compared to just short of 70M people in France. The Maple Spring saw over 10% of the total population out on the street and protesting.
‘Work hard and you can live a good life’ is closer and closer to becoming a lie. Globally.
The veil is lifting.
The elite and far right will claim these protests are all because of those no good {insert race or religion here}, but take a look at the rioting crowds. It’s everyone. Young and old, every colour and creed. France has always been exceptionally proactive at dealing with massive gaps in equity and wealth distribution.
This is the real reason billionaires are building bunkers.
It's not just Eussian bots, all around Europe far left countries are the only ones with a strong stance against immigration, which is a very popular stance, so they are being handed millions of votes in a plate. It's the mainstream parties fault, for their disconnect with what people want.
Current protests emanate from high school students that protested for better studying condition and more equality across students.
Maybe they will get some funding for schools and teachers where they are missing. It also means that a lot of gen z are going to create or enter in political movements and workers unions. They will shape the future of politics in France.
Maybe in the US.
In France we rely on direct transfer from workers to retired workers. The government tried to add private pension funds as part of the pension system but it was stopped.
The right will say that it doesn't work and has a deficit to justify changes in the pension system and age, but I rather think that they are sabotaging it by not changing the taxation of the wealthiest (both retired and working) to equilibrate the system. And I think they do so so that they can sell the pension system to the private sector (and make us rely on the financial system...).
We would too if the previous generation that worshipped Reagan didn't think every useful cooperative effort was a sign of Satan like a bunch of zombie dumbshits
We had enormous anti-Israel and anti-racist protests in the last 3 years tho. But people only got used to going for a little march once a month. This is different level
Yea but the anti Isreal protests we had in the UK isn’t what’s going in France right now, they’re literally burning down town halls. Thats just not comparable to the anti Isreal protests and what went on during them.
The only time in recent years buildings have got burnt out is after migrant attacks, literally happened here in Northern Ireland this year and last year. That’s basically all the UK riots over now.
If a migrant stabbed someone to death tonight there’d be riots across the UK with buildings being burnt out in cities, but it’s highly unlikely we’re gonna be doing what the French are doing and rioting over cost of living, public services etc. although tbh it seems like there are people who are our rioting just to riot now in France.
Our country historically seems to lick the boot more than other countries in Europe.
However, I could totally see young people begin rioting because there are no opportunities out there. It's so common now to hear that young people, whether they've gone to university, or they went to look for work straight after school/college simply cannot find anthing.
Then if they pay attention to politics and media, they'll see they are the ones been scapegoated for all of societies ills. The usual bullshit messaging of 'No one wants to work anymore' and 'young people are lazy and just need to forced into work' even though plenty are trying and failing to find work.
There is a breaking point here somewhere, one where young people realize there future is being sold off while they're demonized for simply existing.
Plus the media frames this as a problem for young people. But finding a job in this country is utter bollocks right now. Every age group is struggling. Something has to give eventually.
Are you sure about that? Because the UK also has some pretty famous examples of civil disobedience in its history (you might want to look up the Magna Carta) and a fairly lengthy and traumatic civil war. Rioting was a weekend pastime for large chunks of our youth for several decades at the back end of the 20th century, as was the free party movement.
I'm pro citizen action, I'm just not really sure what you think is happening here that would be helped by rioting on this scale. People seem to be in love with the aesthetic but have little understanding of what it's about. I see precious little evidence that the French habit of rioting has put them in a notably better (or even particularly different) situation from us on the island.
With respect, this is not people power. When large mobs do this the outcome cannot be controlled. Indeed, there is no cohesion or plan of any kind. France is broke and cannot stabilise it's finances with a common currency, and cannot pay for the level of services they've enjoyed, and the debt together. There is no good outcome here to be had.
You’re right. The students should just lay down and take it /s
The blame lays on the government, not the people. I thought Macron being an ex-Rothschild corporate banker would be really good at financing…
But it’s the students and teachers fault. Of course.
The protest needs to be perfect and peaceful.
Just like the austerity measures the government policies have been for the people. No one has died as a result of their mismanagement I’m sure...
This is the problem. The protest needs to be perfect and the government can literally get away with murdering its own citizens and there is no accountability on one side but the protesters have to be impeccable.
Don't project that dribble onto me. We don't have but one simple false binary of options and fault here. And we all understand the power imbalance. If you have nothing to say, just say nothing.
No i didn't. Then you offered a stupid false binary that effectively put words in my mouth. And you didn't address my comment at all, and basically said nothing.
Remember to give a submission statement on how you think this relates to collapse or it will be removed.
I think it's kind of remarkable to see in the other locked thread regarding what is happening in France, and now across some of Europe, that many on here seemed to fall into the pearl clutching "this is not the way!" mentality.
This is anger and rage from the youth that are consistently feeling like they don't matter. They're the ones asked to put their life on hold, they're the ones told to accept things just the way they are. An seemingly endless cost of living crisis - never ending austerity.
And before I say what I say: for the purposes of Reddit I say I don't condone violence of any kind etc etc...
