To think the French students are out of control?

She has inserted herself into it. The little shit stirrer thrives on a bit of attention. She must make her money from all this shit..

That is tragic. The buildings are not victims of a right to protest. They are the victims of misguided ignorance.

Then, if you insist on deploying violence in pursuit of your aims, you lose the right to complain when violence is visited upon you.

That’s only fair, right?

You're right the violence does not come from nothing. We can all see where it comes from and it is not where you think it is coming from. 😂

I am beginning to revisit "violence is never the answer."

In principle, I agree that it is never the answer but I also think that it is the only thing that gets an answer! The conditions in some schools over there are such that students have to sit on the floor, teachers are not released and so on. I am sure that did not happen over night.

The students are now joined by other middle class people who are under too much pressure - cost of living is extremely high, jobs are scarce, housing is becoming impossible. And yet, we have more and more multi millionaires and billionaires. Clearly, too much money is going up, to make the rich richer. We all know it, and we all suffer from it. Politicians placate in order to win elections, but do not change that much when in.

The violence does not come from nothing.

The history of France is one of bloodthirsty conquest and exploitation of minorities, just as ours is. With that in mind, I can't get myself worked up about any of the historical buildings or monuments that find themselves victims of people's right to protest for their future.

There is a possibility of attack on a Baltic state, I think. There’s plenty of opportunity for Putin to wheel out his Soviet-style bogus justifications for ‘de-nazification’ and rescuing oppressed Russian speakers. Plus there’s Kaliningrad. And the Baltic states’ militaries are good but still tiny.

Finland would be safe, from ground invasion at least. They have a massively mined and carefully monitored border with Russia. Finland withdrew from the land mine ban because they feared exactly this sort of scenario with yet another murderous Soviet/Russian tyrant.

The Baltic militaries combined are tiny compared to Russia. But what worries me more is how much of NATO's military capability in the region would actually work if the US refused to help, or worse, actively opposed getting involved.

I remember this coming up in Parliament over Britain's nuclear deterrent. Could London actually use it against Washington's wishes? I don't recall anyone giving a particularly convincing answer.

And realistically, how much could the Baltics and Poland do without US intelligence, satellite communications, five eyes support and all the other infrastructure they rely on? We've already seen reports of Starlink restrictions messing up Ukrainian counterattacks, and Ukraine isn't even integrated into NATO systems.

Buildings most certainly are not meaningless. They tell a story about history, the past. To not appreciate buildings qualifies you to be some sort of philistine.
I can only assume you have not thought through what you said.

I remember how, in one shopping street (forget where, it was obviously many years ago) the only shop that was left untouched was Waterstones 😭

I disagree.

The collective Baltic states have a very well trained and resourced military. Even if Washington demurred, Poland et al would consider themselves next and would not stand by.

Extremely feasible if NATO proves unwilling to interfere.

I saw one tricolour but far more Palestinian flags and either soviet or french communist flags. The looters were according to the TV reports of the culture as those here. No doubt a good number of culturally french protesting about the economics too.

They are already ‘testing’ NATO.

To invade and hold one of the baltics is completely different, and infeasible.

If these "peaceful protests" paralyse Europe just as freezing temperatures push Ukraine into a full blown humanitarian crisis (Kyiv, a three million city, has already endured two weeks of intermittent power and water), I bet on Russia making a move on the Baltics. Add a republican midterm defeat and the window before the new congress takes office in January, and Moscow could hardly ask for a better moment to test NATO.

And what did they do?

Nicked Nikes and flat screens.

Yep, they really stuck it to the man…..

Tbf the posts are not far off some of the everyone else is to blame posts.

I was taken aback by the comment until I saw the username. 😝

Oh right, went straight over ma tête.

Debbie is doing satire. Granted it’s hard to tell as her posts don’t look out of place.

I do love a good post where you just can't tell whether someone is being sarcastic or not. Bravo.

Superb bit of gormless left-wingery. I particularly like the idea of every school and university being burnt down with the aim of giving the students “the future they deserve”. Top logic.

I didn’t say people on welfare were violent (wtf!!). For all you know I’m on welfare myself, anyway.

A few people in this thread have suggested that Brits would never riot, which is clearly nonsense.

I also have no idea why you would say it was “educated individuals” either. (BTW it’s possible to be both educated and in receipt of state benefits).

It's a shame as the original protests were by nice lefty students and were peaceful and pleasant but then the nasty right wing yobs got involved and things got violent, as they always do.

Hello again, @DebbieSavage ! Still doing an impersonation of Henry Root!