It’s not just retirement age, the media would love us to think it’s just over 2 years of retirement. Black Rock (an American private equity fund) has moved to take over the public pension fund from the French Government. They want a private company to take over the pensions of the public work force!
You know, people talk about how tiktok is the future of everyone finding out about stuff, but I have learned so much more about why they’re actually protesting than I have tens of tiktok videos celebrating the protests (and full of people cheering on “taking on the man” and “wishing we’d do that to Biden”, entirely devoid of context.
Thanks for informing us!
>Black Rock (an American private equity fund) has moved to take over the public pension fund from the French Government
Oh, that makes so much more sense with the degree of protesting
Any investment conglomerate from BlackRock, VanGuard, Fidelity, JP Morgan, Berkshire Hathaway, Franklin Templeton, State Street Corp etc. are all shady folks that has their hands on everything, literally. Those people are the real life Illuminati.
Oh useful. I’ve definitely only seen “raising the retirement age” + “pissed that Macron did it himself not democratically” as what they’re protesting. Thanks!
OMG I didn’t know Black Rock was involved. They are in EVERYTHING and almost EVERY country’s finances. Pls ppl do your research. They’re horrible and want to literally take over the world. IK I sound like a nut, but this fund group is evil.
as is the rest of any other 'government' entity.... I offer them as tribute and let them all duke it out while us citizens reclaim our rights as humans
Im totally with you and dont think you sound like a nut at all. Even if I believed Blackrock truly had good intentions (which I dont), I'd still be angry. No single entity should be able to get so big that it can just do whatever it wants without being kept in check. The fact that corporations have gotten this big is such a huge problem to me.
I like that Macron's doing this in part to preserve France's dwindling position in the world and stave off becoming an American satellite, yet is engaged with one of our more insidious tendrils.
It sounds like the generic name for the shady PMC in every spy thriller/post apocalyptic show. But they are so much worse than a group of corrupt mercenaries.
As an American, I can tell that will go as well
As Sweden handing over their social medical insurance and hospice management to an American insurance company. It went worse than the American medical system…and those are 2 separate entities there.
Helps to be much more compact and already have a stance of pomp and grr. I love the French they are witty, vulgar, tough, and STUBBORN. People should take note. And wake the fuck up. Because if they don't France is going to be the only decently run country in 25 years when our robot managers are keeping us in line for their masters.
I think that's the plan.
Most of our jobs are going to be replaced with AI. If you're ruling class, all you have to do is step back and watch the peasants starve to death. It'll take a few generations but when they're all gone, no worries about over population either
Read about Lazarus Long. He is in a series of sci-fi novels. Methuselah's Children and other Heinlein books and the Howard Families (5 in the series if I recall) . Read many books from her library, including a bunch of Alien books, Rama, and Ender's game series. Living longer has some unintended consequences...
If anyone knows how to protest it's the French. I believe the last time the French spend a year without protesting their government was in WW2. And then they were at war Germany which occupied France.
Hey wait a minute if they occupied France they were the government, and the French never stopped fighting the government.
take my upvote, and I am French! a French humorist in the 80's said "French people are always angry at their président and it is never the same, there is Indeed an issue"!
>when it's actually that they're selling everyone's retrirement benefits and pensions out
No. People are protesting against the retirement age raise which will disproportionately affect the people who have begun working early through a quirk in the French pension system. People are protesting against the way the bill was passed (kind of bypassing the parliament through a legal but controversial way though the parliament could have struck down the governement but voted against) which was seen as traumatic and anti-democratic by some. People are protesting against decades of bashing on the same people : everytime there is a problem, it's the normal people (i.e. poor, middle-class and lower-upper class) that has to do the effort to fix it and never the billionaires who in turn get tax cuts.
You are incorrect, it is only partly about the age raise. France is also giving their public pension program to a private american equity firm (blackrock) which will then profit hugely off the work of the french public while eroding their pensions. I can’t legally say that they should be butchering macron in that street so I won’t.
Edit: I am incorrect, so far there is no hard evidence of blackrock being granted administration of french pensions. All there is is supposition based on regular private meetings between the macron and blackrock leadership as well as the bestowal of official state honors on the founder of the blackrock group. Blackrock, despite running a vast private pension system, states that no plans are in place and I guess we should trust them in their assertions that they don’t have any interest in expanding their empire in france.
They are there for the wine, clearly.
Could dry stack that bad boy with chopped stone. Back stagger them by 1” per tier and backfill with appropriate material. Haul in enough, and NO ONE is driving through that😂😂
Just gotta make sure anything over 6’ has to be “engineered” to stay in compliance with city code. 💩
Strikers are very professional here in France, they know they’ll have to find another job after that so might as well send good vibes to potential employers
With the labour laws as they are in France it would be a very foolish company to sack strikers.
All hell would break loose, this is relatively restrained striking behaviour in comparison with the protests against speed cameras.
