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Title: Clashes, protests in French tensions over pensions
Source:
My Way News
URL Source: http://apnews.myway.com/article/20101021/D9J01LTG0.html
Published: Oct 21, 2010
Author: ANGELA CHARLTON
Post Date: 2010-10-21 09:27:04 by noone222
Keywords: None
Views: 142
Comments: 12
PARIS (AP) - Protesters blockaded Marseille's airport, Lady Gaga canceled concerts in Paris and rioting youths attacked police in Lyon on Thursday ahead of a tense Senate vote on raising the retirement age. A quarter of the nation's gas stations were out of fuel despite President Nicolas Sarkozy's orders to force open depots barricaded by striking workers. Gasoline shortages and violence on the margins of student protests have heightened the standoff between the government and labor unions who see retirement at 60 as a hard-earned right. New violence broke out in Lyon, as police chased rampaging youths who overturned a car and hurled bottles. Riot officers tried to subdue the violence with tear gas. A gendarme helicopter circled overhead. "It is not troublemakers who will have the last word in a democracy," Sarkozy told local officials in central France, promising to find and punish rioters. Students barricaded a Paris high school and planned protests nationwide Thursday, as the Senate wraps up protracted debate on a reform that Sarkozy calls crucial to his presidency. The Senate vote on the bill is scheduled for Thursday, but the debate could drag on for another day or two. Opposition Socialists proposed more than 1,000 amendments to the pension reform bill approved by the lower house of parliament last month, and the Senators must debate and vote on each one. The French government - like many heavily indebted governments around Europe - says raising the retirement age and overhauling the money-losing pension system is vital to ensuring that future generations receive any pensions at all. French unions say the working class is unfairly punished by the pension reform and that the government should find money for the pension system elsewhere. They fear this reform will herald the end of an entire network of welfare benefits that make France an enviable place to work and live. "We cannot stop now," Jean-Claude Mailly, head of the Workers' Force union, said Thursday of the protest movement. Unions have held several rounds of one-day strikes in recent months, but scattered actions have turned increasingly radical as the bill heads for near-certain approval in the Senate. Leading labor unions are meeting Thursday to decide what to do next. Student protests have forced the government to its knees in the past, and in recent days some have degenerated into violence. In Nanterre, the scene of running street battles between masked and hooded youth and riot police in recent days, the scene Thursday morning was calm, said Mehdi Najar, one of a few dozen red-jacketed mediators organized by the city hall to try to keep the peace. "But there's a big protest planned at noon in front of the prefecture, it risks being hot," Najar said. In Marseille, hundreds of workers blocked all access to the main airport for about three hours early Thursday. Passengers tugged suitcases along blocked roads as they hiked to the terminal, before police came in and the protesters dispersed. Wildcat protests blocked train lines around Paris on Thursday. Protesters in cars and trucks blocked several highways around the country, from near Calais in the north to the Pyrenees in the south, according to the national road traffic center. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux lashed out at "certain people who take pieces of our territory for battlefields." Speaking on Europe-1 radio Thursday, Hortefeux said 1,901 people have been detained since early last week. Hortefeux insisted that the country has several weeks of gasoline reserves and that "the trend is toward improvement" in supplies. Still, he said a quarter of France's gas stations lack fuel. Kamal Guerfa works - or at least shows up for work - at a gas station in Lyon. But on Thursday, there was nothing to pump. "We are here, ready to work, there's no problem with that. The problem is that people come to get gas and there is none. That's the problem," he said. Laurette Meyer's heart sank when she saw the empty pumps. "It is penalizing. We work in the building construction business. We have employees who drive all day long in order to build the houses for our customers and it's starting to be very difficult," she said. Sarkozy accused strikers of "taking the economy, businesses, daily life hostage." Families around the country are on edge over the gasoline shortages because school vacations start Friday. Authorities, however, are hoping that the vacations cool off student tempers. On Thursday morning, students shut down the Turgot High School near the Place de la Republique in eastern Paris after a student union vote. Teens sat in the middle of the street, barring vehicle traffic. Some sang songs and chanted labor slogans while police guarded the area. The U.S. Embassy in Paris warned Americans "to avoid demonstrations currently taking place in France." The warning said peaceful demonstrations can escalate into violence, and urges visitors to check with their airlines in case of airport disruptions, and check with rental car agencies about the availability of gasoline. The strikes are hitting the entertainment industry, too. Lady Gaga's website says the singer postponed two Paris concerts scheduled for Friday and Saturday "as there is no certainty the trucks can make it" to the show. --- AP Television News reporters Greg Keller and Oleg Cetinic in Paris and Jonathan Shenfield in Lyon contributed to this report.
