Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon – President Macron’s government has retreated from imposing climate change fuel taxes, caved in to pressure from the yellow jacket movement. But the protestors are already suggesting that the government backdown might not be enough.
French PM announces suspension of fuel tax hikes after ‘Yellow Vest’ protests
Date created : 04/12/2018 – 12:31
Latest update : 04/12/2018 – 16:49French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe on Tuesday announced a suspension of the controversial fuel tax increases planned for January 1 in a move aimed at bringing an end to weeks of violent “Yellow Vest” protests against the tax.
Philippe announced a suspension of planned increases in three taxes on fuel for a six-month period in response to nationwide protests against high pump prices and rising living costs.
“This anger, you’d have to be deaf or blind not to see it or hear it,” Philippe said in his address.
“The French who have donned these yellow vests want taxes to fall and work to pay. That’s also what we want. If I didn’t manage to explain this well, if the ruling majority didn’t manage to convince the French, then something must change.”
The backpedaling by President Emmanuel Macron’s government appeared designed to calm the nation, coming three days after the worst unrest on the streets of Paris in decades.
“No tax is worth putting the nation’s unity in danger,” Philippe said, just three weeks after insisting that the government wouldn’t change course in its determination to wean French consumers off polluting fossil fuels.
…
More protests were expected this weekend in Paris.
“It’s a first step, but we will not settle for a crumb,” said Benjamin Cauchy, a protest leader.
…
Read more: https://www.france24.com/en/20181204-live-french-prime-minister-announces-suspension-fuel-tax-hikes
Something to remember next time President Macron attacks President Trump for his lack of climate action.
President Macron hoped to lead the world into a new low carbon age, but it turns out he can’t even lead his own country.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This could be very interesting.
Phillipe gives the French public a stay of execution on taxes, something brought about by protesting and violence.
So what happens in six months time when he tries to reinstate them after the success the protesters have had already?
Except, of course, these are politicians. Giving them six months to plot a strategy is six months too long.
It is interesting it was termed a delay rather than a total backdown. I do wonder what the protesters will do in response.
The tactically reasonable stand for the protesters is to demand a total stop on all so-called “carbon taxes”.
The Yellow vest movement want a cancellation of the idiotic Carbon tax in disguise.
The French people do not trust their government.
As everyone is aware China and India are not introducing a Carbon tax.
Why does France need to introduce a carbon tax?
Macron introduced a carbon tax as he is more interested in being ‘Politically Correct’ than looking out for the French people.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46437904
P.S. As almost everyone is aware there has been 20 years of no warming which along with a dozen other observations disproves CAGW.
W.Ashley said:”The French people do not trust their government.”
The french do not trust any government by principle, at any point in time, and even if they elected said government. Americans have lots of guns and the french have a lot of bad attitude toward authority.
W.A said: “Macron introduced a carbon tax as he is more interested in being ‘Politically Correct’ than looking out for the French people.”
I agree. Macron is a smart guy but he thought he could use the environmental religion to gain an easy international stature and the support of very vocal minorities. Well, it was a bad call and he is starting to pay for it
A carbon tax is a hidden stealthy tax rise on fuel. Trudeau knew he couldnt get away with an increase on taxes on fuel in Canada because the taxes on fuel already are an equivalent $170 per ton on CO2. Instead he is going ahead with a carbon tax of $20/ per ton which will increase $10/ton for the next 4 years to a total of $50/ton. Canada is too gutless to protest.
I’m still sort of holding out for an ‘off with his head’ solution. But then I live in Oregon, and my charity towards greenie types on any level has significantly withered.
“So what happens in six months time when he tries to reinstate them after the success the protesters have had already?”
Nothing. The six months is just face saving. He has been beat, and he knows it.
Disagree, by that time they will have made examples of the leaders of the protests for “unrelated” “violations” of law. The rest will get the hint.
I wonder if Macron is going to the Climate conference in Poland to tell them how to impose effective green taxes?
Uh-ohs, this will not go over well in Katowice.
They didn’t “back down”, they issued a “suspension of planned increases in three taxes on fuel for a six-month period”, it’s a temporary stay in order to try to calm the masses. Six months from now they’ll be back at it again (if not sooner in another form) hoping the masses won’t be paying as much attention after a six month lull.
Perhaps. Or maybe the suspension will be extended. I don’t think this is an issue the French will quietly accept.
I agree that the French people won’t, doesn’t stop the delusional greenies in government from thinking they can fool them, after all they’ve been managing to do it for decades.
They will just hide it better. Like in the US where it is illegal for employers to put on pay stubs how much additional taxes the employer had to pay. Etc. Etc.
In six months the weather will be warmer, and mass protests will be easier and bigger.
Sunshine protesters and summer rioters.
I get crankier when it gets hot.
My understanding from reading a more comprehensive statement from the French PM is the taxes have not been withdrawn, but only delayed 6 months (until after the European parliament elections…). We’ll see what happens in 6 months.
Past taxes are still in place (the ones which caused the riots in the first place). New taxes planned for early next year are paused for 6 months. Needless to say that gilets jaunes are not satisfied.
