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[–] 84 points 1 month ago* (2 children)

Paris has been redesigned in the XIXth century to contain revolts: the wide avenues are hard to block with barricades , and in straight line, so it's always visible from the main police barracks that are located on the big squares at each end. Also, since 1930, almost all strikes have to use the same route between 3 places: Republique, Bastille and Nation.

So basically, we've been storming the Bastille weekly for 2 centuries.

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  • [–] 44 points 1 month ago*

    But MAGA keeps telling me France has burned entirely to the ground because of Muslims! They wouldn't be saying that just to promote Islamophobia and racism, would they? /s

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  • [–] 116 points 1 month ago

    We DONT have Enough MONEY for Teachers! We spent ALL that Money on SHOOTING CHILDREN IN THE FACE instead!

    -LITERALLY The French Government!

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  • [–] 51 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Bastille Day 2: Electric Boogaloo

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  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago

    Last time this happened? You aren't talking about the revolution right? Because that certainly wasn't the last time it's happened.

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

    All protests involving Parisians happen at Place de la Bastille. It's a large open space and traffic circle holding all kinds of public events.

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

    It certainly is a traffic circle. I can't imagine what must have been going through those people's heads when they decided to just make a giant open loop that people can enter with no clear plan to exit. It's like a highway with no lanes with houses built directly on it.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago

    Well, yes, but first it went very badly for the students.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    I love riots. Riots are good for Society. They remind the High Command Shitheads who's really the BOSS.

    Riots? It could always get a LOT worse than mere riots.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    I think the previous time was the yellow vest movment (gilets jaunes) ; and the gouvernment got saved by Covid...

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  • [+] 37 points 1 month ago (11 children)
  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (8 children)
  • [+] 32 points 1 month ago (6 children)
  • [–] 24 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    don't ever compare US protests to french protests

    Why not? Having been at both, I will compare them (out of spite)

    I agree that french protests are generally more intense, we have witnessed similarities in the recent protests (in Minneapolis for example).

    Spontaneous upheaval, organized response to police brutality, occupation of large avenues and city cultural trademarks, property damage...

    I do feel that there is a lack of class cohesion and solidarity in the US protests, response to police crowd control isn't as good, groups of ultras are few and unorganized, protests don't last as long and aren't discussed in public opinion as often, there isn't as many meaningful chants (or enthusiasm when chanting them) and last but not least, it's way harder for the protest to have a meaningful impact on a city's normal operations because they're so damn big

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    For Americans, doing the protest is an end in itself. They’re a way for comfortable white liberals to telegraph that they’re “on the right side” and “the good ones” so that they can return to doing nothing after a few hours of waving signs around and posting photos.

    There is never any plan to escalate, never any thought to what happens if their demands aren’t met. The US does parades. Bring the kids, it’ll be fun- you can LARP participation in democracy.

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

    Didn't go super well for the revolutionaries either

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  • [–] 41 points 1 month ago* (8 children)

    Debatable. The people of France gained more liberties than anyone else in contental Europe at the time. Feudal rights abolished, internal trade barriers stripped away, eventually the best law code the world had seen to that point, etc... It was overwhelmingly positive for the people of France long-term.

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

    Long-term, sure, but they quickly lost most of their gains in the short and medium term when Napoleon restored the monarchy.

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  • [–] 26 points 1 month ago* (6 children)

    Not at all. Napoleon's Empire was extremely enlightened compared to the ancient regime they had been laboring under. He's the one that implemented said law code for instance. It wasn't a republic but in a lot of way Napoleon's reign is what cemented the gains of the Revolution. The institution that made them permanent and helped to forge the concept of the nation of France.

    Also don't forget that Napoleon overthrew the dictatorship of the Directory that itself had overthrown the Revolution.

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

    The Directory was dysfunctional but not a dictatorship. I mean, what kind of dictatorship cuts the executive power five ways?

    Napoleon's reign is a mixed bag. He did cement some of the gains of the Revolution but it still wasn't a good time to be a woman or a former slave.

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

    Worse than in other countries? Serious question. Women seemed implicated in the revolution a lot for example (not always in a good way). Maybe it freed the mind of people.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    From the Wikipedia page "Women in the French Revolution":

    "Feminism emerged in Paris as part of a broad demand for social and political reform. These women demanded equality for women and then moved on to a demand for the end of male domination. Their chief vehicle for agitation were pamphlets and women's clubs. The Jacobin element in power abolished all the women's clubs in October 1793 and arrested their leaders. The movement was crushed. Devance explains the decision in terms of the emphasis on masculinity in wartime, Marie Antoinette's bad reputation for feminine interference in state affairs, and traditional male supremacy. A decade later the Napoleonic Code confirmed and perpetuated women's second-class status."