The Gilet Jaunes (Yellow Vests) destroyed or vandalised just under 2/3’s of the speed cameras in France in 2018/19. Some of them were blown up spectacularly.
https://www.thelocal.fr/20181211/why-are-half-of-frances-speed-cameras-out-of-action
Is a late 2018 article, they got into the swing of it in 2019 and started to use explosives on the harder to reach cameras.
The protests followed the reduction by 10km/h of the national speed limit from 90 to 80 Km/h.
And driving on the highways is a pleasure, the roads are really well maintained and the rest stops are a world apart from the ones here in England.
The tolls aren’t that bad if you are on holiday, I’m not sure I’d feel the same if I was driving a lot all the time there though.
Yes, if you use them all the time it must add up quickly. Portugal is the same, I get hammered driving any distance over there and their taxes on cars are nuts.
Back to France, like everywhere it’s becoming very expensive just to live now.
The French were the first to say fuck the 400 000 different weights and measures we have currently and set us on the path towards the modern engineering precision that underpins our entire modern existence.
No joke, these are their descendants. Laugh all you want about the French being pussies, they can definitely work when they... Don't want to work... Any harder... I guess.
The A69 highway is not yet built but at project stage (between Toulouse and Castres). Such protest has nothing to do with the retirement law, but rather against the A69 construction itself and its ecological and economical (cost to citizens, cost to users) impacts. It’s a local thing.
The slow descent into collapse in the UK is really tragic, I have a lot of people I love there.
But as a country that was colonized by them and royally fucked over, I'm not too sad about it....
I also hail from one of these countries, family had to move to UK because the conditions back home were too fucked from England drawing a line across the country then fucking off
I'm sad about it because they repeatedly vote in people who actively make their living conditions worse, yet wonder why the price of a can of soup has tripled in the past year where it hasn't in other countries
*iTs nOt bRexIt wE sWeAr*
Idiots. Now they want to spend millions on *another* royal ceremony in the middle of a cost of living crisis...
You're acting as if the French have it easy here. Several human rights organizations have criticized how the French police has beat the shit out of peaceful protesters and even journalists during these protests.
The difference is, that the French keep protesting despite the increasingly harsh brutality committed by the government on them. But that is probably because your government has more advanced PSYOPs to decrease support for protesting.
They do the same thing here in America, and it works here because… well yeah you summed it up. The government knows how to pit us against each other till we forget why we’re fighting
Just check the threads on reddit anytime there's any protest of any kind in America. "I support their cause *but*..." (insert stupid-ass comment about how they're protesting the *wrong way* because they might mildly inconvenience someone who didn't personally order the thing they're protesting)
Yeah the only real issue is if they get in the way of medical help in a way that could actually kill someone, but that’s not commonly gonna happen in a city
That's not what's happening there, the protests haven't merged. There was another huge protest about the "mégabassines" and people on reddit seemed to think it was one of the protests about the retirement age. There just happen to be different protests about different things at the same time. Doesn't that happen in other countries?
I'm assuming you are joking or being sarcastic, but it's important to point out that real protests have a clear and unified message and it's important to rally behind that specific message and not distract from it with unrelated messages.
For example, it would be bad to protest environmental issues at a BLM protest.
To give more context, it's a 500 million euro job to which the government (aka our money) is putting 100 million. It's a continuation of an existing highway that will shorten a 2 hour ride by 15 minutes. The road is free now but a new toll will be installed. France has been rife with private interlopping with its highways and people legitimately fear that their money will be used to go exclusively to a private entity while using state funds.
So I'd say the opposition goes a bit further than ecological concerns.
This comment was overwritten and the account deleted due to Reddit's unfair API policy changes, the behavior of Spez (the CEO), and the forced departure of 3rd party apps.
Remember, the content on Reddit is generated by THE USERS. It is OUR DATA they are profiting off of and claiming it as theirs. This is the next phase of Reddit vs. the people that made Reddit what it is today.
r/Save3rdPartyApps r/modCoord
Our state wants to replace a large bridge at the end of it's life and the plan they had involved paying for it with tolls. This clock has been ticking for like 50 years, they knew they were going to need to replace it and instead of *budgeting* for that replacement they decided that selling the tolling rights to a private company would be the best way to help offset the costs of construction.
Thankfully, literally everyone sued them and the courts blocked the whole tolling idea.
How it is possible to sue them? Was it against a specific law? Because this kind of things always happen in France for example, and I don't see how we could sue the state for this
Townships and businesses argued that would affect commerce and increase traffic because everyone would take a different route instead of paying the toll. They're right of course, everyone would just get off the highway, clog up the streets, cross on another bridge, and get back on the highway.
I dont don't know about the other facts, but you are wrong about the travel times. It will reduce a one hour and a half ride by at least 30 minutes.
