More than one in ten gas stations across France are completely out of fuel, as public sector labor unions continue to battle with President Emmanuel Macron’s government. Tuesday of this week was the tenth straight day in a row of riots, and the place looks completely trashed. Speaking of trash, it’s piled more than 6 feet high in many streets, because no one is picking the garbage up. It will take weeks to clean up the mess, assuming that the Macron administration even survives the current ongoing turmoil.
You’d think more American media outlets would be covering a story this big. Then again, Macron hasn’t done many interviews with journalists ever since he declared himself to be a “god” in 2017. For those who don’t remember, that actually happened!
Macron declared when he was first elected that he was going to govern France like Jupiter, the Roman king of the lower-case “gods.” Officials in Macron’s administration then informed the media that Macron would not be doing many interviews with reporters about the dictatorial reforms he was going to impose. Macron’s thought processes were “too complex” for mere mortal journalists to understand. (And you thought Nancy Pelosi had an ego.)
We’re not making this up – it actually happened in 2017. Macron then immediately began to wreck the joint, which brings us to today.
Macron the “Jupitarian” god has been exploiting a loophole in the French legal code called Section 49.3. That loophole allows him to enact sweeping changes in France without allowing the parliament to vote on them. It’s sort of like how Democrats always treat executive orders here in the US, except there are no courts in France that will oppose Macron.
Anyway, Macron’s dictatorial plans have hit a bit of a snag, now that he raised the French retirement age for public employees and pensioners from 62 to 64. To make matters even more hilarious, as Macron was talking about the new plan in one of his rare televised media interviews, he realized that he was still wearing his $86,000 luxury watch. He took the watch off under the table and then continued lecturing the French people about how they were going to have to sacrifice more to meet his demands.
Protests over the reforms have been taking place sporadically since January. Since Macron has refused to listen to the people or put his reforms to a vote before parliament, the country has exploded into violent riots. An estimated 900,000 took to the streets on Tuesday night, burning and trashing the place.
Macron the little French god stated publicly that the protesters have “no legitimacy.” French Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne told everyone to “calm down.”
So, that worked. Oh, wait, no it didn’t. The protests have only intensified since the politicians declared the French workers’ concerns illegitimate. Some 16,000 law enforcement officers were deployed Tuesday night to help quell unrest, but they’re so outnumbered that it’s a futile effort.
Meanwhile, the public sector labor unions continue to strike (and riot). They’re blocking streets to prevent fuel deliveries and other essential services from getting through. A whopping 16% of stations across France are out of gas and diesel.
When Borne’s “calm down” declaration failed to calm anyone down, she announced that she was going to try to close the Section 49.3 loophole, to which Macron responded that Borne is “stupid.”
Nuh-uh!
It’s easy to sit here and make fun of the little French midget who believes he’s a god. But we’re really not much better off here in America right now. Our “leader” cracked jokes about ice cream and, then, creeped on a bunch of little kids during a press conference about a school shooting this week. How do Western nations keep ending up with people like this in charge? It doesn’t bode well for civilization.
