France Is Rising Up Against Macron’s Globalist Fuel Taxes

November 24, 2018 Hunter Wallace Energy, Environment, Europe, France, Politics 12

There was a lot of snark the other day when Trump said on Twitter that he was putting America First by cutting Saudi Arabia some slack in order to maintain cheap gas prices:

Gas really is cheap right now.

No one is complaining about it either after being crushed in the 2000s. This has more to do with US production which has shot through the roof over the past five years. President Trump was also panned in Europe by Macron for pulling out of the Paris climate agreement.

Maybe Trump hasn’t been given enough credit for cheap gas prices. He also issued some executive orders on offshore drilling. That’s still years away, but the US energy picture is much brighter than it was in the W. and Obama years at the height of the Peak Oil scare. ACKSHUALLY, drill, baby drill worked. Sarah Palin was mocked for it, but when you drill for oil the price comes down.

Meanwhile, while we are sitting pretty in the United States, it is like a scene out of Mad Max: The Road Warrior right now in Macron’s France:

“French police locked horns with thousands of angry protesters who stormed the streets with placards wearing yellow vests before hurling objects at riot police and starting fires. Shocking images show demonstrators waving an array of flags and ramming metal barriers into police, with some being dragged away from the scene by officers. Paris is currently under a fog of tear gas, with demonstrators also being targeted with water cannons to fire at police. Officers are also seen edging closer to protestors using a wall of their shields.

A trailer was set on fire and exploded on the Champs Elysees and a man who tried to attack fire fighters was overpowered by some of the demonstrators themselves.

On the nearby Avenue de Friedland, police fired special rubber balls at protesters to control rioters.

Riot police arrested 22 people in Paris and at protests in other parts of the country. …

A poll this week indicated that 73 percent of people in France have expressed support for the protests, which have been characterised as a grassroots movement lacking in clear leadership.

Mr Macron admitted failing to “reconcile the French with their leaders” and had “not given them enough consideration” but is standing firm and refusing to back the fuel taxes.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner accused far-right leader Marine Le Pen of fanning the protests in the capital.

He said: ”The ultra-right is mobilised and is building barricades on the Champs Elysees. They are progressively being neutralised and pushed back by police.”

In a message on Twitter, Le Pen said she had questioned why no protests were being allowed in the area. …”

The outrage isn’t caused by Peak Oil.

It is due to Macron’s globalist energy policies. “France of the periphery,” which is to say, the real French people who live outside of Paris and have to drive to work are rebelling:

“The protest may be amorphous, but the anger is real enough.

Its heartland is what’s become known here as the France of the periphery: that is, the thousands of small towns across the country where people depend heavily on cars to get to work and to shop – and feel their values are ignored by the sophisticated rule makers of the capital.

The price of diesel, the most commonly used fuel in French cars, has risen by around 23% over the past 12 months to an average of €1.51 (£1.32; $1.71) per litre, its highest point since the early 2000s, AFP reports.

World oil prices did rise before falling back again but the Macron government raised its hydrocarbon tax this year by 7.6 cents per litre on diesel and 3.9 cents on petrol, as part of a campaign for cleaner cars and fuel.

The decision to impose a further increase of 6.5 cents on diesel and 2.9 cents on petrol on 1 January 2019 was seen as the final straw.

The president has blamed world oil prices for three-quarters of the price rise. He also said more tax on fossil fuels was needed to fund renewable energy investments. …”

Yeah, I don’t think it is due to world oil prices:

Macron’s government is blaming Marine Le Pen for the protests.

There is talk that Marine Le Pen is resurgent in France. The next presidential election is still years away, but Marine Le Pen will need a new issue to breakthrough the mainstream cartel. For Donald Trump, it was the devastation of the Midwest that put him over the top and in the White House.




About Hunter Wallace 12380 Articles
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12 Comments

  2. I don’t buy it. I lived in France for some time and although there are very “woke” French they are such a minority as to be inconsequential. Don’t read too much into this French are more likely to riot for more big government than anything else.

  3. Trump is big on cheap gas prices – he was talking about it for years. It does help the working class substantially and is something he should use as a campaign talking point.

    But, it’s one thing for the price of gas to rise dramatically by defying Saudi Arabia which would benefit us in the long run anyway to become self-sufficient. It’s quite another for it to happen so Macron can virtue signal about global warming on the world stage.

  4. General strikes and protests are very common in France but now the CGT, the biggest union in France, and Christophe Castaner, the equivalent of the U.S. Attorney General, are denouncing those massive protests by saying the Far-Right are behind it. I think that’s a big error on their part because it will associate a very genuine and popular movement with a movement, the Far-Right, they always tried, with success, to marginalize.

    • Exactly. They protest high diesel prices but wont say a peep about giving away their country to muslims and blacks. I don’t care if the whole country burns.

      • MOTS/Powell

        Thanks guys-you’ve just said exactly what I was going to type.
        It doesn’t matter if they have sharia law, bombs going off everywhere and third world living conditions……as long as they have their cheap diesel.

  6. Come on. It will open their eyes. Now they can pretend that Paris is not Zimbabwe. Once diesel cost so much, that they can not leave, maybe they come back to sounder policies.
    We really need to get perspective. We not even 5% of population. People like us are deep minority. Even if we are so miniscule minority, we tear down ourselves. Unless we are like 20% of white people. Organised 20% of white people, we really can hold on political power. We can benefit more from Left mistake.
    I was floored, that Tucker Carlson is not biggest start on TV in USA. Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow !!!!! have bigger numbers. We need live in reality.

  7. I say to all Americans-go for a walk or run occasionally. Ride a pushbike. Jump on a train to go somewhere and actually notice what you’re going past. You’ll be amazed! You’ll also lose weight.
    My sister arrived home from America recently….and was astounded by all the gas guzzlers, obesity and fast food chains-the sheer excess just turned her stomach-but she does love Americans.
    Wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t need Saudi Arabia’s oil-they’d be nothing without oil, these barbarians. I look forward to the day when we no longer need them.
    I hold the view that we need to move on from an oil centered economy to other forms of propulsion, purely to end our reliance on another (sometimes hostile) nations resources. If that means going electric, water or compressed air (and I’m no expert at all) powered, then that’s perhaps where we need to go.
    I speak as a lover of old classic cars, trucks and motorbikes-but the time is coming where we need to futureproof the ways we get around.

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