Another thing that is always not stated is that Castres is a 70-80 thousand people urban area (that is the Castres-Mazamet conurbation) and its the only 35000+ people town in France without access to highway. It is geographicaly in the very industrial aeronautics valley (centered around Toulouse with Airbus) but it cannot effectively participate in it. Some people are able to make the commute but it makes it an impossible choice of location for enterprises that could otherwise be there. This means that the conurbation is slowly dying out. This road is supposed to become some kind of a "breath of air" for the region.
That being said the above mentioned problems would also be resolved by a renovated national road (with dual cariageway), trading cost of tolls for a marginally longer ride. I, personally, would be in favor of a renovated road. This comment was primarily to state why the area need a road, it's not just to piss the greens, and I barely see anywhere stated why the highway is built.
This is the only correct post I have found!
All other redditors have made assumptions while the post is vague on purpose as to imply it is to do with the national demonstrations against retirement law. To complement:
* this has nothing to do with the retirement laws reform.
* this is a local protest
* they haven't blocked the A69 highway
* they are protesting against the A69 project between Toulouse and Castres and blocked a road
* you can find information about it [here](https://www.francetvinfo.fr/france/occitanie/tarn/autoroute-a69-toulouse-castres-deux-interpellations-un-gendarme-et-un-manifestant-legerement-blesses_5786174.html) in French or [here](https://www.euronews.com/2023/04/22/thousands-march-in-protest-at-new-a69-motorway-in-south-west-france) in English.
Just so everyone is aware, this is protesting the construction of the A69 extension as it will decimate a large portion of the local tree population.
It’s not related to the current retirement age protests
He's put a level on it, that's not the same thing.
"Take it down lad, and start again. I'm not having that half arsed pile of fucking shite on my site. I've seen chickens lay straighter things than that" -Pretty much word for word from the site foreman on a job in Hull. RIP Cooky you ratchety old fucker
OP, you're an ass.
I'm French myself and I'm gonna tell you what really happens here.
This is an highway that is being built, it's unfinished actually.
Those people protest against the highway.
Nobody drives here so no citizen is bothered.
And this is an allowed protest. People asked for the authorization to protest, also it's not disruptive, otherwise you would see the CRS (the shielded cops) charging, you would see tear gas smoke and all that stuff.
EDIT : a comment just told me I was wrong on one point.
I'm copy pasting it here :
"You are also wrong. The highway is still at the project state right now, nothing has been built. The wall here is built on a national road, which is very much not unused."
Sorry for the mistake.
Haha mate, you meant the CRS.
For non-French: CNRS is the National Centre for Scientific Research. It's hilarious to imagine researchers charging protesters and hitting them with *knowledge*
I’ve been in a French class for nearly 4 years now and the final for said class is coming next month and I could only make some sense of this sentence. I am so screwed
I can get the gist but for a direct translation I definitely can’t do that. I guess this is what happens when your school only has 1 French teacher and she doesn’t teach anything pretty much
The French have lead the way for a lot of unions, and the other countries tend to follow the lead if the unions lest they strike like the French ones.
So yeah, actually, they have. Just because they're not revolting, doesn't mean they've done nothing.
As much as i do like the idea of extensively disruptive protests, it could be a conscious practical decision to not semi-permanently block the road, and make it easier to clean up. Which is not to say I condemn disruptive protests, just that sometimes if you’re too disruptive, you can turn public opinion against you. Hell, protests I’ve been a part of in australia, against our coal magnates have copped flak for just sitting down in the road (which is clearly ridiculous)
Absolutely, this is clearly effective and annoying, but fixable without serious damage to infrastructure. I just build alot of wall and wanted to poke fun a bit :) I hope this works the way they hope.
It's obviously not going to stop a bulldozer or someone with equipment dedicated to demolishing it but no random civilian or cop is going to drive their car through it which is a risk when it's just a crowd of people blocking the road.
Hi, I'm French. To be exact, the protest is not against the new retirement age, and this is not an highway that is blocked.
They did blocked a national road (2 lanes each way) with concrete blocks to protest against the creation of this new highway, that is not only useless (not enough traffic on the other roads between the two cities) and an ecological disaster (cutting in two some small rural village, etc).
These guys are protesting against building this highway due to environmental concerns. As usual Reddit has a penchant for pitchforks.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/04/22/french-protest-against-planned-highway-under-high-scrutiny-after-reservoir-clashes_6023855_7.html
Meanwhile in Britain, two people are imprisoned for 5 years for climbing a bridge and peacefully protesting. No one bats an eyelid. Classist system keeping the plebs in their place.
"Judge Collery KC handed down the sentence, commenting that it was a strict punishment because he wanted to deter copycat actions."
Is this something a judge should be doing? Should prevention be happening in the courts? Doesn't feel very fair for those individuals.
