Aspirational goals. Canada did not pick up enough Francais.
Whenever the French are protesting something they all seem to end up setting their own cars on fire.
“I’m unhappy about the retirement age being raised by one year, here let me set the fire to this random persons fiat, that will show the government”
Whenever the governments of the US and Canada do anything we can’t even be fucked to do much of anything, so I think shutting the hell up and letting the French do what they do is probably better than trying to mock them for at least trying.
Absolutely fantastic. Once you get over the initial chuckle at how novel a concept it is, its a god damn power play.
An army marches on its stomach.
You can’t do that in USA. You don’t have the public transport infrastructure.
Ahhh but many cities and towns have some sort of rails in the streets, and bonus: they’re not being used!
Yeah but they’re all filled in and broken.
I just thought of how that would look on the San Francisco cable car tracks. Fast sausages.
Middle aged American here, and when I was a kid the culture around me regarding france was basically “lol they surrender.” And that whole stupid thing probably peaked in 2003 with Freedom Fries.
But now?
I honestly wonder if any other nation’s population has their heads on straight as much as the French. The only place in Europe where I have spent much time though is up in Sweden, and the nords seem pretty good at life-ing too.
They’ve been flirting with far-right government like most everyone else, but their protesting game is on point. The whole country being smaller than Texas helps, too.
Yeah, the average population density of the US is a lot lower than many people realize. Protests are seen as city-based things, both geographically and culturally.
And then you have eu-nation-sized red states that can hold many many trumpers who are unable to play nice with others because they don’t have to have neighbors.
How on earth the fact that your country also has was swats of empty land stops you from doing effective protesting? Or any, actually.
I didn’t really finish my thought there. Apologies.
It was starting to get at why we don’t really see “the americans” protested like we might “the french.” And our media doesn’t help in how they report it. It enables the republican populace as well as the entire government to more easily ignore it. It’s always "protests broke out in cities across america in response to X.
The physical separation is also part of it. it all helps feed into this “divide” where the republican voters can seemingly give no shits about human suffering or the rise of fascism because it’s all happening to “other” people far away. It might as well be the middle east.
People without neighbors are also less clued into to how policy changes affect entire societies of people, rather than just the price of gas for their truck.
And like the other reply said, this is just one contributing factor.
It’s only one factor. The bigger factor is that our police are insanely militarized. If my black ass tried to barbecue at a protest, I’d get gunned the fuck down, then I’d be unnamed in the news stories (if there were any), and the cop would get a medal for killing a “terrorist”.
Historically, the French really only surrendered once, unfortunately evocative of the “but you fuck a goat one time …” joke. It didn’t help that they surrendered to one of the biggest monsters in history, at a time where they arguably didn’t need to surrender. TBF, the main reason their biggest ally (Britain) didn’t surrender at the same time was the fact that they were able to run away.
The other thing to remember is that when they surrendered they surrendered their entire naval fleet to the Nazis which was really irksome because why did they do that? So then the British had to launch a mission to sink the French naval fleet. All of which was a giant waste of resources, those ships could have come over to the UK.
Obviously it’s all water under the bridge now but it was a tactically stupid decision.
when they surrendered they surrendered their entire naval fleet to the Nazis
This is absolutely not correct. The Nazis didn’t try to seize (what was left of) the French fleet until the end of 1942 (more than two years later) in response to the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa. The French fleet remained under Vichy France’s control and the French admiral had promised to scuttle the fleet if the Germans attempted to seize it. Churchill did not consider this assurance adequate for the security of his country and ordered the attack. It’s worth noting that France did scuttle most of their remaining vessels when the Germans attempted to take them in 1942.
Should the French fleet have continued fighting? As I mentioned in my comment, the entire country could have and probably should have continued fighting. But once France surrendered, there’s no particularly logical reason why just one part of their military should have gone on.
Freedom Fries
As an European, I still can’t believe you guys did that
It does seem they’re suffering from the same rightward-slide that many other countries are facing though, unfortunately.
Middle aged American here, and when I was a kid the culture around me regarding france was basically “lol they surrender.”
Copied from my earlier comment elsewhere:
Have an extensive history of military might, from rampaging barbarian hordes, to a continent-conquering emperor, to a foreign legion famed as being one of the most badass fighting forces in the world, and nobody bats an eye. But get embarrassingly outflanked one time, and you never hear the end of it!
explanation since the comm isn't History Memes this time
- “rampaging barbarian hordes” – the Gauls
- “continent-conquering emperor” – Napoleon
- “foreign legion” – the French Foreign Legion
- “embarrasingly outflanked” – the failure of the Maginot Line in WWII
There was the loss in WWII, but there was also the loss of all their colonies after WWII. Some of them they fought for and lost like Vietnam and Algeria. The reputation of the French for losing wasn’t accurate, but it also wasn’t based on nothing.
