This is why cars make you more independent than buses and trams. It'd be a lot harder for the government to close all of the roads than just shutting off public transit.
A lot of the sensitive suburbs (amusing French euphemism) as well as university domains built after 1968 are designed so that entrance and egress can be hindered during riots. A car might not help, depending on where you are.
Driving a car is pretty miserable in the high density areas these types of riots happen in anyway. As a person who values that kind of independence, I choose to live further out in the country.
You should see how the Israeli government blocks off roads from Palestinians in their apartheid state. It's very methodical and cruel, but the government absolutely can do it.
Just so things are clear, France is suspending all bus services in cities at night. Buses generally run city to suburbs routes and have been subjected to attacks for the past few nights. Trains, which are the most used form of public transport in France, are still running.
France currently has an issue with very young protesters (mostly teenagers) burning public infrastructures. Violence is still fairly limited. Riots might be a big word for what is happening.
Sure but the country is not a war zone. At the moment, actual physical violence is mostly limited to fights between young protesters and the police in some suburbs. It's the usual misguided answer to a sadly very real issue except it's harder to reason with kids.
Macron’s paternalistic tone won’t help France one bit, it wasn’t “kids” who just beat two off-duty cops in Marseile (one of them was left unconscious on the street), it wasn’t a “kid” the guy screaming “les arabes vous enkulent!” while live-streaming the whole thing.
It's nothing to do with paternalism. Anyone who has ever worked as a teacher in the suburbs of Paris or has an actual understanding of what's happening gathered outside of the very right wing news channels could tell you that violence is now carried by younger and younger individuals. You can listen to Martin Aubry explaning what's happening in Lille for exemple.
But sure, as usual, the average French (nowadays 50-ish, dubiously educated, enjoying a remarkable prosperity which decades of chronic mismanagement have made but a dream for their own children) will blame the "foreigners".
The right will complain that the country is too laxist while ignoring the real issue of police violence and more broadly police management. The left will blame the government while ignoring that policies they themselves put in place are a large part of the social problems creating the current situation and remain in denial of, well, modernity. Peace will more or less be back in a fortnight and things will resume their usual course towards utter irrelevance and failure. Gosh, I hate this country.
To me it seems way different than 2005. I was working (illegally, I was 15 and unpaid) with my father in a 'quartier ZEP' to help kids do their homework (we also played sport, board games and taught 'La vie en communauté' in general). For some reasons, I'm at the same place 18 years later, and it's not the same public. I'm living right in front of were the 'chaos' was last night. It feels way younger (I might just be way older, but truth to be told, I don't think it's that), more diverse (not just concerning the skin color and the religion, more socially diverse especially), more frantic, more violent at times but less focused. That might end in like two days.
It doesn't feel like the usual social crisis. I'm not sure it's social at all. It might be mostly generational. I think they are scared.
Also, we're back to the 70s it seems. Michel Rocard's inheritance is definitely gone. I'm afraid we're becoming the US in Europe, it surely seems we're racing the British toward that goalpost.
Concerts cancelled (Stade De France tonight), special units of police brought in, armored vehicules which we had never seen apart from actual war scenes, ... yeah, definitely no riots there.
Special units are called for everything nowadays. I live in Paris and police vans park in my street. Even for peaceful demonstrations, hundreds of armored policemen are brought in the city. That's a significant part of the issue actually with France insisting on using a demonstrably outdated and inappropriate way of policing.
France intentionally kept apart from the work being done on policing by its European neighbours in the last two decades and is now paying the price.
The cops killed a teenager. I can't imagine the anger and grief their family, friends, and community are going through. The police are supposed to protect a community, and if they are murdering kids, what recourse is there?
Outrage and "riots" are appropriate. The responsibility for this damage lies with the police.
A 17-year-old would in most countries be judged as an adult. Was driving a Mercedes AMG without a driver's license and of course no insurance. Was "known to the police, particularly for resisting arrest," and in fact had been charged with resisting the previous weekend and five times since 2021. His judicial file included 15 recorded incidents, including use of false license plates, driving without insurance, and for the sale and consumption of narcotics.
None of the above excuses the police shooting, but you do not think the police was essentially trying to prevent somebody who sooner or later would kill a pedestrian or cause a serious road accident?
It's actually a clear case of Everybody Sucks: untrained racist police meets criminals with no respect for authorities. When everybody makes nonsense, violence and then death can quickly happen.
Many are comparing the current situation to the 2005 protests.
Relevant: TIL that during the 2005 French riots, up to 1408 cars were burned per night across the country. The government declared that the riots had ended when, after three weeks of chaos, only 98 cars were burned per night ("return to a normal situation everywhere in France"). <https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/4i50p8/til_t...>
I suggest a different observation: the point is impede people travels. Now imaging other riots, against a dictatorship, in a world of connected, remotely controllable cars, YOUR (mine) new car.