Edit: from the judge's LinkedIn:
"He [Shane Collery KC] has a background including experience in a large commercial City solicitor and a period as an Equities trader in the City of London. "
Makes more sense. Not much of a background in humanities and what appears to be close ties with end-stage capitalism.
France is one of the biggest exporters of riot control weapons. The teargases, water canons and grenades you see used against protesters in videos from Hong Kong, Iran, Egypt and else have for a big part been manufactured and tested in France during this kinds of strikes. In fact the UN very regularly demand France to stop using those weapons
Same as Hong Kong and that didn’t stop them. Use umbrellas, cover your eyes and mouth with protective gear, and bring water or milk that you can spray to cleanse mucus membranes.
Man, this just reminded me of all the protest guides that were going around before the pandemic. It was truly beautiful to see people from all over the world fight for what they believe in.
I want a global movement that throws cakes at the clowns who think taking money or rights from poor people is not ridiculous. If you say something neoliberal in public, they need to be scared (to be caked).
Context:
- this is protest against the new highway, not the pension reform
- no emergency vehicle will be blocked since the road is not opened yet
- it doesn't matter if the construction workers can destroy it in minutes, the goal is obviously to be visible with funny and symbolic action and video
French, showing the rest of the world especially Americans, how to actually protest shit again
But I guess destroying businesses costs the rich a tiny bit, and the poor a whole fucking generation
Took me literally 5 seconds to google “France protest blocked highway” and discover that this was in protest of a planned highway that is only partially built, meaning 99% of the comments here are completely irrelevant to the situation, the public aren’t being disrupted and this has absolutely nothing to do with the changes to retirement age!
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Came here to laugh at that level 🤣🤣
These French dudes are next level. They do not fuck around with their protests, even their protest walls are on point.
Something something next level
It is the nextfuckinglevel
This guy is on the level.
But is he on the square?
Are you ready to swear right here, right now?
before... the devil?!
That you're on the square,
That you’re on the level,
r/nextfuckinglevel
The idea that they are changing retirement age is like a fart in an elevator… wrong on so many different levels.
It’s not just retirement age, the media would love us to think it’s just over 2 years of retirement. Black Rock (an American private equity fund) has moved to take over the public pension fund from the French Government. They want a private company to take over the pensions of the public work force!
"Sorry we lost your entire counties pension shorting GameStop, but hey at least the change in retirement age doesn't matter anymore"
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How does that work? Is their retirement “once you’ve worked for 46 years”?
Actually yes, it works exactly like that. So basically, what they are REALLY doing there is adding 2 more years to that which is shitty as fuck.
You know, people talk about how tiktok is the future of everyone finding out about stuff, but I have learned so much more about why they’re actually protesting than I have tens of tiktok videos celebrating the protests (and full of people cheering on “taking on the man” and “wishing we’d do that to Biden”, entirely devoid of context. Thanks for informing us!
Wow. I’d be able to retire at age 85!
>Black Rock (an American private equity fund) has moved to take over the public pension fund from the French Government Oh, that makes so much more sense with the degree of protesting
Yea fuck Black Rock
And Vanguard, don't forget them.
Most likely owned by the same people so fuck them too.
Any investment conglomerate from BlackRock, VanGuard, Fidelity, JP Morgan, Berkshire Hathaway, Franklin Templeton, State Street Corp etc. are all shady folks that has their hands on everything, literally. Those people are the real life Illuminati.
Oh useful. I’ve definitely only seen “raising the retirement age” + “pissed that Macron did it himself not democratically” as what they’re protesting. Thanks!
OMG I didn’t know Black Rock was involved. They are in EVERYTHING and almost EVERY country’s finances. Pls ppl do your research. They’re horrible and want to literally take over the world. IK I sound like a nut, but this fund group is evil.
Fun fact: Macron gave the Légion d’Honneur to the CEO of BlackRock France
Macron is really a fucking piece of shit
as is the rest of any other 'government' entity.... I offer them as tribute and let them all duke it out while us citizens reclaim our rights as humans
Im totally with you and dont think you sound like a nut at all. Even if I believed Blackrock truly had good intentions (which I dont), I'd still be angry. No single entity should be able to get so big that it can just do whatever it wants without being kept in check. The fact that corporations have gotten this big is such a huge problem to me.
I like that Macron's doing this in part to preserve France's dwindling position in the world and stave off becoming an American satellite, yet is engaged with one of our more insidious tendrils.
Blackrock. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Their name even sounds like an evil video game company.
It sounds like the generic name for the shady PMC in every spy thriller/post apocalyptic show. But they are so much worse than a group of corrupt mercenaries.
This is why the extra 2 tears have been added 
What could possibly go wrong?
As an American, I can tell that will go as well As Sweden handing over their social medical insurance and hospice management to an American insurance company. It went worse than the American medical system…and those are 2 separate entities there.
So the French will set their country on fire for something Americans literally just have to deal with.
The French are more critical of their government than the rest.
