Coming from Limoges, things fell apart badly mainly due to police actions :

• a group went apart tried to go and block the highway

• the police decided to tear gas everyone, including the peacedul protest with families, babies and elderly persons

• people where told by the police to stand back and to go to townhall neighborhood

• building was unprotected, though it's usually is in case of protests

• despite a few plainclothes police officers, no action were taken when first fires started

Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but everywhere in France things were so badly handled by the gov and police that it look almost intentional.

Anyone see any Reddit posts on this? That site is becoming more and more unhinged. Front page is fine for the most part, but some of the other posts about this event that are not too far from the front page are just filled with islamaphobia. I was so lost as to how this is even related to religion until I realized that it’s a bunch of right wing Indian centric accounts. So just idiots fueled by propaganda just spreading more hate.

Quit wasting all that energy! Burn down some data centers! I mean REALLY fuck with the man. Quit fucking with the goddam shop owners selling you dipshits your pokimon cards and go after the culprits - the reason you've got nothing to do, nowhere to live, not enough to eat, and you're out of money.

Fucking FOCUS.

Two things can be true at once.

I wish people wouldn't destroy priceless artifacts, buildings, and works of art as a means of protest. Destroying history in an act of passion makes no sense.

I still fully support the French and hope they guillotine some fucking billionaires and their collaborators. Everyone, everywhere is feeling the pinch and it's heartening to see people fighting for justice.

Its just a building. Just like a flag is just a piece of cloth. Whats a building matter in the face of systematic grift country wide? They'll burn more of them till people wake the eff up.

I checked a few articles about this. They're all very short on facts and very long on emotional reactions. This is most definitely being used to discredit otherwise valid protest. Mostly by far-right-leaning outlets. I found only one article that speaks of masked individuals, refrains from blaming the protests and adds overall context, and it's not in English.

This happened yesterday. It is now Sunday. I will withhold further judgement for a few days.

edit (Monday):

Police reaction to these protests has been described as escalating, violent and incompetent long before this occurence and I can see how that might lead to events like this one.

Taz.de meanwhile has some more context; your favorite nuanced news outlet probably has too.

The day after, however, all that was spoken of was the violence and the powerlessness of the state leadership. The actual topic and reason for the protests, namely the government's austerity policy with its draft national budget and the question of purchasing power, faded into the background - which is perhaps just fine with the government. (source)

I'd also like to add that these acts are not aimed at people, just property. Something that cannot be said about the police violence.

A group of masked protesters who had torched a police car outside the town hall were seen breaking windows and entering the building to set a fire, according to witnesses.

I can hear it now, "The extreme left hate free speech and like to burn things."

​

No false flags needed here. wp:Reichstag fire.

Keep going guys, lead the way and hopefully the rest of the world follows.

Just read interesting interview about the situation (in Spanish and probably paywalled).

TLDR: Macron in a Lame duck president now. Next presidential elections are in May and he can't run again. He doesn't have the time or mandate to start major reforms now.

France has the biggest debt in EU. They have the 3rd highest debt-to-GDP after Italy and Greece. They have worse debt-to-GDP ratio than Spain now.

While people are destroying private and public property causing billions in damages there is simply no one who will listen to them. There's no money in the budget to simply increase funding for education or lower gasoline prices, the debt is already overwhelming them. No one knows who will win the next elections so the current government has little interest in starting major reforms now. All they can do is to send police to the streets and try to control the situation (which they are failing to do, clearly).

The protests have very little chance to achieve anything. Macron will be out in May so how can he even promise anything to the protesters? The protests are mostly pointless. They will most likely just polarize the vote before elections pushing people to support the extremes.

Protesting is fine. Destroying beautiful places like this is a serious loss

And? People lives means shit, but buildings ans statues! Oh those grand building and statues, THE SYMBOLS, THE HISTORY.

History and symbols of what exactly? Of history? Nation or pride? History of a nation of prideful exploiters of the masses. Good it's burned down, it will be rebuilt. But people's lives? Do anyone will make them better, or will people use this building poor fate as an excuse to squeeze lover population even more? Burn more of them. Make them fucking afraid.

In minecraft of course.

Even though the riot has been questionable in terms of goals and it's character, it's been insanely funny to see liberals going mask off everywhere because property damage, especially on reddit and twitter. Really shows where their priorities lie