One post that I read somewhere else on fedi was in the lines of, you can’t reasonably think French are cowards, they made snails into fine cuisine.
Let them eat sausage.
If you’re gonna protest, might as well eat good while doing it.
And yet i’ve never seen a french protest where they had decent sound system. Not that important when the goal is to make noise, but they sure got their priorities
Guys, take lessons, take lessons!
Excuses incoming in 3, 2, 1…
“But, but, but the us country is huge. We can’t be expected to protest about something all the way over there…”
“But, but, but, wait for the midterms. We’ll sort it then.”
“But, but, but, the protests are gaining steam now. It’s not easy to coordinate these things and we need time…{also we’ll conveniently ignore you when you point out that we live in a world of instant communication and that protests and strikes were coordinated decades ago when we didn’t have today’s technology}”
Here in Minnesota we’ve still been protesting every week…
Glad to hear - we don’t hear about it as much up in Canada lately. The news cycle is always desperate to keep up with whatever the orange buffoon is fucking up next
Oh yeah. That’s true. The news really dropped off once the federal government “pulled back” ICE. But they’re still doing the same shit. Still kidnapping. We’re still documenting and doing our stuff.
With regard to point 3, ‘today’s technology’ is very much a double edged sword. Yes, you can communicate instantly but surveillance has modernized just as much.
As reductive as it sounds, I think part of the issue is it happens all the time in other countries because it happens all the time in other countries. The connections to each other already exist. The networks already exist. All the instant communication in the world doesn’t make a lick of difference if you have no idea who else to call. At this point, I feel like that’s the real benefit of protests. You gotta meet like minded people somewhere to get any real momentum and third spaces are pretty fucking dead.
I don’t think the issue is necessarily a lack of will to organize now, I think the issue was a lack of will to do so years ago. Hell, decades ago for that matter. So now the people that genuinely do care have to build their entire network from the ground up while under heavy surveillance which yes, is going to be fucking slower.
“But, but, but the us country is huge. We can’t be expected to protest about something all the way over there…”
Oh, is all of Europe protesting in unity when protests are happening in Paris? i must have missed that.
I mean in a certain sense they are a bit true, the French protested for so long that Paris has created the Rue in order to have some control over the crowds
The rue?
It’s a sauce used for thickening, but that’s not important right now
I don’t know the exact name but it’s these large streets
Edit: I mean boulevards
“Rue” is just french for “street”, so, I don’t know what this is supposed to be saying.
Boulevards? Grand boulevards?
I’m confused because “rue” in French is literally “street” in English 😁.
Yeah those
deleted by creator
You really get involved in France, if you want it or not. Great for democracy IMO.
True…
For what. To utilize all the rail lines in my city to grill.
The French have been refining protesting since 1790.
French people are very serious about 2 things:
La Liberté et La Cuisine
Yeah, you stop believing in the first part when you see what they vote for.
I would like to see the rest of the comment about “climate accords polar bears”, please.
Yeah same I’m curious now.
I found those on a 💩website https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/climate-paris-2015-polar-bear.html?sortBy=relevant
Hero, thank you
But we need to know what were the bears doing!
Dying from climate change 🙁
…i see soiled groins…
Main thing that keeps me from fitting in in England is how much I love the French. 🇫🇷
I love the French because every other country I have been to besides France where I have attempted to speak the language, people are super appreciative of my efforts, even if I’m shit.
Not so in France. There’s often an air of arrogant expectation, because making an effort to speak French isn’t considered going above and beyond, but is expected (and if your French is mediocre, then you are not meeting that expectation). This isn’t always as abrasive as I make it sound here, but it is a sharp contrast to my experience in other countries.
I weirdly like this though. It’s a reflection of how British people travel about the world with a default assumption that many people will speak English. I have a Norwegian friend, for example, who said that when he was travelling, he was grateful that he knew English, because there would often be some people who could speak at least some English in most places he went. Attempting to speak French in France reminds me of how much privilege I have when travelling, because the French are as stubborn about expecting people to speak French as the English are about English. But the French are mainly like this within France, whereas English folk carry their expectations everywhere with them.
France feels like our sibling — we have a tumultuous relationship that could easily give the impression that we hate each other, but it’s far deeper than that. One of my interests is fashion history, and it’s so funny how many instances there are of a trend originating in France that people in Britain take notice of and want to emulate — in part because it is French: trends that are developing in a different cultural context, and are thus exotic and interesting compared to British fashion. Sometimes there’ll be attempts to stop trends from crossing the channel, but that just makes them seem cooler. If you want an example of one such trend, this video from Abby Cox is great.