I’ve actually met with “the yellow jackets” and we swapped our reflective vests. At that time no one, incisive myself, taught the movement had any chance. However they persisted and achieved a sizable breakthrough.
Is it s sign of a changing tide ?
Macron chose the only reasonable approach.
People don’t like it when a large percentage of their take home pay is taken from them by politicians in the form of unnecessary taxes, like a carbon tax.
Raising energy taxes takes money right out of the pockets of people, and the poorest segment of the population is hit the hardest. COP24 ought to devote a lot of time to this subject of the populace resisting energy taxes because it will figure prominently in the delegates’ future. I imagine just about every population (those that are free to do so) is going to resist having their energy costs increased arbitrarily by delusional leftwing politicians.
Destruction and death — for a non-problem.
Title: How a nation destroys its wealth.
Except the French leader doesn’t believe in nations.
Typical progressive “compromise” – We’ll still be screwing you like we planned but we’ll give you a few more months to get used to the idea.
What we have here is a failure to communicate. Macron hasn’t properly educated the peasants on the importance of eating cake.
That is exactly what PM Philippe said, Bruce: “If I didn’t manage to explain this well, if the ruling majority didn’t manage to convince the French, then something must change.”
Or, for those that believe the 97% meme: “We will lie better in the future.”
That was good Bruce, brief but good, damned good!
The violent nature of some of the protests is not a good model for citizen participation. Mobs can easily get out of hand (remember all the violent actions, car burnings and such in the outskirts of Paris a few years ago?). But the violence reaction did manage to convince the French government to reconsider. Far better to go the route of non-violent civil disobedience. It gets the same message across, but maybe takes a little more time.
Duane, the idealist in me wants to agree with you, but that assumes all involved are open to reasonable dissent. I doubt the French government would have back-peddled as much as they did had these demonstrations been a good model for citizen participation. It’s the threat of chaos and rebellion — the shadow of the guillotine — reminding the leadership to be reasonable.
I disagree. Without the violence, absolutely nothing would have changed in France, alas.
A government should be in fear of the people, not vice versa.
Some call it Nationalism – others call it Patriotism!
just sayin’
All governments aggrandize power until internal or external events cause their collapse. This occurs over decades or centuries, depending on circumstances.
Economic laws will eventually trip up overreaching politicians and bureaucrats.
” Mobs can easily get out of hand”
Yes, they can. Even otherwise normal people can get caught up in the mob emotion and will do things they wouldn’t otherwise do because they get carried away. I’ve seen it happen myself.
Violent mobs should be discouraged at every opportunity. Society must send the message that violent mobs are unacceptable. The Radical Left does not send this message.
You need to spend some time reading French history, Duane. This was absolutely par for the course.
I can’t stand reading these bitch arse comments. You’re just a sheep, and a product of the feminisation of our societies. Maybe if we had a few more of these Frenchmen located around our withering leftist sheeple societies we might give pause to our govts that are continuously stealing from us by using hoaxes like CAGW.
Far better to go the route of non-violent civil disobedience.
Might work in many situations, but wouldn’t have done the job for the US in gaining independence from the British or rejoining itself after the South succeeded from the Union. Point being, violence is sometimes necessary.
Talk is over-rated as a means of solving disputes.
I have to agree.
The amazing thing about AGW in general, is that it’s not just a completely manufactured non-issue, but it’s the ONLY issue proponents seem to care about – and not just ABOVE all others, but to the detriment of all others – economy, defense, heat and energy, public safety, food production – it simply doesn’t matter – in fact, AGW demands we DESTROY all that – Western civilization be damned.
Not much middle ground there.
AGW is a simple solution. Some people find simple solutions irresistible, because they make things neat and tidy.
Beware of people who like things neat and tidy.
I remember a former friend once tried to explain how socialism was like a well tended garden, compared to capitalism’s wild weed patch, he said society would be far better if the weeds were removed and the garden was properly organised to maximise orderly production.
I said “not so good if you are one of the weeds”.
Honestly – the best approach is to just forget all about it and don’t worry about it anymore.
Except society is not a simple garden and people are not mindless plants. You’d have to be a simpleton to accept such an analogy. I’d be insulted if someone tried that one on me.
Capitalism is the garden, and socialism is the weed patch with 24/7 propaganda convincing you that weeds are better for you than vegetables.
How many quality products come from a socialist society? They only thing they do well is steal ideas or reverse engineer products from the free market. They can produce it at lower cost, because their workers can barely afford housing and food. And if you want a car, you get put on a waiting list, unless you are a “party member” with exceptional boot licking skills.
Who decides what’s a weed?
Exactly
That’s a nice analogy.
In a free market the consumers decide what is a weed and what is a product worth trading the results of their labor.
In a socialist society Big Brother will decide what is a weed, and which plants are fertilized, which are not, and which are ripped out by the roots, and the ground that they grew in, scorched.
destroy ourselves to save ourselves!
I doubt that this “Back down will not get a mention in Poland. They want a trip to the Uplands, all sweet music. Nasty facts like the people not agreeing will not go down too well.
