French Revolution

As Mr. Free Market puts it, “The French have always been revolting, dear boy”, but this latest round of mayhem is outstanding, even for the French.

Violence has erupted again in Paris today as masked protesters stole an assault rifle from police, clashed with riot squads and set fire to cars and Christmas trees on the Champs-Elysées in furious demonstrations against the French government.
Riot police sprayed tear gas, fired water cannon and stun grenades and pulled out their batons to fight back against ‘Yellow Vest’ protesters who occupied the famous boulevard and graffitied the Arc de Triomphe.
Police said 80 people had been injured in clashes, including 16 security officers, and 183 people arrested as more than 5,000 demonstrators brought chaos to Paris for the second week running.
Masked and hooded protesters hurled crowd barriers at police in Paris and this evening stole an assault rifle from a police car in the city centre.
Meanwhile there were further rallies spiralling across the country, spreading to Marseilles, Biarritz and Antibes on the Mediterranean coast and even into the Netherlands.
The protests, named ‘Yellow Vest’ after drivers’ high-vis jackets, began last month amid fury over rising fuel prices but have mushroomed into an all-out challenge to Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.

Of course, they being French, there’s a certain element of style to the thing, even when burning the place down:

However, as my old buddy Erik at No Paseran! puts it, it’s more than just higher fuel prices which have got the Frogs miffed:

It is not wrong to say that the demonstrations were caused by the government’s decision to raise gas prices. What is missing is that this is just one of several draconian measures dating back half a year, i.e., ‘tis the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.
For the past four to five months, the French government has done nothing but double down on bringing more and more gratuitous oppression and more and more unwarranted persecution measures down on the necks of the nation’s drivers and motorcycle riders.

Read the rest of it, because it’s quite obvious, when you follow the whole sequence of incremental governmental bastardy, just whence the burning anger came and why the French riots, unlike those pitiful pantomimes performed by our own Pantifa snowflakes, are so well supported by the French people en masse.

Good for them, I say.  Now, if I may be a little old-fashioned for a moment, let’s hope that the next scenes will show Frog politicians being carried in tumbrels to the waiting guillotines.

The Frogs always overdo things;  it’s one of their most endearing traits.

Shooting Party

Reader Brad sent me this link about bird-hunting in Britishland, with the result that I immediately emailed Mr. Free Market and told him to book me a spot in his hunting party for next year.  I don’t care where the shooting takes place;  I just want to be there.  In fact, as I told Mr. FM, I’ll even schedule Kim’s European Vacation 2019 around those dates.

Here’s Dave Carrie on the topic.

Reader Brad is a total bastard.

Rich Bastards Not Wanted Here

I’m not quite sure what to think of this situation:

New Zealand is set to ban foreigners buying homes after a spate of millionaires creating luxury doomsday bunkers has apparently pushed property prices up for local buyers.
It comes after purchases by PayPal founder Peter Thiel and disgraced former NBC host Matt Lauer, who lost his job after allegations of sexual misconduct.
The country’s centre-left government, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, has blamed the wealthy expats for their major housing crisis with homelessness rates being among the highest in the developed world.
Yet David Parker, Minister for Trade and Economic Development, said the bill, for which he is responsible, isn’t only about house prices.
‘In this world of concentrating wealth, we don’t want this coterie of ultra-wealthy people overseas being able to outbid successful New Zealanders for what is our birthright, not theirs,’ he said.

From a free market perspective, it’s not right;  but on the other hand, seeing how Californians have done pretty much the same thing Over Here when fleeing their home state for other, less burdensome ones, I can sort of see the Kiwis’ point.  It’s also happened in Britishland, where wealthy Londoners have bought themselves country pieds-à-terre and have driven up real estate prices beyond the reach of the locals.

Here in north Texas, we’re facing a similar situation with regard to both Californians and Yankees moving into the area — real estate prices are constantly increasing — but there’s so much land around here for expansion that we haven’t yet reached that stage of feeling “trapped”, so to speak, by soaring prices.  That’s not the case in tiny Britain and New Zealand, of course and as I said, I can sympathize with the KiwiGov for wanting to at least arrest the phenomenon somewhat.

That said, New Zealand is prone to having some humdinger earthquakes from time to time, so the rich farts’ “doomsday bunkers” may ironically not be quite the secure bolt-holes their owners believe them to be.

At Last, Some Sanity

…even if it’s coming from the French, surely one of the loopiest nations on Earth.

Smartphones and tablets have been banned from all French schools ahead of the academic year, after a new law was voted through Parliament yesterday.  The phone ban will apply to all pupils in France up to the age of 15, as of the start of the new term in September.

I’ve always thought that giving kids smartphones was a recipe for disaster — similar to letting them go play all day and night in a mall, unsupervised.  And I don’t want to hear whines of “What about their securityyyy?” either.  If that’s so important to Mumsy (or actually, Madamesy), she can buy little Francine or Jacques a flip (dumb) phone.  Calls and texts only (and only a few of those, too).

Perhaps — and I know this is a radical thought — the schools can actually keep a closer eye on the little dears for a change.

And if the kids go all whiney at the indignity and the oppressive injustice of it all, we can call it a cheap life lesson.