To ask at which point we will ‘do a France?’

[Narwhalelife]

With EVERYTHING that is going on in the UK (and the world) rising energy, food, housing, fuel costs, incompetent, lying, sesspits of governments, underfunded health care, crap education and social care.

The idea that people should be ‘cutting back’ on things from days out with their children and their car to actually buying less food.

My FIL(62) died suddenly last week and I thought afterwards we only get one life here when are we going to ‘do a France’ and tell everyone in power to shove it all up their arse!

*disclaimer - my work have also recently told us that we will be expected to do double our workload for no extra money due to funding cuts but increase in demand (I work in mental health), so I just about feel ready to riot (as long as it’s close by so I don’t have to shell out for extra diesel) 🙈

I don’t really think anyone is keeping you poor, the government doesn’t choose what sector you work in, who you work for, or what you do.

We don’t actually all live like the stereotype suggests, and we have huge unemployment, especially amongst the young.

That’s why so many French people choose to live and work in the U.K., while people going the other way are more likely to do it for retirement than for work.

I think once people are genuinely on the bones of their arse well be into a recession with negative equity. The economy tends to cycle like this and once house prices fall it will benefit first time buyers.

Well, we're straying a bit off topic, comparing Britain with France is a bit of un haring rouge. I think by "do a France" OP actually meant get the guillotines out and start punching tickets. Doesn't really matter if France has it's problems, the issue is the UK is full of shit and inequality and the bovine tabloid-consuming populace just apathetically laps it up.

we havent protested really what about poll tax that seemed to work even if it got a bit out of hand

French people protest because they know that sometimes it actually does make a difference, changes government policies. Also they're rather good at it, these are not calm marches where everyone then goes home, they stage properly disruptive demos and takeovers.

When we lived in France you could tell when there was going to be an anarchist demo the next day because the cobblestones in the city centre would start disappearing (they make good projectiles vs the police). They plan the demos where they can build the best barricades etc.

I think part of the problem in the UK is that people don't believe even serious protests and riots will change anything. Because when was the last time they did?

It probably depends whereabouts you are, and what you do. I’m finding it to be a wonderful place to live and bring up a family.

British never really revolt. We just keep moaning. We never learn from our French neighbours sadly

Well with that "I'm all right Jack" attitude I can see why you'd integrate seamlessly into this society.

I don’t think saying that I like the country is saying “I’m alright Jack.”

I find this need by some people here to say how bad the country is to be a bit sad, I’ve never come across it in any of the other countries in which I’ve lived.

Some asides - drought and heat wave in France - most places have hose pipe ban introduced. Not allowed to fill the pool in a lot of places etc.
EDF was mostly state owned anyway.
You can read French papers online everyday in English - like La Monde and Le Figaro - if you are lazy like me. Also Nice Matin etc.

I find this need by some people here to say how bad the country is to be a bit sad, I’ve never come across it in any of the other countries in which I’ve lived.

oh my days have you never heard French people

This is also why they protest more in France, they actually have high expectations. They would never put up with the NHS, for example. They pay a lot for their healthcare and expect it to be really good (which is often is).

@sleepyhoglet we barely have an NHS as it is

@AnaïsM absolutely right, but it can make everything we have to pay for ridiculously expensive!

@jetadore absolutely what I mean - but I could also take the longer holidays, lunch breaks etc that PP have mentioned 🤣

Saying "what are you even complaining about, my life's fine", is pretty much the definition of I'm alright Jack.

Yes because rioting in the streets has completely transformed France.
Oh, wait...

so have all these intelligent people got a solution for us then?or is it put up, shut up, and waste the rest of your life?

Well, we had Brexit, then we had covid and now we have war in Ukraine. It's been a perfect storm to hide behind from the Government's point of view because they don't really know what has brought about what....

We are paralysed really....I am not sure we could get back into Europe, even assuming people would vote for that....and other than actually attack Russia ourselves, which would most certainly start a world war, there's not much we can do there either....the response we made to covid was not different to much of the rest of the world....

Do we put up and shut up? I think winter will be hard. Very hard. And I do think we may see some civil unrest, particularly as the money issue really starts to bite hard and people are losing their jobs. I think few of us are going to get the pay rises we really need - I'm a teacher so it's not even nearly going to happen for me - and more and more of us will struggle to meet basic outgoings. I am very worried but other than vote sensibly when the election comes (as I think it will), I am not sure any kind of en masse protest is going to help much.

I am French.

I don’t really think anyone is keeping you poor,

unions in the 1980s were changed and became much weaker, this was purposely done by the Tory government to prevent workers striking easily.

now it suits as corporate business can reap the rewards of low wages and high profits

British people will occasionally take to the streets but it doesn't tend to be over something like rising prices.

But that's not to say it couldn't happen, next winter is going to be extremely grim for many many people and if there's even a hint ofFrench stylee protest, it could catch on spectacularly.

Are you sure?

Because it is literally a national pastime to complain about the state of things in France. I do not believe you have never heard this before.

Well yes and no. The nhs is not perfect but it was never going to be able to do everything. I am grateful to be able to see a GP, get prescriptions, free maternity care etc. It's become more basic. We can always choose to go private if we want (hypothetically - I can't afford to!)

Has France even "done a France"? France arrived at the same place with/after the 2022 Presidential election as it did with/after the 2017 Presidential election. The country and the world heaved a big sigh of dramatic relief that it (just barely) chose a continuation of the slightly less bad regressive authoritarian neoliberal hypercapitalist mediocity nobody really liked over the slightly more bad regressive populist xenophobic mediocrity that some loved and some hated/feared. Disaster averted, there France will be until 2027, at least, with the occasional little uproar quickly contained and appeased.

Look at the gilets jaune protests in 2018. I mean, they weren't without their problematic element in France. But in the UK they got taken on by a bunch of angry extremists who went on some incoherent ranting about 'wimmin', gays and Jewish people. Similar DID happen in France. Because they were supposed to be loosely organised popular protests, "the voice of the people," the Gilets jaunes had no clear leadership and were used by all manner of groups and interests - some insincere about their goals, some not even based in France, and many extremely regressive - and ended up with no clear message or set of demands.

Should the UK "do a France"? Or should it do a Hong Kong, or a Sri Lanka? Or even a Canada? If you DID somehow get rid of the worst of what you dislike, what goes in its place? "The people" can't run a country directly in the long term, and the people's representatives right now are pretty uniformly awful.

I thought the UK had already done something more extreme than France by voting for Brexit and then supporting a particularly corrupt liar into power to carry it through? I seem to remember Putin and Trump being hugely supportive of those actions, which were definitely not the result of public apathy. Apathy would, in all honesty, have been preferable to people closing their eyes and ears to the motives of those who encouraged those choices on the back of false promises. Now we see how the world can be even worse than we thought with the introduction of a little bit of instability and uncertainty, enabling corrupt opportunists to ramp up the chaos and instability still further so as to change the world order in ways that undoubtedly will not benefit the vast majority of people in this country.