Every government seems to know the people won’t actually do that anymore. Peaceful protest was encouraged when the alternative was violence, but now that it’s not, it can be safely banned. The French are ironically a great example— they are notorious for their protests and revolution, yet when the government ignored them and raised retirement age, nothing happened.
I’m not saying this is good or bad, nor calling for action. It’s merely an observation. I further observe that perhaps this is the humanity tamed enough for governments to once again put the people last, but with the firepower to enforce it eternally. We need good people seeking public office to prevent this, and other solutions.
Seems like a pretty reasonable reaction to me? What other notable protests would people who didn't die 200 years ago think of? I don't really follow French news, so maybe I'm missing other more recent stuff?
I'd say it's more of a g8ish centrism. I don't care about French news in particular. But their protests get a lot of world new attention. I doubt equivalent protests in a place like Hungary would get similar attention, but it would if it were Japan.
We're taking about France. I'm American and like BBQ but I'm not going to complain about not following international news when we're in a fucking thread in a comment section talking about fucking France.
As wild pointed out, France has a reputation for frequent and massive protests regularly (compared to places like the US). Like, I was partly joking about the recent news thing because its a meme at this point. Obviously I don't know what was in the mind of theacharnian, but my first thought was to think about what most recently happened when France made major news for protests against banning protests.