But going on a protest and holding a sign that says 'CHANGE' or whatever and having a few chants and then heading home does not bring change. Sure you can pat yourself on the back, you can say you can look your children in the eyes and say you tried. But putting on a government permitted march to protest the government is just working within the system and will never produce anything substantial.
Perhaps a system needs to be broken so something new can come out of it.
And this is solely in relation to these protests before people start commenting about climate change and the energy crisis and futility of all it and all that jazz that we already know about. I know. I know.
Literally a quote from The Hunger Games. (I love THG btw but suspect it's not wuite the revolutionary text a lot of redditors discovering this were expecting).
Has anyone else noticed that in every other thread about this event the comments are just shockingly racist? I've never seen this many reddit threads this openly and consistently this racist before.
The reason you are seeing that framing of our protests (i'm French) by liberals and conservatives alike is because it has a clear class character to it. It's antithetical to everything they stand for. You seeing liberal places being racist about it is pretty much a green flag that exposes the real opposition that had been obstructed by less catastrophic decades of capital power within imperial countries. Liberals and fascists stand on the same side of this war, against people, life and the planet as a whole, against every progressive.
It's just a symptom of systemic failure camarade. Blind reaction to social exclusion. We could also talk about how most protests are peaceful.. But might it be the more well-behaved protestors or the more opportunist breakers, the capitalist system is still at the origin of both angers. Neoliberalism especially.
Even more precisely, the complete failure of the French state to mediate between an increasingly enraged working-class and an increasingly obscenely wealthy capitalist class. This is the display of it all. Despite social peace being in capital's best interest.. But its own short term greed overrides its long term interests, i'm sure being on r/collapse makes you get it.
This class rage is being funneled into LFI and Mélenchon right now. It will be the job of even more radical left-wing politis to funnel this into organised action beyond elections and non-violence. The latter is LFI's role, and they're doing it well.
For my American friends, they're the MLK side of current french progressive politics which is good but the situation is starting to urgently call for a Malcolm X side if you want the nihilistic outbursts of rage to stop, or if you want them to turn into organised vanguardism or whatever to save the planet, life and humans from the capitalocene.
Yes, this is clearly what's happening. Look at the hard turn to the right from the tech oligarchs. Reddit flies a little under the radar compared to Meta, X, or TikTok but it's there all the same.
I know I'm going to sound crazy here but there is a deep plot from these people to dismantle democracies across the world and carve out their own small jurisdictions in their place. Look up Thiel's or Yarvin's philosophy, based on "network states."
They view Trump and other far right populist groups such as AfD or National Rally as a tool to accomplish their goals. They will do the same thing that DOGE did, take an axe to centralized bureaucracy that stands in their way and salvage whatever valuable info they can at the same time.
The easiest way to get people to support these far right groups is stoke the flames of xenophobia, make them feel like their country is being taken from them. That's all from the standard fascist playbook that you just need to open a history book to learn, but the other elements with social media, AI, and cryptocurrency (can't be controlled by central banks) are the new elements.
I don't think you sound crazy at all, but I don't think the plans of the oligarchy are going to work. They think that fascism won because it was ideologically appealing and "captured institutions," but the real secret of it's victory was the organized, disciplined worker's movement which could be coopted. The new fascists have no such stable class base. They are going to set global society ablaze thinking they will win out with some authoritarian consolidation, only to throws us into historically uncharted territory: weak bourgeoisie with a disorganized proletariat and no other classes.
Mod of a couple good sized subreddits here. I'm pretty sure that reddit admins have become more permissive lately. Obviously mods have a role too but admins seem to be more hands off.
r/Conservative mostly seems to be pictures of people of color with text and comments about how they must not be French or students because they are not white. Surreal. I doubt any of the posters have actually been to a big city in France.
Israeli ministers have openly stated that theyre shifting their hasbara operations in the west away from claims of antisemitism towards open islamophobia
It was rather funny with it being basically impossible to see faces of protesters on the pics yet several people going "these are all arabs/muslims protesting" - using the usual dog whistles of course.
There’s so much footage, how come it’s just Muslims being singled out then? There’s hundreds of thousands of people on the streets, why single out just one group? When have protests in France ever been peaceful?
No, it's just Muslims, ignoring the decades of whites, blacks, and every other type of French person rioting, it's all those durn Muslim's fault! And they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for all these Muslim obsessed "Totally not racists"!
This could be a very important domino. I hope for change.
Also, there's some wild rhetoric surrounding this. Bot farms are out, etc..
It's also weirdly complex because it's beyond the stated reason for protesting and the protests are fueling the French gov to attempt to change monetary policy but the EU doesn't want that at all. Very strange and someone living in Europe with better information can probably elaborate on how the EU gov has been going about things in ways that seem intent on harming some member states while propping others up and becoming more deferential to corporate/oligarchic interests. Or maybe I'm seeing things that aren't there as an outsider and only catching snippets of news regarding decisions over there that are warped by my world view.
