France
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A news chronology of France in 2019: The year of Yellow Vest rebellion
This is part of a series of dispatches by correspondent Ramin Mazaheri Continue reading
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US Finally Bombs French Factory in Syria Infamous for Funding ISIS
As spectacular and indicative of America’s sinking fortunes in Syria as its bombing of its own military base in northern Syria was – it is also an indicator of something else much more sinister. Continue reading
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Edward Snowden: Would he like to live and die in Paris?
September 17 will see private international publishing company Macmillan Publishers Ltd release a book by former employee of the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA) Edward Snowden. Memoirs by the ex-NSA agent titled “Permanent Record” will hit the shelves in twenty countries, including the United States which he escaped more than six years ago. Continue reading
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Hospital workers strike spreads throughout France By Anthony Torres
The strike by French hospital workers against the Macron administration’s healthcare legislation, which came into force in March, is spreading throughout the country. Of the 478 emergency services in the country, 216 are now involved in the movement that began in March and involved 80 hospitals by June. Continue reading
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French intelligence strategy document warns of “insurrectional violence” By Will Morrow
The French national intelligence and counterterrorism organization quietly released the first update to its five-year public strategy document on Monday. The report—which was uploaded to a ministerial website and not accompanied by any presidential press release—states that the role of France’s counterterrorism agencies is to fight “subversive movements” and the threat of “insurrectional violence” in… Continue reading
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Tired of Being Ignored, Refugees in Calais Are Learning to Do Their Own Press
Tired of being ignored or misrepresented, refugees stranded at the British border had arranged for a media trainer to travel from London to deliver a crash course in dealing with reporters ahead of World Refugee Week, which they marked by organising their own press conference. Continue reading
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Life After a French Revolution: What Next for the Protest Camp That Won? by Greg Frey
The handmade cabins, the welcome messages scribbled over road signs and the empty tear gas canisters littering the fields show how these 4,000 acres have been salvaged from the states’ plans to turn them into an airport. Under this central struggle another one lurks. The defaced map of the zone and the spray-painted message ‘Zad… Continue reading
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“Yellow Vest” Facebook group with 350,000 members frozen on European election day By Will Morrow
On Sunday, polling day in the European elections, the largest Facebook group associated with the “yellow vest” protests in France, with more than 350,000 members, was frozen so that members could not publish or share information in it. Continue reading
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The Yellow Vests of France: Six Months of Struggle By Richard Greeman
I am writing you from Montpellier, France, where I am a participant-observer in the Yellow Vest (Gilets jaunes) movement, which is still going strong after six months, despite a dearth of information in the international media. Continue reading
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China – and Macron’s U-Turn By Peter Koenig
Less than a week ago, President Macron was lambasting Italy for signing agreements with China in the context of their New Silk Road, alias President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in the same breath he was criticizing China for attempting to undermine Europe with new trade individual country deals under the pretext of… Continue reading
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Globalism’s Last Disgrace: The Army vs. the Yellow Vests By Tom Luongo
There are few people in this world more odious than French President Emmanuel Macron after his behavior this week. I’m sure there are child molesters who are worse. But as a man who is pivotal in the future of hundreds of millions of people, his decision to order the French military to quell the Yellow… Continue reading
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Economist Frédéric Lordon’s Letter to Emmanuel Macron: “Hand Over the Keys”
In response to the explosive yellow vests (gilets jaunes) movement, French president Emmanuel Macron announced the “Great Debate” – a vast, unprecedented nationwide exercise in consulting citizens on how to fix France’s problems – starting in December 2018 and ending this March. Attempting to shore up his legitimacy and dampen contestation, Macron travelled the country engaging in lengthy… Continue reading
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What Colour is Your Vest? By Stefan Kipfer and Karen Wirsig
History does not repeat itself mechanically. But the revolt of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) in France underway since November 2018 reminds us that we, too, live in times of deep political uncertainty. Today, there are not two large organized political blocs facing each other in a battle for life and death. The political ambiguities… Continue reading
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France: Yellow Vests and Red Unions Strike Together
At the very moment when in Paris the lower house was voting to implement Macron’s proposed laws designed to suppress public demonstrations (a legal right protected in both the French Constitution and the U.N. Human Rights Declaration) tens of thousands of their constituents were out in the streets all over the country demonstrating and striking… Continue reading
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French National Assembly passes police state “anti-riot” law targeting protests By Will Morrow
The French National Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Monday to approve President Emmanuel Macron’s “anti-riot” law, undermining the right to protest and further expanding police powers. Continue reading
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The Yellow Vests, the Crisis of the Welfare State and Socialism By Michèle BRAND
Far from dying down after the holidays, France’s yellow vest movement is continuing to blaze throughout the country. Every Saturday for eleven weeks, protesters have been disrupting or blocking roads, traffic circles and freeway toll plazas, gathering in the squares of villages, taking to the streets of towns, marching in massive numbers through city boulevards,… Continue reading
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More defiance define Gilets Jaunes “Acte 10” (Videos)
The video below is an eloquent document about the clashes of Gilets Jaunes with the police. The anger of the demonstrators is obvious, there’s pent-up frustration with a regime they perceive as deaf and dumb to their interests or the institutions of genuine democracy (sound familiar?). The video —a collage of various clashes and possibly… Continue reading
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Yellow Vests, Class Struggle and Spontaneous Revolution by Gaither Stewart
In What Is To Be Done of 1902 Lenin opposed revolutionary spontaneity because it “strips away the disciplined nature of the Marxists idea of revolution, leaving it arbitrary and ineffective.” True to himself, Lenin then returned to opposition to spontaneous revolution after WWI during the German Revolution of 1918-19 when in a spontaneous uprising against… Continue reading
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The Yellow Vests Movement in France
Richard Greeman Reports from Montpellier to the Future Historians group. Continue reading
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French worker sentenced to six months’ jail over Facebook call for demonstrations By Will Morrow
In a series of actions this past week, the government of French President Emmanuel Macron has intensified police-state repression aimed at crushing “yellow vest” protests against social inequality. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 