But the cultural exchange happened in the other direction too; sometimes a trend would start in Britain and slowly diffuse over to France. Stuff like this is why I see the French as being our family. For better or for worse, we are joined together by history.
What’s funny that if you’re a French Canadian, you spend most of your life resentful that English is everywhere. Quebec has laws doing everything possible to try to prevent English from becoming a major language in Quebec. But, as soon as someone from Quebec goes travelling, they’re probably grateful that they know English because it’s the common language of the world these days.
I grew up primarily speaking English. But, I don’t think I’m too arrogant about expecting everyone else to speak it. I’m always pleasantly surprised when there are signs in English in places where there can’t be that many tourists.
What I did kind-of take for granted wasn’t necessarily English, but it was the Roman character set. When I went travelling in East Asia, I came across Thai script, Korean, Japanese and Chinese. Previously when I’d travelled in other places, if I didn’t know the language, I at least knew the letters. So, I might not have known how to pronounce the name of a place, but I could still read it and match it to the place I was looking for. But, when I was in Japan, I had to try to remember that the stop I wanted was the one where the first symbol sort of looked like a box with some scribbles inside and a lid on top, then the next one looked like a T but with two bars at the top instead of one.
In Holland everyone would switch to English immediately after I butchered the greeting in Dutch.
It made it super hard to learn the language
French language is the original lingua franca, it’s no wonder that if you admit that you don’t speak well yet, they will simply ask “Why not?” It’s probably not as far as we’d expect from the hauteur of English-speaking tourists, we just get our way more often I think. When I took my family to Paris last year I expected to get some of that high-handed treatment, but even out as far as Calais they were almost unfailingly forgiving of my decidedly mediocre attempts. I hope to go back soon, armed with a little more of the language.
“we just get our way more often I think.”
Exactly! That’s why I find it so refreshing.
We love you too m8
Easily the most genius thing I have seen in my entire life.
Do French protests always follow tram tracks? Otherwise, it seems like you could just use normal wheels.
If I just saw the picture and I knew it was a protest, I’d have figured that these people work for the tram and are protesting the tram company.
They don’t specifically follow the tram tracks, but in major European cities, tram tracks are simply everywhere. As the route of the protest has to be registered in advance, it’s very easy to plan for this.
With standard wheels on the barbecue, it would be far too bumpy to barbecue properly. And the risk of everything tipping over is 100 times greater.
I think it’s a brilliant solution.
the route of the protest has to be registered in advance
Wow, that’s dystopic. Very “you protest because I allow it” vibes. Nice for emergency services though
It’s not dystopian, just democratic. Any democratic constitution reserves a very universal right to protest. You still have to notify the police beforehand so that they can reroute traffic. Of course the police also ensure that the protest doesn’t turn violent, but first and for all they provide for the safety of the protesters.
Lol you can definitely tell you’re European XD
The police here in the US are nothing like that. If you call the police to let them know you’ll be protesting you’re just asking for trouble, it’s like taunting them before trying to fight them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they show up at your house to harass you, or somehow set it up to where your planned protesting spot is either unavailable or otherwise impossible to use. They’ve been known to arrest people for giving water to the homeless, those waiting in line to vote, protestors, and pretty much anyone the government or specific officers dislike. It’s commonly stated here in the US that short of a murder occuring, there is no good reason to call the police unless you want a murder to occur.
If you are wealthy in the US then calling the police is a positive because they actually do what you want and ignore all the petty shit they normally make a big deal out of. It all comes down to money and influence.
Registering a protest in advance is standard practice in the US and Canada, too. Cities can and do enforce basic rules for crowd control, rerouting traffic, etc. For example, you might be allowed to organize a protest in a public park during daylight hours, but if you do it at 2am in the streets of a residential area the cops are going to arrive and shut you down.
https://www.aclu-wa.org/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-guide-protests/
Normal wheels would be much heavier to push. Steel wheel on steel rail is basically zero effort, you just have to plan your protest accordingly^^
Are their tram rails powered? If they are, it could be using that power to cook while moving. I assume they aren’t, at least not the rails but maybe overhead power, but it would be cool.
Tram lines are not powered, that would be a huge safety hazard. Most tram systems use power lines that run above the tracks.
In some places they are powered. It’s generally much more expensive to do safely so it’s only done in historic places where overhead wires would ruin the place.
I know It’s the case in the centre of Reims for example.
And is some more eastern countries (like mine) would make it to easy to steal electricity ;]
They are not powered.