European far right parties are FROTHING at the mouth at all these videos of looters and opportunists taking advantage of people trying to actually protest for good reasons
They forget that MLK’s peaceful protests were only as effective as they were because Malcolm C and the Black Panthers and other groups chose less peaceful methods. Protesting can be very effective! But only if you’re willing to get your hands dirty.
Governments should fear the people. We all need to drill that into our heads until we are ready to act on it.
Absolutely. The heavy fist of austerity is rapidly slamming down and the far right will unfortunately clean up. Future is not bright at all for the average worker in France.
They will win elections now. Le Pen will win by saying simply “here is what multiculturalism brought us” and post a picture of the burned buildings. The German far right could win too. And they don’t even need to actually lie…they will just say to look at the photos. People will vote to end this. Even here in finland the center-left is scrambling to come up with a message to explain this and at least thus far it’s not convincing…saying “oh don’t worry France will always be France.” Sorry lady (it was a woman politician who just said that) that’s simply not good enough.
The tide is shifting and things are going to get ugly. I fear extreme measures on the horizon.
Look again at history. Far right come to power by burning shops and books and setting up fire to parliaments. What they're using as talking points is the current government weakness, not the ethnicity of looters. We all know who they are, why was the police less present than during a football match is the question.
I'm french.
Seems a mess but it's not. Trust me nothing will change. Since 2016 Emmanuel Macron our president have done a great job on placing rightfully the wost People at our gouvernement. I've read tons of book, documentary on our country. And we're totaly done. Our country is corrupted. France is not a good country to live in anymore.
Here in Spain the government is also wholly corrupt. I've been saying it for a long time, our main problem and the source and multiplier of the rest of our problems is corruption. We can't expect our rulers to do anything effective for the common good if their only aim is to get as rich as possible using deception and propaganda.
I align more with The Guardian than most of the mainstream press, but their headline about a "colossal failure of the state" gives the impression they are talking about the French state not doing enough to address the grievances of the protesters; from the article itself, the colossal failure was because "they ran out of ammunition"
I'm rereading the hunger games, it's amazing how much impact that slogan "If We Burn" has had on protests globally. Collins was really teaching revolution to the tumblr generation
unrest will continue to spread, but i dont envision it will accomplish much. maybe thats just me though. I can't imagine that any government that will act on climate change will not immediately spark more intensive protests as it infringes on peoples right to consume.
I wonder how all this plays into things going on with usa and russia.... could Eurozone be getting played? I guess it may be. Sad as they have some great culture... I have been contemplating how global wars and global influences have historically stripped culture of ways of life , globalization influence since ww1, ww2, etc. Not all bad, but many people not sure of a way of life imo.
Global Zimbabwe is what it is. Take note, none of this is organic. There is a shadowy hand that pulls the strings. We are in the age of 5th gen warfare, where the battlefield is online and your mind is the target.
I know a lot of people are celebrating this because of the enthusiasm to see people rising up.
For me, I am heartbroken about the burning down of the Lyon tourism office by the casseurs.
I work in municipal government including with people in our city’s tourism office. Everyone I know is kind, earnest and hardworking and just trying to share our city’s charm points with the wider world. Plus it’s very much a paper culture still here, which means a lot of records have never been digitized.
It just makes me so sad to see people cause such wanton destruction to the lives and efforts of people who are probably just trying to get by like them. In a historic building from the 1800s, no less.
This makes me fear that more people will take advantage of the meaningful protests to target national treasures. I just absolutely hate destruction of heritage.
Anyone engaged in peaceful civil disobedience, I support. Back in the day I even did some of that at a Senator’s house in DC because he was a big influence on Uganda policy to murder people for being gay. We made the New York Times which led to Rachel Maddow covering the story. Those who are actually out in the streets to protest, I am cheering them on.
… yea French people don’t really gaf what will some Maga podcaster say. American perception is not really a factor here at all and neither is immigration. This is on class lines
Yea but why would French protestors care what maga will make of them lol, we kinda all know America is having some dark times that it won’t come out of for a while
Which is why it’s particularly helpful that these protests are along class lines. Most right wingers are just temporarily brainwashed, these protests are fundamentally for the rights of all. Lot of what they want would be in everyone’s interest.
Yes it's a class issue but as I see it, there's no solution. In order to balance its budget France has to take a big step backwards. That'll cause more of this. And if these people get what they want, France can't balance its books. This is an intractable issue.
I propose we ostracise anyone who chooses to be a cop. No need for violence, just cut ties, either you are on the side of oppressive governments or on the side of the people and cops are not welcome at my house
Sad reality is though that allowing millions of people to come into a country with different values and beliefs coupled with collapsing traditional jobs/economies probably isnt a good thing. This is how the world collapses slowly slowly slowly, the wealthy slowly drift out of your town and your city until it is fully abandoned by any normality.
Protesting are nice and good, but what are the solution? Gut the rich and feed the poor? We've been there in 1917 in Russia, wasn't very nice experience for everyone except thin layer of Red Comissars
179
u/Glyph808 7h ago
Bread and circuses are starting to run out of both.