Poster Comment: Viva la France !
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#1. To: noone222 (#0)
Well, at least the Frogs have more guts than we Americans.
Firefighters put out a fire of a burning truck after clashes between the police and youth, in Lyon .... A youth prepares to throw a petrol bomb at a bank branch during clashes with police forces in Lyon ....
"Politics and Religion are the building blocks of slavery and oppression. Greed is the mortar that bonds them" and bankers are the masons with trowels in hand !
Ribbet, ribbet, ribbet ... and they don't even have a 2nd Amendment.
"Politics and Religion are the building blocks of slavery and oppression. Greed is the mortar that bonds them" and bankers are the masons with trowels in hand !
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one. "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
The western nation debt is nothing more than an alchemical illusion. (This alchemical "trick" changes the people's real wealth in gold reserves to paper debt allegedly owed by these robbed people as electors of the government). It's all bullshit. The debt of which you speak is imaginary. Money created from NOTHING, lent at interest, against property that's collateralized is expropriation or better stated "THEFT" ...
"Politics and Religion are the building blocks of slavery and oppression. Greed is the mortar that bonds them" and bankers are the masons with trowels in hand !
The Frogs know they won't be shot by the Palace Guard. We have no such guarantee, but there has to come a point for us where that no longer matters. When they begin to balance the budget on the backs of SS recipients, pensioners, and workers, while leaving all the benefits of Sanctuary Cities untouched, it will be time for us to go "Joe Stack"
Remember the Alamo, WACO, Ruby Ridge, and Joe Stack !
"Politics and Religion are the building blocks of slavery and oppression. Greed is the mortar that bonds them" and bankers are the masons with trowels in hand !
The French Government says ... All of these fat cat liars need to be strung up and the people will amass wealth unfettered by TALKING GOVERNMENTS.
"Politics and Religion are the building blocks of slavery and oppression. Greed is the mortar that bonds them" and bankers are the masons with trowels in hand !
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one. "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
Yes, there has to be a monetary system in place. We (the people) are responsible for approving whatever we're willing to work for or sell our products for ... we should demand payment in REAL MONEY or REAL Commodities and NEVER, EVER accept debt monetized.
"Politics and Religion are the building blocks of slavery and oppression. Greed is the mortar that bonds them" and bankers are the masons with trowels in hand !
deleted
The relationship between morality and liberty is a directly proportional one. "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Ben Franklin
ROFLMAO!!! What a dumbass. It sucks to be you, Sarkozy. Please pass your wife over to America before your beheading by the mobs of democracy, she's pretty hawt.
__________________________________________________________Viva la France !
#2. To: All (#0)
(Edited)
#3. To: Cynicom (#1)
Well, at least the Frogs have more guts than we Americans.
#4. To: Cynicom (#1)
(Edited)
#5. To: Eric Stratton (#4)
(Edited)
And it's statements like this that make me think that people are flat out clueless as to the depths of the economic crisis today in the westernized nations;
#6. To: Cynicom, 4 (#1)
Well, at least the Frogs have more guts than we Americans.
#7. To: Jethro Tull (#6)
"Joe Stack"
#8. To: All (#0)
The French government - like many heavily indebted governments around Europe - says raising the retirement age and overhauling the money-losing pension system is vital to ensuring that future generations receive any pensions at all.
#9. To: noone222 (#5)
#10. To: Eric Stratton (#9)
There must be some kind of monetary system in place, we cannot all run around trading on our good graces, yet even if that debt were instantaneously wiped out, due to the size and spending of Gov'ts. worldwide, the problem begins again immediately.
#11. To: noone222 (#10)
#12. To: noone222 (#0)
"It is not troublemakers who will have the last word in a democracy," Sarkozy told local officials...
"This man is Jesus,” shouted one man, spilling his Guinness as Barack Obama began his inaugural address. “When will he come to Kenya to save us?"
-Schweizerische Schuetzenzeitung (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
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