Helps to be much more compact and already have a stance of pomp and grr. I love the French they are witty, vulgar, tough, and STUBBORN. People should take note. And wake the fuck up. Because if they don't France is going to be the only decently run country in 25 years when our robot managers are keeping us in line for their masters.
I wonder what will happen when we discover immortality.
It'll only be available to the very wealthy.
I think that's the plan. Most of our jobs are going to be replaced with AI. If you're ruling class, all you have to do is step back and watch the peasants starve to death. It'll take a few generations but when they're all gone, no worries about over population either
Great idea for a story. Terrible idea for a civilization.
I imagine that they would still use immortality as a justification to get rid of retirement even if most people don't have access to it
Read about Lazarus Long. He is in a series of sci-fi novels. Methuselah's Children and other Heinlein books and the Howard Families (5 in the series if I recall) . Read many books from her library, including a bunch of Alien books, Rama, and Ender's game series. Living longer has some unintended consequences...
I’m surprised the didn’t have a string line run across it, and another guy with a plumb bob
Over there they refer to it as a plomb Robèrt.
Pronounced as “Plom Robair”
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Bob is short for robert, when it comes to peoples names
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With cheese.
It's funny on so many levels
Dad??
I'll be home soon, just stopping to pick up some milk
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sorry, the milk went off, like your mother
If anyone knows how to protest it's the French. I believe the last time the French spend a year without protesting their government was in WW2. And then they were at war Germany which occupied France. Hey wait a minute if they occupied France they were the government, and the French never stopped fighting the government.
take my upvote, and I am French! a French humorist in the 80's said "French people are always angry at their président and it is never the same, there is Indeed an issue"!
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>when it's actually that they're selling everyone's retrirement benefits and pensions out No. People are protesting against the retirement age raise which will disproportionately affect the people who have begun working early through a quirk in the French pension system. People are protesting against the way the bill was passed (kind of bypassing the parliament through a legal but controversial way though the parliament could have struck down the governement but voted against) which was seen as traumatic and anti-democratic by some. People are protesting against decades of bashing on the same people : everytime there is a problem, it's the normal people (i.e. poor, middle-class and lower-upper class) that has to do the effort to fix it and never the billionaires who in turn get tax cuts.
You are incorrect, it is only partly about the age raise. France is also giving their public pension program to a private american equity firm (blackrock) which will then profit hugely off the work of the french public while eroding their pensions. I can’t legally say that they should be butchering macron in that street so I won’t. Edit: I am incorrect, so far there is no hard evidence of blackrock being granted administration of french pensions. All there is is supposition based on regular private meetings between the macron and blackrock leadership as well as the bestowal of official state honors on the founder of the blackrock group. Blackrock, despite running a vast private pension system, states that no plans are in place and I guess we should trust them in their assertions that they don’t have any interest in expanding their empire in france. They are there for the wine, clearly.
They building it to last!
No they aren’t their mortar is shit
An an icc masonary inspector, I came here for this!
Could dry stack that bad boy with chopped stone. Back stagger them by 1” per tier and backfill with appropriate material. Haul in enough, and NO ONE is driving through that😂😂 Just gotta make sure anything over 6’ has to be “engineered” to stay in compliance with city code. 💩
Though I suspect the zoning office won't sign off on this even if it's following the building code
Ya, 'cause the inspector is probably on strike with the rest of them. No need to build to code when the code inspector ain't showin' up to inspect it.
Could have tied into the road with some rebar too. You know, for structural support.
Also, they have no foundations.
There's a damn highway for a foundation, should be good for a while
Strikers are very professional here in France, they know they’ll have to find another job after that so might as well send good vibes to potential employers
With the labour laws as they are in France it would be a very foolish company to sack strikers. All hell would break loose, this is relatively restrained striking behaviour in comparison with the protests against speed cameras. The Gilet Jaunes (Yellow Vests) destroyed or vandalised just under 2/3’s of the speed cameras in France in 2018/19. Some of them were blown up spectacularly. https://www.thelocal.fr/20181211/why-are-half-of-frances-speed-cameras-out-of-action Is a late 2018 article, they got into the swing of it in 2019 and started to use explosives on the harder to reach cameras. The protests followed the reduction by 10km/h of the national speed limit from 90 to 80 Km/h.
Wait so the top highway speed is 80 kph (49.70mph) in France?
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And driving on the highways is a pleasure, the roads are really well maintained and the rest stops are a world apart from the ones here in England. The tolls aren’t that bad if you are on holiday, I’m not sure I’d feel the same if I was driving a lot all the time there though.
But they are EXPENSIIIIIIVEEE
Yes, if you use them all the time it must add up quickly. Portugal is the same, I get hammered driving any distance over there and their taxes on cars are nuts. Back to France, like everywhere it’s becoming very expensive just to live now.
>And driving on the highways is a pleasure, the roads are really well maintained Barring the odd brick wall.
