"You have to admire the French." - Democratic Underground

JohnyCanuck

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Sat Jan-31-09 08:04 AM
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"You have to admire the French."

Edited on Sat Jan-31-09 08:06 AM by JohnyCanuck

Paris When it Sizzles: The French Say No to Fat-Cat Bailouts
Written by Chris Floyd

You have to admire the French. The ordinary people there know how to stick up for themselves – instead of meekly bowing down and accepting whatever bitter gruel the elite tries to cram down their throats. And they don't just write a few angry letters (or blog posts!), or send checks to some worthy progressive organization to organize a few mildly admonishing ads or press releases on their behalf. Hell no, they take to the streets, by the millions, they shut things down, they make some noise, they put their time, their jobs, and their bodies on the line.

Yesterday saw another remarkable display of this national trait, as an astonishingly broad spectrum of the French citizenry surged through the streets of Paris to express their outrage at the government's response to the economic crisis. This response has been the usual doling out of billions in public money for the fat cats who caused the crisis, coupled with increasing demands for "sacrifice" from the hoi polloi: less pay, longer hours, fewer benefits, a bleaker life for you and your children while the elite party on.

But on Thursday, an estimated 2.5 million people – blue-collar workers and white-collar professionals, educators and students, doctors and train drivers, native-born and immigrants – came out to tell the government: "We are not going to pay for the greed and corruption of the elite! Find another way!" The contrast to the stunned, herd-like reaction of the American and British publics to their governments' gorging of corrupt oligarchs with no-strings largess could not be more striking.

II.
The outpouring on Thursday was a culmination of discontent toward the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy – known as "the American" not only for his amped-up PR style (and celebrity wife) but even more for his zeal to impose the harsh work regimen and vast social and economic inequalities of the Anglo-American model on France. He was demanding the "sacrifices" noted above long before the economic crisis began, while also constructing an ever-more power-friendly "national security state" along Anglo-American lines. As Agnes Poirier notes in the Guardian:

Sarkozy has spent his 20 months in power systematically weakening the forces that maintain the balance of power in a democracy. First, parliament: a reform being fought by the opposition aims to reduce drastically the amount of time spent debating bills, so limiting the ability of the opposition to question ministers and propose amendments - all in the name of efficiency. Second, the legal system: among Sarkozy's reforms are harsher sentences, life terms for certain mentally ill criminals and sex offenders, and the abolition of the "investigative magistrate" - the cornerstone of the French legal system since 1811. Third, education: tens of thousands of teachers have lost their jobs while 5,000 "truant hunters" have been created - less teaching, more policing. Fourth, information: the president has in effect created a state-appointed and state-controlled media network, while helping media baron friends carve up advertising revenues.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1691-paris-when-it-sizzles-france-says-no-to-fat-cat-bailouts.html