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[–] 49 points 1 month ago (17 children)

They really do. 3 years ago my daughter was getting ready to take a school trip to France when protests broke out over something. I was worried about the trip and ended up learning a lot about how France protests. Here are some things I learned:

Protesting is considered important and this is taught to kids in school.

It's often a family affair, grab the whole family and go protest.

Protests are a happy, party-like environment with music and vendors selling food to protestors.

Leaders actually listen to some.extent.

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  • [–] 41 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    American version:

    Protesting is a right, taught in school.

    Grab family, go to protest.

    Protest turns violent because of hidden cops. Mom gets shot. Dad loses job. Family loses house.

    Die.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    "Protesting is a right and everything great we have comes from it, but you will be tear gassed and condemned if you try"

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    2028 you get black bagged by ICE for the crime of thinking about planning a protest

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Leaders actually listen to some.extent.

    Do they? I haven't seem a lot of meaningful changes in France due to protests in the last 10-20 years. Perhaps you have a list of them that a directly due to protests? It seems like the ruling class, leadership and in general regular people just ignore protests as 'part of life'.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    They do listen to some extent. Not always, obviously, but saying protests are basically useless is just wrong. The CPE was scrapped after protests in 2006, the écotaxe was abandoned after the Bonnets Rouges protests, the fuel tax increase was cancelled after the Yellow Vests, and the government backed down on several measures after the 2024 farmers' protests. You can argue protests do not always succeed, but pretending they achieve nothing just ignores what actually happened.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    Leaders actually listen to some.extent.

    in the US* No, I have to say this one and I'm not trying to sound any kind of way about this but it's a little true: Is that the action that comes from anyone in power after a protest comes from fear. That it goes from peaceful discourse to actions that can range and vary.....Though I suppose one could equate it to the rebel-terrorist fighting. ..... The people of the US fighting for their voices to be heard are the rebels and the oppressive terrorist government that couldn't give two shits less, except for furthering their dictatorial agendas

    Personally,I stay home because I don't want to die and I watch videos of protests and see where it can lead and I'm like fuck that!!!! I want to go to some of them when I read where they are because I stand with more and more causes after informing myself of current events after being a skeptic but I voice my opinions online.

    It's sadly the fact that protesting can in some odd way by definition be considered a terrorist act once turned violent and that I believe that, "leaders," turn the police on people during protests and sadly the terrorist government is making is so that they're allowed to use fear tactics to suppress protests.

    There's no direct, "winning."

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