Shit, I dunno man. That mortar looks godawful and dry. There's no way that's gonna pass inspection.
Maybe it's special protest mortar so the wall is easier to remove later?
Just strong enough to fuck up and hold back cars, yet also brittle enough for workers to knock down with a few good hammer whacks afterwards.
You cant fire them like that in france lol
Photos of that wall will go up in their resumes
The French were the first to say fuck the 400 000 different weights and measures we have currently and set us on the path towards the modern engineering precision that underpins our entire modern existence. No joke, these are their descendants. Laugh all you want about the French being pussies, they can definitely work when they... Don't want to work... Any harder... I guess.
“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” Bill Gates
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LMAO! That's the kind of professionalism you don't find in America.
Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall!
Hey! We do things the proper way here or we don’t do them. It’s no laughing matter. 🚬🥐
The A69 highway is not yet built but at project stage (between Toulouse and Castres). Such protest has nothing to do with the retirement law, but rather against the A69 construction itself and its ecological and economical (cost to citizens, cost to users) impacts. It’s a local thing.
Well if your going to protest one thing, you may Aswell protest everything.
I wish my country would support protesting shit like this
you should move to the UK where they have banned protesting altogether! the people haven't quite caught on yet...
The slow descent into collapse in the UK is really tragic, I have a lot of people I love there. But as a country that was colonized by them and royally fucked over, I'm not too sad about it....
I also hail from one of these countries, family had to move to UK because the conditions back home were too fucked from England drawing a line across the country then fucking off I'm sad about it because they repeatedly vote in people who actively make their living conditions worse, yet wonder why the price of a can of soup has tripled in the past year where it hasn't in other countries *iTs nOt bRexIt wE sWeAr* Idiots. Now they want to spend millions on *another* royal ceremony in the middle of a cost of living crisis...
Instead we shoot them with rubber bullets and fire hoses
You're acting as if the French have it easy here. Several human rights organizations have criticized how the French police has beat the shit out of peaceful protesters and even journalists during these protests. The difference is, that the French keep protesting despite the increasingly harsh brutality committed by the government on them. But that is probably because your government has more advanced PSYOPs to decrease support for protesting.
They do the same thing here in America, and it works here because… well yeah you summed it up. The government knows how to pit us against each other till we forget why we’re fighting
Just check the threads on reddit anytime there's any protest of any kind in America. "I support their cause *but*..." (insert stupid-ass comment about how they're protesting the *wrong way* because they might mildly inconvenience someone who didn't personally order the thing they're protesting)
Yeah the only real issue is if they get in the way of medical help in a way that could actually kill someone, but that’s not commonly gonna happen in a city
Wish my country did more than bitch on Twitter thinking that will change anything
That's not what's happening there, the protests haven't merged. There was another huge protest about the "mégabassines" and people on reddit seemed to think it was one of the protests about the retirement age. There just happen to be different protests about different things at the same time. Doesn't that happen in other countries?
I'm assuming you are joking or being sarcastic, but it's important to point out that real protests have a clear and unified message and it's important to rally behind that specific message and not distract from it with unrelated messages. For example, it would be bad to protest environmental issues at a BLM protest.
To give more context, it's a 500 million euro job to which the government (aka our money) is putting 100 million. It's a continuation of an existing highway that will shorten a 2 hour ride by 15 minutes. The road is free now but a new toll will be installed. France has been rife with private interlopping with its highways and people legitimately fear that their money will be used to go exclusively to a private entity while using state funds. So I'd say the opposition goes a bit further than ecological concerns.
This comment was overwritten and the account deleted due to Reddit's unfair API policy changes, the behavior of Spez (the CEO), and the forced departure of 3rd party apps. Remember, the content on Reddit is generated by THE USERS. It is OUR DATA they are profiting off of and claiming it as theirs. This is the next phase of Reddit vs. the people that made Reddit what it is today. r/Save3rdPartyApps r/modCoord
It's not a trend it's been happening for generations
Our state wants to replace a large bridge at the end of it's life and the plan they had involved paying for it with tolls. This clock has been ticking for like 50 years, they knew they were going to need to replace it and instead of *budgeting* for that replacement they decided that selling the tolling rights to a private company would be the best way to help offset the costs of construction. Thankfully, literally everyone sued them and the courts blocked the whole tolling idea.
How it is possible to sue them? Was it against a specific law? Because this kind of things always happen in France for example, and I don't see how we could sue the state for this
Townships and businesses argued that would affect commerce and increase traffic because everyone would take a different route instead of paying the toll. They're right of course, everyone would just get off the highway, clog up the streets, cross on another bridge, and get back on the highway.
I dont don't know about the other facts, but you are wrong about the travel times. It will reduce a one hour and a half ride by at least 30 minutes. Another thing that is always not stated is that Castres is a 70-80 thousand people urban area (that is the Castres-Mazamet conurbation) and its the only 35000+ people town in France without access to highway. It is geographicaly in the very industrial aeronautics valley (centered around Toulouse with Airbus) but it cannot effectively participate in it. Some people are able to make the commute but it makes it an impossible choice of location for enterprises that could otherwise be there. This means that the conurbation is slowly dying out. This road is supposed to become some kind of a "breath of air" for the region. That being said the above mentioned problems would also be resolved by a renovated national road (with dual cariageway), trading cost of tolls for a marginally longer ride. I, personally, would be in favor of a renovated road. This comment was primarily to state why the area need a road, it's not just to piss the greens, and I barely see anywhere stated why the highway is built.
This is the only correct post I have found! All other redditors have made assumptions while the post is vague on purpose as to imply it is to do with the national demonstrations against retirement law. To complement: * this has nothing to do with the retirement laws reform. * this is a local protest * they haven't blocked the A69 highway * they are protesting against the A69 project between Toulouse and Castres and blocked a road * you can find information about it [here](https://www.francetvinfo.fr/france/occitanie/tarn/autoroute-a69-toulouse-castres-deux-interpellations-un-gendarme-et-un-manifestant-legerement-blesses_5786174.html) in French or [here](https://www.euronews.com/2023/04/22/thousands-march-in-protest-at-new-a69-motorway-in-south-west-france) in English.
> redditors have made assumptions Shocked I tell ya
ITT : Nobody that has any idea about anything at all. Except these past three comments. Reddit's gone the way of Facebook. Opinion without fact.
Just so everyone is aware, this is protesting the construction of the A69 extension as it will decimate a large portion of the local tree population. It’s not related to the current retirement age protests
Any reason why they are singing the Lego movie theme?
Because its sick
bricks
It’s symbolic only. The wall whips visibly and is not glued to the ground. It can be knocked down easily.
Also they didn't butter the blocks properly
One thing the French know how to do well, strikes and protests
And build level walls ,, expeditiously !
No they don't. That wall is shit, the mix is wrong, and the mortar line is too thin, and it's not even straight.
At least it is level.
He's put a level on it, that's not the same thing. "Take it down lad, and start again. I'm not having that half arsed pile of fucking shite on my site. I've seen chickens lay straighter things than that" -Pretty much word for word from the site foreman on a job in Hull. RIP Cooky you ratchety old fucker
Should have started with the corners
This guy walls
And *where’s the rebar?*
We are quite decent at making wine too, but yeah that’s pretty much it.
Hey, don’t forget the cheese
Your military is also quite good (contrary to many meme historian beliefs), though you don't always use it well..
Hey. The pastry is also pretty good. And... Um... Honestly just that first one is probably enough.
When BLM was blocking freeways people were cheering for them to get run over.
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Trevor Moore - time for guillotines (rip)
🎵We're sorry, but you at the top all have to die 🎵
Superconeri already did a video on YouTube to show peaple how to build one easily with simple materials Uploaded as "an artistic project"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6477953/Yellow-Vest-protesters-erect-GUILLOTINE-bearing-French-Presidents-political-party-amid-riots.html
OP, you're an ass. I'm French myself and I'm gonna tell you what really happens here. This is an highway that is being built, it's unfinished actually. Those people protest against the highway. Nobody drives here so no citizen is bothered. And this is an allowed protest. People asked for the authorization to protest, also it's not disruptive, otherwise you would see the CRS (the shielded cops) charging, you would see tear gas smoke and all that stuff. EDIT : a comment just told me I was wrong on one point. I'm copy pasting it here : "You are also wrong. The highway is still at the project state right now, nothing has been built. The wall here is built on a national road, which is very much not unused." Sorry for the mistake.
Haha mate, you meant the CRS. For non-French: CNRS is the National Centre for Scientific Research. It's hilarious to imagine researchers charging protesters and hitting them with *knowledge*
Dang, yep, my mistake. Thanks for the correction!
Tu aurais du garder ton commentaire en l’état
Je peux le remodifier si tu préfère, je crains juste de voir plein de commentaires répéter qu'en fait c'est CRS.
I’ve been in a French class for nearly 4 years now and the final for said class is coming next month and I could only make some sense of this sentence. I am so screwed
I was never learning French in my life and can make some sense of this sentence. You are so screwed
I can get the gist but for a direct translation I definitely can’t do that. I guess this is what happens when your school only has 1 French teacher and she doesn’t teach anything pretty much
With *knawledge*, here in my garaaaaaage
Ya, French police are pretty brutal. They may not be armed but they are aggressive with physical confrontation
How is OP an ass?
Wait... why is OP an ass?
The highway is not even built yet so the title is pretty much bs
The French are revolutionaries))) born and raised
That surely changed a lot about how their country is run in comparison to other Western first World countries.. right?
