144
submitted 14 hours ago by lavenie@lemmy.zip to c/world@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Carrots@quokk.au 35 points 13 hours ago

France knows how to protest.

[-] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 points 4 hours ago

They have the 'destroy stuff' thing figured out all right. When it comes down to actually getting any of their demands addressed it's not as good. I don't remember the last time when French riots ended with any concessions from the government.

[-] ByteJunk@lemmy.world 5 points 2 hours ago

Are you being sarcastic or ignorant? I legitimately can't tell. I'm low on time so I'll only cover recent events:

2025: then PM Bayrou proposed massive budget cuts to pensions, welfare, and cutting 2 holidays for the sake of "productivity". Massive uprisings across the country "Bloquons Tout" (Block Everything), government collapsed.

2024: Tractor blockades around Paris ("Siege of Paris") and across the country forced the government to drop the planned phase-out of the diesel fuel tax break, provide €400 million in emergency aid and announce other concessions.

2018-19: the "Gilets jaunes" riots, weeks of protests including violence on the Champs-Élysées, caused by Macron's pro-wealthy politicies (abolishing the "solidarity wealth tax" that applied to millionaires, or the "exit tax" letting them run away with their fortunes to tax havens, and several more), earning the nickname "Président des riches". The riots forced an increase in minimum wages, scrapping of a fuel tax that would disproportionately tax the poor, tax relief for pensioners and other tax cuts that directly improved low-income families, etc.

You can go back and keep finding more and more examples of situations where ACTUALLY FIGHTING for your rights caused the money grabbing elite to actually stop in their tracks - for a while.

[-] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 1 points 2 hours ago

Yeah, that's a bunch of wishful thinking. Snap elections were called in 2024 because of the rise of popularity of the far-right. The resulting hung parliament was too weak to push pension reforms changes and had to compromise. The protests served more as a backdrop to all this than the direct cause of any of it.

Yellow wests protested for months and achieved nothing. Then Covid hit and government relaxed some of its reforms to save the economy and the protests fizzled out.

I will give you the farmers protests. The right-wing aligned farmer unions were successful at extorting the government. 1 out of 3 is not bad but it's really not the 'world champions of protesting' levels people think it is. Most of the time it's just bunch of rioting that results in nothing.

[-] Zombie@feddit.uk 1 points 2 hours ago

And for those that wish to see video evidence of French protest success, this video covers the ZAD de Notre-Dame-des-Landes who have repeatedly defeated the French government.

https://kolektiva.media/w/o4MvBiXYFEb1rrZ7RqXvYR

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_to_Defend

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZAD_de_Notre-Dame-des-Landes

this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2026
144 points (98.0% liked)

World News

58237 readers
2514 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world

Ask Historians !askhistorians@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS