another hat tip to Bill

Bill Keezer links to a very good article offering an interesting perspective on the French riots: the rioters don't seem to understand that the socialist policies they embrace are at the heart of their troubles. Some excerpts:

In recent weeks, images of “Yellow Jackets” (a reference to the reflective yellow vests, required to be carried by all French drivers, worn by protesters) have dominated media — angry French citizens rioting in the streets1, vandalizing monuments, and setting Paris aflame. To be fair, only a small percentage of the nearly 300,000 Frenchmen who have taken to the streets have engaged in violence.

And fewer still seem to appreciate the irony of these protests because, despite the anger, the French are getting exactly what they voted for: socialism.

Last year, the French elected socialist Emmanuel Macron in a 66-34 blowout over the nationalist Marine Le Pen, following that up months later by giving Macron’s La République en Marche! (LRM) party complete control of France’s government with 377 of the French National Assembly’s 577 seats.

Today, Macron’s approval rating stands at an abysmal 26%, far below that of U.S. President Donald Trump. Yet Macron has repeatedly rebuked Trump for his pro-American “nationalism.” Trump’s nationalism certainly stands in stark contrast to the globalism of world leaders like Macron and Germany’s Angela Merkel, who responded to criticism of migration and climate-change policies by declaring, “Countries must give up their sovereignty... in an orderly fashion, of course.”

[...]

Of course, it’s an open secret that the war to end “climate change” is really a proxy war to destroy free-market capitalism and replace it with globalist socialism while curtailing individual rights.

In 2015, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of UNIPCC (the global governing body on climate change), declared that the real goal of the “global warming” agenda is not avoiding ecological disaster but destroying capitalism. Figueres said, “This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history.”

If the goal was to reduce CO₂ emissions, France and the world would emulate America, which has reduced CO₂ output more than any other country in the last 30 years, and by a wide margin (a 14% reduction in U.S. emissions from 2005-2017 alone, versus a 21% increase for the rest of the world), despite rejecting both the Kyoto and Paris climate treaties.

But much like socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders — who owns three houses and a high-end sports car — the French people want to enjoy the feeling of moral superiority of embracing socialism (who can be against equality for all?) without actually having to deal with the consequences of socialism, which [are], and always [have] been, government oppression and widespread poverty.

Even as the French protest and riot over the increase in the gas tax, they reject proposals to cut spending in social services and welfare. As reported in The Washington Post, “A key priority for Macron’s administration has been to honor France’s European commitment to keep its budget deficit below 3 percent of gross domestic product. Suspending the carbon tax will mean that billions of euros will have to be saved elsewhere, possibly in the form of spending cuts that could affect the social services that many yellow-vest protesters also cherish.... But Macron’s political opponents rejected out of hand the suggestion that social services might be cut in any way.”

Nowhere to run to, baby. Nowhere to hide.