No one likes Gas Taxes / French Riots

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/f...-riots-n943381

"French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced a suspension of hikes to fuel taxes in an effort to appease a protest movement that plunged Paris into chaos last weekend.

Philippe said the planned increases, which have provoked violent riots and were set to be introduced in January, will be suspended for six months."

I'm so torn about this story. I find it hilarious that for all "rahh rahhh stop global warming" even small increases in gas taxes leads to literal riots. I find it disappointing that terrorism was successful, caving in to those who use violence for political causes isn't a good thing. But then again its France so its funny that they even manage to surrender against themselves.

Seems like the protests are continuing despite the reversal by the government.

Its almost as if this was about more than just a gas tax, but your dumbass wants to make jokes instead of educating yourself.

French presidents have a long history of pushing through deeply unpopular reforms and then backing down in the face of large-scale protests/riots.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

Its almost as if this was about more than just a gas tax, but your dumbass wants to make jokes instead of educating yourself.

---

The gas tax was absolutely the spark.

Not sure if your wording is your dumbass way of trying to shift the goalposts to avoid admitting youre a dumbass or if I'm giving you to much credit and you simply double downed on your stupidity.

I have no doubt the gas tax was a spark, but it would be short sighted to think it is just about the gas tax. Though I don't quite understand what these people are angry about, I do see a lot of anger around me. Something about a percieved decline of the middle class or something. An opinion piece I read suggested it was less about real decline and more about the in your face conspicuous consumption by a global elite. I don't know if that really explains it, but it was kind of interesting to read. That I could relate to a bit; how a department store in Amsterdam morphed from a place where upper middle class did their shopping into a place where you see in store shops with handbags that have no visible pricetags, but which I know to have pricetags of €30,000 or more. The people who actually buy there are loaded Russians and Chinese. But average Joe doesn't really differentiate and his local 'elite' and is extremely resentful.

https://np.reddit.com/r/instant_regr...omment/ebdj8e9

From a Frenchman

It's not Lewk's fault, he gets all his news from his favourite Individual-1 and they must be infallible right?

Twitter Link

Twitter Link

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer

https://np.reddit.com/r/instant_regr...omment/ebdj8e9

From a Frenchman

---

I like the detailed take down response:

If I may, there are many incorrect bits of information in your statement.

The government did not pay money to save banks. They loaned money, which was promply paid back with interest. Overall, the state made over €3 billion over this short period. See (here)[https://www.latribune.fr/entreprises...s-l-etat.html]. Also, this was nearly 10 years ago and has nothing to do with our current government.

Yes the government said for a while that diesel was cleaner, and incentivized this. That wasn't a lie, it was the extent of our knowledge. Also, it's not the current government, who have nothing to do with this. We've known for a few years now that diesel pollutes, a lot. This was made spectacularly well-known by the Volkswagen scandal of 2014, which will be 5 years ago in 2019, when the tax increase was supposed to come in.

Incidentally, on average people in France keep their cars 5 years. Nearly everyone that has purchased a diesel car and is driving one right now was fully aware that they aren't as clean as we thought. And this tax increase was only going to increase the price by 6.5c, over 1,5€. How can we justify having lower taxes on diesel when we now know Diesel kills more people than regular gasoline ? Should we lower taxes on fuel ? Of course not ! The taxes on fuel are nowhere near where they should be to compensate for the environmental and health damage they do !

And then... of course it sucks that nurses are overworked, but how can you both defend lower taxes and higher government spending ? But wages are going up, although not by enough, on january 1st, like all worker wages, thanks to the CSG reform...

How can you say that "every single law is voted in favor of the 1%" ? That is just a complete and total lie ! A TON of laws have passed SPECIFICALLY for poorer people ! Like higher (+100€) minimum pensions for the retired ? Like the transfer of social contributions from the retired (except the poorest retired) to the workers ? Like the removal of the local housing tax except for richer people ?

The ONLY law that was passed specifically for rich people was the removal of the "Impôt sur la Fortune", which was scientifically a terrible, terrible tax which did not succeed at transferring money from the rich to the poor. On the contrary, the increase of the CSG hits the wealthy because it taxes CAPITAL gains, which is something I'm sure you're very happy about, right ?

And have you talked to anyone working in the social anti-poverty sector about the "poverty plan" ? It's seen by the social sector as one of the best social plans ever written by a government, because it really tackles the root issues of poverty in this country.

I know Macron has been pretty terrible at explaining what he's been doing, and has passed for a condescending prick recently, but giving in to misinformation and anger is not going to solve any of our issues.

Lewk, the French protests are about more than gas taxes (but nice try on the Reddit link walk-back) :bored:

There are common themes coming to a head in all democratic societies: rising inequalities and diminished faith (mistrust) in government. Anti-elite, anti-establishment, anti-globalism are *symptoms* of deep, long-standing frustrations. Protests aren't the problem. The first problem is that a *majority* of people feel disenfranchised and/or unrepresented by their elected officials; the other problem is that politicians win elections by promising things they can't possibly deliver. (See Trump)

It's a cycle that's been repeated for decades, even centuries, to force change. So your attitude (regarding French protests) only comes off as high-and-mighty American ignorance and hypocrisy. :bored: