The French are populistic and usually make a lot of sense with their complaints.
But it doesn’t matter because they live in a democracy, and in a democracy there is no recourse. You have no ability to petition grievances. The government can do whatever they want to you and you just have to take it like a bitch.
If you protest, they just laugh. If you riot (as the French often do), they send the police to beat you.
RT:
A major rally against the membership of France in NATO and the supply of weapons to Ukraine took place in Paris on Sunday.
Florian Philippot, the head of the right-wing Les Patriotes party, which organized the march, claimed that it had gathered some 10,000 people and was the largest such protest to date. He said 25 smaller anti-NATO rallies were held elsewhere across France on the same day.
Videos from the French capital did capture a significant crowd of at least several thousand people, carrying French national flags and a large banner reading: “For peace.”
The crowd chanted slogans, including “No planes, no tanks, no missiles for Ukraine,” “Let’s get out of NATO,” “Macron, we don’t want your war,” and “No to World War III” among others.
At some point during the event, Philippot got on stage and used scissors to cut the blue NATO flag in half to the cheers of the demonstrators. “NATO means war,” he proclaimed.
Good luck to them, but it’s just a basic reality that the government does not care about protests and are not obligated to care.
« Sortons vite de l’OTAN » « Pas d’avions pour l’Ukraine » « Pas de chars pour l’Ukraine » Plus de 10 000 personnes demandent la fin de l’escalade de la guerre en Ukraine, et la sortie de la France de l’OTAN! 📍Paris, 12/02/23#Ukraine️ #NonALa3eGuerreMondiale pic.twitter.com/QvyeFe1xAl
— Tamila Tapayeva (@tamilatapayeva) February 12, 2023
I went through this with the Alt-Right – these people always wanted to go out into the streets to protest and it was like “what exactly is the point of this?”
It really only ever makes sense as a show of solidarity with people who already agree with you, or with issues that individuals can affect. I think the anti-vax and anti-mask protests actually were helpful in that everyone was isolated in that time and seeing people out in the streets gave them the courage to stand up in their own lives.
But no one has the ability, in their own life, to stand up and stop the Ukraine war or exit NATO. These are government policies, and the government simply does not care what peasants think.
This is one of the many reasons why authoritarian systems are so much better. The government is accountable to the people, because you can depose the government. You can’t depose democracy. You can just keep voting.
American think tanks actually say this in regards to an economic crisis: they say that the Western democracies are insulated from public outcry, while China and Russia, being authoritarian states, are accountable to their populations, given that they are susceptible to civil unrest.
It’s all very obvious, but somehow people have been made to believe that you have LESS freedom in an authoritarian system. We don’t have Jesus anymore, so people will just believe the opposite of the truth, even when the obvious realities are right in front of their faces.
Ironically, democracy was also only feasible in a Christian society, where the people knew right from wrong, and even the rich had some sense of honor and duty.
It’s all just a mess.