French Politics

A fucking Intensive Care Unit no less.

Oh les cons.

Edited by Yumil on May 2nd 2019 at 5:08:23 PM

I'm trying to work out how anybody thought the optics of this could ever get spun well.

Because... <gestures fustratedly>

Seriously, the only way it could have been worse is if they had charged a maternity or sick kids ward....

Some reports say that they destroyed equipment as well.

Account from someone who claims to have been in the demonstration paints another picture:

Edited by Medinoc on May 2nd 2019 at 6:04:25 PM

The news about that hospital seem very suspicious indeed.

Somewhat doubtful that the narrative will chabge even if these facts become widespread, but we'll see. Bit early to make judgements.

If you want unambiguous despicable acts from some yellow vests, you can go back a week to their "kill yourself" chants addressed to police officers.

Yeah...let's wait and see….

It doesn't matter whodunit: whether the police herded the crowd using crowd control tactics and either neglected to note the hospital or deliberately chose to guide them there, or whether the route was chosen by somebodies in the YV with half an eye each giving the hospital a little thought (be it for "just in case loads get hurt" or "visibility: rawr!"). Or even an unholy mix of both.

It's bad optics either way.

Because panicked, unclued-in crowds cause damage, regardless of motive.

Edited by Euodiachloris on May 2nd 2019 at 5:58:45 PM

Don't charge hospitals. Easy. Otherwise, you are the bad guy.

Fuck these rioters.

If you've just had a face full of tear gas, you tend to want medical attention for quite understandable reasons.

If you know where the hospital is and can get there easily... When enough of a crowd get the same destination in mind, most of the crowd moves with.

Edited by Euodiachloris on May 2nd 2019 at 5:40:00 PM

And if you do charge into a hospital, at least try to stay out of the ICU.

And don't break stuff.

I think that second one is something too many YV people have trouble with.

Again, that depends who you believe. Police say the YV broke stuff, YV say they didn't... and according to each side, hospital staff agrees with them.

Well, YV already has a precedence of breaking stuff that has little to do with their ostensible goals. Like setting fire to cars during a protest over people sending money to repair Notre Dame.

I've been inconvenienced by protesters before, but at least they didn't break anything.

Edited by M84 on May 3rd 2019 at 12:49:57 AM

Yeah, they've lost the benefit of the doubt. They've constantly been torching cars and local businesses that have nothing to do with the government. They are rioters, and they've lost all sympathy at this point.

Storming an ICU is another level, though, hence some confirmation would be nice. Like, the hospital staff should know what happened, right?

Le Monde seem to lean on the "fake news" stance. Apparently, of the 32 people involved, only 2 have a black block profile and the other are your average manifesting student. All of the arrested people got released too, so there's apprently no charges to press them on.

Apparently, it's the director of the hospital who panicked at the sight of the YV entering the building and exagerrated a wee bit too much. No concrete element supports that assertion, and video footage apparently support the "taking shelter from the tear gas" thing.

The article on the matter also treats for a fact that no damage was caused to the ICU section of the hostpial. Or in all of the hospital, actually, aside from the entrance grid, obviously.

Looks like Castaner jumped the gun a bit too soon and ran with the "broke into ICU to break shit" story and is now looking very silly.

Edited by Yumil on May 3rd 2019 at 10:43:49 AM

Castaner also said there was no police violence. Why anyone still believes what he says is a mystery.

Piggybacking a bit on Rationnal Insanity, I'm not sure I buy the rioter angle that much. I live in Grenoble. Sure, that's not Paris or even Lyon, but it's still one of the major cities of the country. I still have yet to notice a single property damage caused by the YV in town. There's exactly one burnt thing I come across on a regular basis, and it dates back to when we won world cup. in fact, aside from may 1st, I still have to be actively inconvenienced by the movement at all save for one time several months ago when they were blocking a major road while I was taking driving lessons. As far as I can see, the YV are still more reasonable than just people happy we won a football tournament.

I'm not gonna pretend there hasn't been any property damage caused or any degeneracy, but when I see cases of misinformation that spread out this much and this fast, how violent and hateful the media depicts them, and how quiet and unimportant they are where I live, I'm starting to question how overblown the violence is.

Edited by Yumil on May 3rd 2019 at 11:37:41 AM

Probably overblown to some extent, but not as much as people who support YV think it is.

Course, this is coming from an outside perspective who has a dim view of too loosely organized and decentralized movements fueled entirely by anger that are unable or unwilling to keep their worst elements in check.

Edited by M84 on May 3rd 2019 at 5:35:27 PM

This might be one scandal too many for Castaner. I doubt he'll remain at his post for very long.

Otherwise, small anecdote to give you an idea of how the atmosphere can be here (especially in Brittany, a notoriously government-wary region). I was taking a pause from my night job, and was getting myself a kebab. I had forgotten to take off my fluo orange jacket, wich I need to wear on the train tracks. A group of young guys waiting for their meals told me half-jokingly I had the colour wrong, to wich I replied I was trying new things. They immediately turned hostile and jumped to the conclusion I was in opposition to the YJ movement (wich I kind of am, but that's not the point). It could have gotten a bit ugly, but the kebab vendor yelled at them until they left. Weird times.

Edited by Kevan on May 3rd 2019 at 10:37:13 AM

I dunno. I mean, I'm not going to condone the violent tendencies of the movement, but at the same time, we can't really pretend the 1789 revolution was a well-organized, pacific movement who never went overboard.

And while I'm sure historians would have a lot more to say about the actual net result of that revolution that the romanticized version we're taught at school, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that several signficant good things came out of it. If the YV were to be the second french revolution, I'd expect the future (if we have one, not really guaranteed but not my point) to gloss over the bad parts of the movement. I'm not really sure that revolutions can always be pacific.

In the end, I'm more concerned with whether or not the YV will become a full-on revolution or just be another burst of contestation that won't go anywhere like Nuit Debout was, and whether a revolution would be a good thing or not, than whether or not they've broke one too many thing while doing so.

Edited by Yumil on May 3rd 2019 at 12:46:43 PM

Episode 74: Liberal Gandhi Fetishism and the Problem with Pop Notions of 'Violence'

Denying rioters sympathy for breaking stuff, compared to the systemic violence motivating them, is losing perspective and proportion. Especially when all they do is break and burn stuff. We should not buy what the press is selling.

And there you lose me. Violence is sometimes unavoidable. But it is never harmless. Not even if it only destroy stuff. First because that stuff tends to belong to people (possibly struggling people) or be paid by our taxes, but also because it lead to a mob mentality who can itself lead to violence against people. To say nothing of living in a town with broken glass and melted trashcan everywhere. And I cannot really say violence is justified in this case. While things could be better, the people of France are not opressed or anything like this. If the democratic system can't handle this, it can handle nothing.