Franch News

This fascinating BBC documentary looks at what life was like as a servant in the grand stately homes which are so popular with tourists and TV viewers today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiMASk5MIU&index=1&list=PLfHP8cnex_oE_tA3yEwsBXwk3utfegb3_

Ghosts of Christmas Present: Macron’s Ongoing Yellow Vest Nightmare John Mullen The 15th December was Act Five for the popular Yellow Vest revolt against poverty in France, but it was not the finale. The movement remains vibrant and determined, especially in the big Southern towns like Toulouse and Bordeaux, and its effects are considerable, with pre-Christmas commerce heavily hit, privatized motorway companies losing tens of millions of euros, and images of burning cars and smashed bank windows on the Champs Elysées tarnishing Macron’s image as 21st century European capitalism’s blue-eyed boy. Christmas trees have been put up on a number of Yellow Vest held roundabouts and motorway toll booths, symbolizing the fact that they are definitely not giving up. At some roadblocks the movement collects for food banks; at others they set up mock guillotines. One of Macron’s MPs turned up for work the other day to find her offices had been repainted in bright yellow. New initiatives are to be ...

a fairly good explanation here https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/12/what-happens-now-for-the-prime-minister-and-her-brexit-plans

Cet interview de Houria Bouteldja du Parti des Indigènes de la République vaut le détour. Le PIR traite des questions de racisme structurel qui sont peu ou mal traitées à gauche en France. A mon (pas très humble) avis cette émission permet de comprendre l'ensemble des points forts et l'ensemble des faiblesses de la démarche du PIR. Cliquer ici.

Yellow Vests: Act Four: Where is France Going? It is hard to count demonstrators spread out across thousands of mobilizations, but it seems that over half a million people were involved in « Act Four » of the Yellow Vest mobilization in France on Saturday 8th December. In Bordeaux a huge joint demonstration between university students and Yellow Vests chanted « Students and Yellow Vests, same Macron, same struggle! ». In Toulouse, Lyon, Saint Etienne, Marseilles, Dieppe and dozens of other towns many thousands marched. Even in smaller places like Albi or Auch there was a fine Yellow Vests demonstration. A lively picket was organized in front of the factory in Sarthe which makes tear gas grenades. At Saint-Avold in the East of France a replica of a guillotine was placed at a major roundabout. A few days earlier in the port of Saint Nazaire in Brittany, demonstrators repainted the banks of the town in bright yellow, while a cake shop owner in the South started selling...