Is it really this bad?

[Pickles]

Midi Libre is running an article today that says, according to what is said to be a representative survey of about 1000 French people consulted via internet, that up to 70% reckon that there will be a "social explosion" (presumably meaning large-scale unrest) within the next few months. Now, this fear is rated higher by right-wing voters than the left, but are things really that bad in France?

Having been in Beziers recently, I can understand import of the article to which NH referred, and yes, elsewhere as we have driven through France we've seen more closed businesses than before, but are things REALLY as bad as the Midi Libre article makes out?

[NormanH]

I just looked at the vote at the end of the article and at that moment 81.6 of the voters in the paper's own poll said Yes.[:-))]

It is difficult to judge, as we don't share the cultural history of the Revolution and May 68

French history has lead to a different view of the power of popular demonstration to that in Britain where the police were used as a force of repression during the Miners' strike

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2013/04/10/top-cop-says-thatcher-pushed-towards-police-state-miners-strike

I think that both extremes are using the economic climate for their own ends, sensing in Hollande a weak and uncharismatic figure.

The right has long played the card of 'security' to instil fear and gain support.

In the Gay Marriage demonstrations there was a suggestion that the Catho/Facho far right were stirring things up and there has been an increase in homophobic attacks.

This may well be part of the wave of populist sentiment which is gaining momentum across Europe (UKIP in the UK, for example)

There is sulphur in the air.

I am sure that we are in for a bumpy ride with major demonstrations and confrontations between factions.

It is a good time to be out in the country with a water supply, your own vegetables, and a means to generate a little electricity, at least until the dispossessed come marauding at the gate.

I will quote a little more of the poem I use as a signature

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

[5-element]

I am in the "dubitatif" camp - and was quite surprised to read the percentages of people who do believe there will be an "explosion sociale" - although we can only guess what form that will take. I feel there is so much inertia, so little direction apart from general fedupness, so little understanding of issues - I was quite gobsmacked when several of those interviewed in the anti "mariage pour tous" demos, claimed that what they were doing was to  "fight for those who are unable to do so for themselves" - OK, those were people picked by the media, and not necessarily representative. Perhaps the media is also responsible for describing those demonstrators as the rightwing equivalent of the (loosely) leftwing May '68... Maybe I move in the wrong circles, maybe I live a sheltered life in my backwaters, and maybe I am out of touch. But I just cannot see those confrontations that are being predicted, or only minor ones, not nationwide ones... there are just too many people who are still very much OK, although they complain as much as everybody else...

I hope I won't have to eat my words, of course.

[idun]

I have been rather shocked by the venom in the anti mariage pour tous camp. So much for liberté, égalité et fraternité AND laïcité!

I have no idea what will happen, I sort of understand 5E's point of view, that there are many who are still OK, even though they complain, complaining and taking to the streets is quite another thing.

And if it all kicks off, please remember that the CRS do not differentiate between anyone what so ever. They haven't got to and their raison d'etre is to protect the state, not the people......... They don't care if someone is  out demonstrating OR simply about their daily business and you happen to cross paths with them. I would say that judging by their past history, that they might encite the people in a manif.

So advice, try and get your kids to stay away from any manifs and if you cannot get them to, then  at the slightest sign of the riot police, make them understand toget the hell out of there and home. And stay away yourselves.

[Pickles]

I think that my experience is pretty much in line with 5-e's, and as with Idun and 5-e, I have been surprised at the level of venom expressed by the anti "mariage pour tous" camp. Our apartment is definitely not in a backwater and yet our impressions are that the tensions that there are, are not significantly worse than they were twelve years ago (though they are worse). On the other hand, we are coming up to the summer period, with more idle hands and generally hot weather, so things could change, I suppose.

[NormanH]

I think all that venom is in fact always there, hidden in the extreme right which found in this issue something to focus on which it hoped would be generally acceptable.

As I said I think that both extreme are stirring things up.

While those of us in the sleepy towns in the South where "aujourd'hui peut être"

is the règle might not feel these things at first hand, I fear that in the industrial areas and the hot spots of les banlieux there might be something like London a couple of years ago.

[Pickles]

[quote user="NormanH"]I think all that venom is in fact always there, hidden in the extreme right which found in this issue something to focus on which it hoped would be generally acceptable.

As I said I think that both extreme are stirring things up.

While those of us in the sleepy towns in the South where "aujourd'hui peut être"

is the règle might not feel these things at first hand, I fear that in the industrial areas and the hot spots of les banlieux there might be something like London a couple of years ago.

[/quote]

Yes - I agree that both left and right seem to be "upping the ante" - and yes indeed it was the UK riots that the article put me in mind of ... but every year there seem to be some outbreaks of problems in the banlieux in France - it seems to be more of a "standard operating procedure" in France, and perhaps some "minor rioting" could even be considered "normal". What the article seems to suggest - and your earlier posting would seem to agree - is that perhaps we are in for more widespread problems.

There's an interesting exhibition on in Montpellier at present (I think it is still there) in the Pavillion Populaire, of pictures taken in the period 1935-1938, which started with widespread strikes and unrest, led to the left actually getting its act together and being able to form a government, getting a few reforms through (eg the right to 2 weeks' paid holiday) before as usual degenerating into factional infighting and ending up in mass riots, civil unrest, and strikes.

I don't see that scale of thing happening, somehow. The disputes that are going on (eg PSA Aulnay, where the strikers are still occasionally doing "peage gratuit" operations, the ex-Goodyear factory, the steel plant in Lorraine) don't seem to have the legs or the support to become something bigger.

[woolybanana]

With the May demonstration season  coming up, it will be interesting to see how things go, given the total chaos in the Socialists and the highjacking of the anti-gay marriage movement by apparently violent extremists, plus the idiots on the extreme left with leaders such as Besancenot and Poutou. The latter really does believe that democracy comes through street demonstrations and bricks thrown, judging by his performance on TV last night.

Of course there are more people listening to Marine Le Pen and Mélenchon these days as their messages are simplistic, isolationist and seek to blame various straw men for the fact that France has failed to change with the times.

We must remember that there are European elections coming up and there is a certain amount of jockeying for position going on on the fringes, plus the Sicialists seem genuinely to be starting to worry about their future as most do not have proper jobs to go to if they are thrown out of office, given that they have only ever managed other people in the public sector.

Interesting times.