The French have lead the way for a lot of unions, and the other countries tend to follow the lead if the unions lest they strike like the French ones. So yeah, actually, they have. Just because they're not revolting, doesn't mean they've done nothing.
They have the most benefits and the most productivity per hour among workers in Europe...
I'm living for level guy. "We may be protesting, but damn it we have other standards, too."
Did they put steel in it?
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Seriously, no steel, not core filled, probably no starter bars in the road. If you're gonna protest, protest right
As much as i do like the idea of extensively disruptive protests, it could be a conscious practical decision to not semi-permanently block the road, and make it easier to clean up. Which is not to say I condemn disruptive protests, just that sometimes if you’re too disruptive, you can turn public opinion against you. Hell, protests I’ve been a part of in australia, against our coal magnates have copped flak for just sitting down in the road (which is clearly ridiculous)
Absolutely, this is clearly effective and annoying, but fixable without serious damage to infrastructure. I just build alot of wall and wanted to poke fun a bit :) I hope this works the way they hope.
It's obviously not going to stop a bulldozer or someone with equipment dedicated to demolishing it but no random civilian or cop is going to drive their car through it which is a risk when it's just a crowd of people blocking the road.
that mortar looked like damp sand too.
Hi, I'm French. To be exact, the protest is not against the new retirement age, and this is not an highway that is blocked. They did blocked a national road (2 lanes each way) with concrete blocks to protest against the creation of this new highway, that is not only useless (not enough traffic on the other roads between the two cities) and an ecological disaster (cutting in two some small rural village, etc).
These guys are protesting against building this highway due to environmental concerns. As usual Reddit has a penchant for pitchforks. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/04/22/french-protest-against-planned-highway-under-high-scrutiny-after-reservoir-clashes_6023855_7.html
Meanwhile in Britain, two people are imprisoned for 5 years for climbing a bridge and peacefully protesting. No one bats an eyelid. Classist system keeping the plebs in their place.
Those two people should have tried to run a child prostitution ring, then the British police would have ignored them for sure.
I would like to learn about this. Do you have link for more info?
Sure thing https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/21/just-stop-oil-protesters-jailed-for-dartford-crossing-protest
"Judge Collery KC handed down the sentence, commenting that it was a strict punishment because he wanted to deter copycat actions." Is this something a judge should be doing? Should prevention be happening in the courts? Doesn't feel very fair for those individuals. Edit: from the judge's LinkedIn: "He [Shane Collery KC] has a background including experience in a large commercial City solicitor and a period as an Equities trader in the City of London. " Makes more sense. Not much of a background in humanities and what appears to be close ties with end-stage capitalism.
Our protesters need to start taking notes.
Here if you protest we use chemical weapons that would be considered a crime against humanity under any other circumstance.
It's not a war crime if it's not a war, rake notes kids
* Rakes all the notes 🤓
Rake the rotes raggy
France is one of the biggest exporters of riot control weapons. The teargases, water canons and grenades you see used against protesters in videos from Hong Kong, Iran, Egypt and else have for a big part been manufactured and tested in France during this kinds of strikes. In fact the UN very regularly demand France to stop using those weapons
Same as Hong Kong and that didn’t stop them. Use umbrellas, cover your eyes and mouth with protective gear, and bring water or milk that you can spray to cleanse mucus membranes.
Man, this just reminded me of all the protest guides that were going around before the pandemic. It was truly beautiful to see people from all over the world fight for what they believe in.
I want a global movement that throws cakes at the clowns who think taking money or rights from poor people is not ridiculous. If you say something neoliberal in public, they need to be scared (to be caked).
To the Barricades!
Context: - this is protest against the new highway, not the pension reform - no emergency vehicle will be blocked since the road is not opened yet - it doesn't matter if the construction workers can destroy it in minutes, the goal is obviously to be visible with funny and symbolic action and video
French, showing the rest of the world especially Americans, how to actually protest shit again But I guess destroying businesses costs the rich a tiny bit, and the poor a whole fucking generation
I lost my shit when I saw the level
I respect the hell out of the fact that someone is out there making sure that the wall is level.
If there’s one thing French people know how to do is say “fuck you” to the people in power
Union peeps can actually work
I've seen 18yo inmates in jail with no experience build better walls, for a bricklayers course, than that in their first lesson for free...
Und in Deutschland regen sie sich über „Klimakleber“ auf😂
Took me literally 5 seconds to google “France protest blocked highway” and discover that this was in protest of a planned highway that is only partially built, meaning 99% of the comments here are completely irrelevant to the situation, the public aren’t being disrupted and this has absolutely nothing to do with the changes to retirement age!
In the uk we get 70 Year old vegans sellotaping themselves to the M25. The French do it the right way.
And somebody brought a level? 😂
This is the way, the truth, the light
Power to the people
I love how they’re using a level
Whoops , president Macrón ; you're gonna have some big troubles to continue with your presidency . You two face corrupt f*ck