Now imaging the same in a cash-less world where few controls cash flows/exchange and what they can do to a country economy.
Now imaging the same in a country where votes are digital, on someone servers.
I can keep going but the point is that in the past no dictator can really rule alone, nothing can really keep a society under a dictatorship except willing/accepting people's mind. With actual king of "progress" who actually is no much new nor innovative nor a "natural tech evolution" we add new weapons in few hands. As long as we are all powerless or all super-heavy armed there is anyway a balance of power. As long as the balance of power shift, no matter current intentions and personal honesty and will, we are heading in a very dark age.
Do remember yourself this evolution is human, not technological, we can have connected cars who are hosts, personally handled by their formal human owner, connected just to him/her in a classic client-server manner. We can have networks of independent hosts who exchange thing (hey, we already have it since decades!) instead of a network with few giants hubs and all the rest depending on them. The only point is choosing how to evolve. Actually someone have chosen for their own interests, like IBM in the past, GAFAM thereafter, while most people have had even no clue in what's happening... Maybe it's time to start think about the possible near-term and mid-term future...
43 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 49.0 ms ] threadFrance currently has an issue with very young protesters (mostly teenagers) burning public infrastructures. Violence is still fairly limited. Riots might be a big word for what is happening.
Macron’s paternalistic tone won’t help France one bit, it wasn’t “kids” who just beat two off-duty cops in Marseile (one of them was left unconscious on the street), it wasn’t a “kid” the guy screaming “les arabes vous enkulent!” while live-streaming the whole thing.
But sure, as usual, the average French (nowadays 50-ish, dubiously educated, enjoying a remarkable prosperity which decades of chronic mismanagement have made but a dream for their own children) will blame the "foreigners".
The right will complain that the country is too laxist while ignoring the real issue of police violence and more broadly police management. The left will blame the government while ignoring that policies they themselves put in place are a large part of the social problems creating the current situation and remain in denial of, well, modernity. Peace will more or less be back in a fortnight and things will resume their usual course towards utter irrelevance and failure. Gosh, I hate this country.
To me it seems way different than 2005. I was working (illegally, I was 15 and unpaid) with my father in a 'quartier ZEP' to help kids do their homework (we also played sport, board games and taught 'La vie en communauté' in general). For some reasons, I'm at the same place 18 years later, and it's not the same public. I'm living right in front of were the 'chaos' was last night. It feels way younger (I might just be way older, but truth to be told, I don't think it's that), more diverse (not just concerning the skin color and the religion, more socially diverse especially), more frantic, more violent at times but less focused. That might end in like two days.
It doesn't feel like the usual social crisis. I'm not sure it's social at all. It might be mostly generational. I think they are scared.
Also, we're back to the 70s it seems. Michel Rocard's inheritance is definitely gone. I'm afraid we're becoming the US in Europe, it surely seems we're racing the British toward that goalpost.
That's what Obelix always says.
I'm sorry what?
France intentionally kept apart from the work being done on policing by its European neighbours in the last two decades and is now paying the price.
Outrage and "riots" are appropriate. The responsibility for this damage lies with the police.
None of the above excuses the police shooting, but you do not think the police was essentially trying to prevent somebody who sooner or later would kill a pedestrian or cause a serious road accident?
I think that the cop tragically overreacted/panicked and is basically already condemned (including by the president).
This is a tragedy for everyone and the rest is pure hooliganism.
Do you live in one of the city that was under attack?
Relevant: TIL that during the 2005 French riots, up to 1408 cars were burned per night across the country. The government declared that the riots had ended when, after three weeks of chaos, only 98 cars were burned per night ("return to a normal situation everywhere in France"). <https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/4i50p8/til_t...>
Now imaging the same in a cash-less world where few controls cash flows/exchange and what they can do to a country economy.
Now imaging the same in a country where votes are digital, on someone servers.
I can keep going but the point is that in the past no dictator can really rule alone, nothing can really keep a society under a dictatorship except willing/accepting people's mind. With actual king of "progress" who actually is no much new nor innovative nor a "natural tech evolution" we add new weapons in few hands. As long as we are all powerless or all super-heavy armed there is anyway a balance of power. As long as the balance of power shift, no matter current intentions and personal honesty and will, we are heading in a very dark age.
Do remember yourself this evolution is human, not technological, we can have connected cars who are hosts, personally handled by their formal human owner, connected just to him/her in a classic client-server manner. We can have networks of independent hosts who exchange thing (hey, we already have it since decades!) instead of a network with few giants hubs and all the rest depending on them. The only point is choosing how to evolve. Actually someone have chosen for their own interests, like IBM in the past, GAFAM thereafter, while most people have had even no clue in what's happening... Maybe it's time to start think about the possible near-term and mid-term future...