    And to expand on that last sentence on the Napoleonic Code:

    "With regard to family, the code established the supremacy of the husband over his wife and children, the status quo in Europe at the time. Women had even fewer rights than children. Divorce by mutual consent was abolished in 1804."

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  • [–] -2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    No, Napoleon was a tyran and retcon a lot of liberty ; slavery, antisemitic laws, for example. The only legacy of Napoleon that matter is his own propaganda that still exist in France. I would bet that you've followed a French education

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (12 children)

    Meanwhile Americans are just fine with a pedophile rapist spending their taxes on god knows what as he removes their rights.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    I don't know that most Americans are fine with it but are kept in near dire and paralyzing financial positions. More have some of the most violent, militarized cops on the planet that will kill your dog then you for threatening the system.

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

    Oh boy. Here come the angry Americans.

    'Akshully we voted and wrote some letters so we tried. You know how hard it is to actually do something? Its, like, really hard. I havent been personally shot yet so its really not that bad anyway.'

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (4 children)

    Yawn…. Not angry kiddo. Just providing contrast to how France is doing it right in comparison.. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. So… move along. The comment wasn’t meant for your consumption.

    Go be angry somewhere else.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (2 children)

    France is denser and makes it easier to organize. America is frickin massive

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  • [–] 6 points 1 month ago

    the first time, people were hungrier and more determined to unseat the existing leadership. this group today appears to be more amenable to working with the existing leadership by comparison

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

    Do you hear the people sing?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    The Irish revolutionary, Gilles O'Teen will be there again this time around as well. And all other future times in this seemingly endless cycle! /s

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (7 children)
  • [–] 16 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    Are you saying we don't protest? Because I've been to 4 protests this year and was suppressed by police at 2 of them. What am I taking note of? The fact that so many people on here get a hate boner for Americans just as much as they do for Trump?

    God I'm so fucking sick of this attitude. Americans are trying to fix this. How about you go get maced and shot at by the police and then tell me how much you want to do it again? I have a sneaking suspicion that the vast majority of people with your attitude would turn tail or stay home in our exact situation.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    People have literately been killed by "police" in the USA while trying to protest and do something.

    I'm with you, it's not a fucking competition, we've got to fight to unite. And I say this a someone who's French.

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

    Americans protest when it’s convenient (for the most part). The biggest evidence of that is the no kings protests. Doesn’t interfere with work or business. A true protest would do actual damage because of the lack of work being performed for the owner class.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

    A quarter of the working age population is functionally unemployed. They can’t afford to protest the way you want or they won’t eat, will lose their housing because there’s no social safety nets. Of the few that existed those were some of the first things to go.

    Americans could petition their government representation to fix that but that representation either doesn’t care or has no power in the current system.

    What you’re talking about would be, essentially, a siege with each side trying to wait out the other; and that’s assuming you could get enough people together.

    Let’s compare France, a country known for protest, with the US:

    • France population ~70 million

    • US population ~340 million

    • France size ~551,000km squared

    • US size ~9,900,000km squared

    With just those two numbers we can see that France’s population is ~1/5th of the US in a country roughly 1/18th the size of the US. That’s without getting into the transportation options that are available in France that aren’t available in the US to get people to the seat of power.

    There has been an ongoing campaign to weaken the power of the citizens of the US for decades and that’s not the only place. Fascism is on the rise globally.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    Time to play some Rush

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

    I almost lost count whenever france decide enough is enough, bringing their ol reliable to detach someone body part, figure it doesn't work in long term huh.

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

    Either I don't understand what you're trying to say, or you don't understand how politics and organising works.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    well, last time the "commune" didn't go so well for the people in 1871

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    NOTHING is substantial until it is substantiated

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  • [+] -10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)
  • [–] -3 points 1 month ago

    Coo coo, so iust like the retirement shit a few years ago, it wont make a difference?

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  • [+] -8 points 1 month ago (4 children)
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    The French Revolution did not fail. It was a bourgeois revolution that overthrew the feudal government and established a capitalist system. Socialists in the modern sense were not a significant power bloc at that time; the leaders of the third estate were mostly petty bourgeoisie.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago

    Bro, if you think France is going to get an emperor again you’re gunna wanna take a breather before making comments. They are protesting a government that needs to be reminded to serve its people, but until they start murdering politicians and replacing them with their own people we’re just not going to see their democracy completely wiped out.

    History rhymes, absolutely, and I would be a fool to ignore possible parallels, but this just is not the same thing.

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