Latest update: 20/10/2010 

- France - Nicolas Sarkozy - Retirement - strike - unions


Burning and looting – pension protests in the foreign press

Burning and looting – pension protests in the foreign press

Protests over proposed pension reforms have crippled France's transport system and posed a major challenge for the country's embattled government – but they have been largely peaceful. Not quite the view taken by some of Europe's newspapers...

By FRANCE 24 (text)
 

 

Monday’s violence raised the spectre of May 1968, when rioters took to the streets of Paris to bring down the government of former French President Charles de Gaulle – or so part of the foreign press would have you believe.
 
The protests against French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposed pension reforms, expected to be passed by the country’s upper Senate this week, have been largely peaceful.
 
But on Monday irresistible images of upturned cars, burning petrol, riot police and hooded youths poured into newsrooms around the world.
 
The incidents in question did not even involve workers, but school children at a loose end when they found their college gates were closed because their teachers were on strike.
 
Some protests turned violent and 290 youths were arrested, the Interior Ministry said.
 
The students set a handful of cars on fire, toppled a telephone booth and hurled debris at police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, as well as in Lyon and elsewhere – hardly a re-run of the French Revolution.
 
The incendiary coverage…
 
But the coverage on Britain’s right-wing Daily Mail was certainly incendiary. “Britons warned to stay away as violence spirals,” screamed the headline above pictures of burning cars and baton-wielding riot police.
 

Its article concludes that “many fear a re-run of the May 1968 riots in Paris when thousands took to the streets to try to bring down the government of President Charles de Gaulle,” without specifying who these “many” are.

 
Another UK newspaper, the liberal Independent, reported that the violence – which it admits happened at the fringes of the student demonstrations raised the spectre of “a re-run of the multi-racial suburban riots of five years ago,” which had little or nothing to do with the nationwide protests over plans to raise the retirement age.
 
In Germany, left-leaning Der Spiegel suggested that while the French government had so far succeeded in giving the impression of being in control, the reality is that violence and chaos is spreading through the country.
 
And the Suddeutsche Zeitung went further, implying a fight to the death between Sarkozy and the nation’s youth. Above pictures of the violence it leads with the headline that “there can only be one survivor in this battle: Nicolas Sarkozy or the street”.
 
…and the more pragmatic
 
If it is a fight to the death, Spain’s right-wing daily ABC says that Sarkozy has no choice but to fight his corner or suffer an ignominious political demise.
 
It writes: “If Sarkozy drops his trousers and concedes to pressure from the street, France’s national debt will escalate, France’s debt repayments will go up even more and he would end up the victim of his own concessions to the unions.”
 
But Sarkozy certainly has a battle ahead. Newspaper La Informacion laments Spain’s arguably much worse situation with more than double France’s unemployment rate and a retirement age set to go up from 65 to 67.
 
Why, it asks, do the Spanish not take to the streets like the French? “Because of the strong tradition of mobilisation and protest in the country of the French revolution, coupled with the strength of the unions.”

 

Comments (17)

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Do not change your travel plans to Paris

Having just returned from a weeks work in Paris, and actually happening to be present at one of the riots in Nanterre, stuck in traffic, I can allay anyone who has any fears of travelling there. There is immense media sensationalism with this story. The violent rioters in Nanterre were clearly a handful of yobs, not schoolchildren who had turned up to enjoy the freedom offered by way of the strikes to simply carry out vandalism - and not on a any great scale. Nanterre is a long way away from central Paris and the tourist hotspots, where as a result of people staying at home you can enjoy the City at its quietest. It is true that some trains are not running and there is real frustration at wildcat action when the scheduled trains simply do not turn up. Costs to people like me working there are higher as a result, meaning less payable tax and less money for pensions ultimately. But in reality even in the worst hotspots of the violence are much less dangerous than you would find in any UK town at pub closing time and they occur in places no one would want to go willingly anyway.

pensions protests

This is what happen when the Unions are so strongly unreasonable and the people become dependent on the government for all their needs... everyone must pay for everything and this is unsustainable.

travel?

i was planning my first trip to paris the first week in november and now i'm afraid and nervous to go! can someone honestly tell me if it's safe with all of this craziness going on?? would any parisian tell me to travel there right now? or just wait??
HELP.

Strikes

How do these stupid people think you can reduce the country's budget deficit by going on srike, burning vehicles and blocking fuel refinaries I'd like to hear a plan from them, but no. Not a word. Let's just cause a bit of chaos and mayhem.

Self Caricature

It looks very surprising and odd to see the French authorities trying to hide the scandals happening during last few days!!!
Quoting the above article "The incidents in question did not even involve workers, but school children at a loose end when they found their college gates were closed because their teachers were on strike"
- does that really give the school children the chance to go around damaging public properties and burning cars in any democracy!!! And that too coming from school children who might have not understood what they are doing!!!
To quote further: "The students set a handful of cars on fire, toppled a telephone booth and hurled debris at police in the Paris suburb of Nanterre, as well as in Lyon and elsewhere – hardly a re-run of the French Revolution"
- So the above incidents had not only happened in Paris region but also in lyon, which proves very well that what happened was pre planned and not mere aggression from school students who found their teachers on strike!!!
Why France is trying to hide such scandals from the outside world when their own news channels are the first ones to made up small incidents of neighbouring countries in unnecessary big scandals and showing their people what is not the actual truth??? Is it not some kind of self caricatursim that France is doing right now?

Love for America

I love america, so much. The streets are cleaned with love and you know what else. The cakes are baked with love. and i just love the world and everyone else in it.

These guys need to pull

These guys need to pull themselves together!

Visit to Paris?

My wife and I have so been looking forward to a long weekend in Paris this weekend .. we are to arrive from Canada on Friday morning at CDG and then head for Germany on Sunday ... now, we are worried and thinking about just going straight to Germany. We dont want to wait in long, blockaded line ups at the airport, train stations etc. Does anyone have any feedback?

GREVES

LA VIOLENCE NE FAIT QUE PLAISIR À SARKOZY ET SES SBIRES>>>
SOLIDARITE AVEC LES GREVISTES>>>Au Printemps 2004 des agents d"EDF surnommés" les Robins des bois" rétablirent l'électricité dans des foyers ou elle avait été coupée...VIVE LA LUTTE LUDIQUE

Burning and looting – pension protests

Typical behavior one would expect from thugs. I guess that sums it up, the unions are nothing more than havens for thugs. "Give me what I want or I will cause and partake in strikes and violence!" Nothing more than BLACKMAIL. It would ne best if the French Government BANNED ALL unions once and for all!

strike in France

people have no other choise than win on the streets what governors violently take. I wish I could be there by them but I think we Greeks wake up and do the same thning. The whole Europe should be by their side, I feel proud for the French People, they are the last to save democracy.
Thank you for your time

I'm watching too

Not sure - I hear about this every morning on NPR and - when I catch a few minutes - Rush or Beck. For me, this is a bellwether of what welfare brings - pits everyone against everyone, makes life miserable for everyone attached to it, and in the end, can't deliver; it's a death spiral. I hope the US learns from this, but they won't.

U.S. Media Ignores French Strikes

I'm watching the strikes in France, but I have to do so through news sites outside the United States. Most local media in the U.S. report nothing about the strikes. The national networks also ignore most of what is going on in France. What is the big international story in the U.S.? The mine rescue in Chile. Even now the U.S. media is flogging the mine rescue story for everything they can get. They are also reporting on the latest supposed terrorist threats against Europe. It seems the U.S. media is avoiding anything that shows the People standing up against their governments. viva les Français!

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