{"id":8731,"date":"2018-12-10T11:47:06","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T10:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/?p=8731"},"modified":"2018-12-10T11:51:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T10:51:56","slug":"macrons-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/8731\/","title":{"rendered":"Macron&#8217;s mess"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Twitter was rather lively over the weekend concerning photos and videos emerging from the latest round of riots in Paris in which armoured personnel carriers bearing the EU flag are seen rumbling through the streets towards unarmed protesters:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The EU army stepping in to assist the police against anti Macron protesters. Remember when we were told that this is all a fantasy just a few years ago? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/omALocams2\">pic.twitter.com\/omALocams2<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Eternal Britbong (@EternalBritbong) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EternalBritbong\/status\/1071472566215286784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">December 8, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><br \/>\nNow various people popped up to say this isn&#8217;t really a big deal because the vehicles aren&#8217;t really part of an EU authority, and even if they are it&#8217;s not really related to the EU because reasons, and for all I know they may be right. But one has to wonder just how tin-eared Macron and his cabinet are to put these vehicles onto the streets bearing that flag at a time like this. Macron was only recently calling for an EU army, and as I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/6005\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said some time ago<\/a> the first deployment of any such body will likely be against the unarmed citizens of an EU member state. Optics matter, and previous French presidents would have known not to be as cack-handed as this. Macron not only appears incompetent, but more isolated from the country he governs with each passing day.<\/p>\n<p>I read this morning that Macron now intends to sit with union leaders to discuss the crisis. These are presumably the same unions who fully backed the Paris climate change agreement which brought about the fuel tax hikes in the first place*. My guess is he&#8217;s talking to them because nobody else has put themselves forward.<\/p>\n<p>*In my last place of work, the white-collar unions were passing around flyers protesting the acquisition of a rival oil company because it was incompatible with global commitments to reduce fossil fuel use and tackle climate change. Yes, the unions were more interested in supranational vanity projects than securing long-term employment for their members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Twitter was rather lively over the weekend concerning photos and videos emerging from the latest round of riots in Paris in which armoured personnel carriers bearing the EU flag are seen rumbling through the streets towards unarmed protesters: The EU &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/8731\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[67,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8731"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8731"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8733,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8731\/revisions\/8733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.desertsun.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}