MJE
The biggest enemy of a successful civilization has always been the success of that civilization. Inevitably, some pampered folks will come up with ideas (aka climate change – the replacement for christianity) that will in the end destroy whatever their forefathers/mothers have build in sweat and tears. At least the protests in France show that the people have enough of that political nonsense. Macron is walking way out of his shoes.
Nothing more than a tactical manoeuvre while they work out how to screw the poles from a different direction.
I’ll also lay money that they’ll round up all the ring-leaders of the movement before sticking the knife in again.
Watch that space.
Typo.
That should read “proles”.
Jones: “…they’ll round up all the ring-leaders of the movement before sticking the knife in again.”
The Yellow Jackets are pretty much a ground swell of both ends of the political spectrum — not a rent-a-mob paid for by George Soros as sometimes happens here in the U.S.
Apparently there was an attempt made to organise the protests. It failed because there were no leaders. Protesters came from every political and social background and, by and large, don’t agree on anything other than their collective contempt for the fuel tax.
The UN is now worried that France’s ‘contribution’ and the Climate Reparations Fund is even more in jeopardy. If this snowballs and spreads to other countries there won’t be any wealth to redistribute.
With the loss of the US financial contribution the whole UN climate project is doomed already. This is just the cherry on the top.
Other than the $1 billion the US forked over under Obama, has any other country contributed (actually forking over the money, not what they “promised” to contribute) anything to the fund? and if so, how much (bet it’s next to nothing if not nothing).
The big scam (that even the green NGOs saw through) is to reclassify other, existing Third World aid as Green Climate Fund expenditures.
A carbon tax delay is not a carbon tax defeat. Stand your ground Yellow Jackets!
Perhaps your next march should be led by a team towing a symbolic guillotine on a wooden cart through the Arch of Triumph, headed towards Macron’s office, with a suitable escort of pitch fork and torch bearers?
In a nutshell, this is a textbook grade account of the difference between punitive and operations funding taxation, and the public’s view of them.
Operations funding taxation is simple. Fuel taxes to maintain and improve roads, bridges, tunnels and overpasses, because fuel-fired vehicles travel upon them, and benefit from the self-same reliability and capacity upkeep. Operations funding taxation to pay for highway patrol, city-and-town avenues. Taxation that becomes direct, tangible benefit to the taxed.
Punitive or “sin” taxes aim to thwart the public’s propensity to overconsume or overuse a resource. In times of famine, reverse taxation by way of rationing stamps (or cards). Punitive taxes of a product that the public becomes dependent upon, without any known benefit, and indeed a lot of societal expense to loss of health: cigarette and tobacco taxation. At least the public can also see the tangible return tho’ from such turn-around-is-fair taxation. National, local, regional hospitals are directly, and their tobacco addiction cessation programs are also earmarked for special funding. Let those addicted to the Indian Weed pay for the health issues caused therein. The public is mostly OK with that.
But punitive-on-a-theory taxation just rankles the public to no end. We’re going to tax you for the carbon your fuel produces on burning, because we really, really, really want to make fuel so expensive that you will self-govern your consumption to only the most necessary and least wasteful purposes.
This inevitably causes the younger, time-on-their-hands and things-to-do-to-balk-at-regulation youth to don yellow jackets, and storm the Arc du Triomphe. Its an old reaction. Entirely predictable. Very French.
Other cultures react to theory-sin taxation in less vainglorious ways: the British youth might likewise riot a bit, but the British MPs wouldn’t be so impolitic so as to egregiously impose taxes at Day One. The Germans would actually be for it, and would take it mostly in stride: theirs is a vibrant economy, with near-nil unemployment. The youth, middle-aged and near-retiring will all Do The German Thing, and decrease their unnecessary fuel consumption. The Scandinavians are even more inclined to go along for the taxation show.
Further clement you go (i.e. “South”), and the less the public is willing to have The Gub’mint imposing theoretical-sin taxes, of near any size. The Spanish would verily erupt with cathartic vigor, were its government to impose Some Crackpot Theory of Future Harm taxation, today, to raise a whole lot of money that has no particular earmark for do-good-in-return-for-society-today proposed spending.
So, color me purple and call me an eggplant: I am really not surprised in the least.
Thus it goes.
GoatGuy
Have to wonder how many of the most violent “protestors” are regime
agents provocateurs.
Sounds like a convenient conspiracy theory.
No surprise that peaceful ruralites and exurbanites, ie tbose who drive the most rather than relying on unsafe public transport, led in the early going, before urban anarchist iconoclast vandals jumped on the protest bandwagon.
French and other European ruling elites now know that the long-suffering middle and working classes won’t endure their globalist reign of terror in silence forever.
I wonder if Macron suddenly realized that he’s not as popular or as insulated as he thought he was.
I’m kind of on the sidelines here, because no such protests have been going on in my immediate area, but it seems to me that this whole AGWer business is starting to fray at the edges. I hope so.
What I find bemusing is that back when North Africa was filled with angry protesters it was named the ‘Arab Spring’ and there was much rejoicing about people power and true democracy within the media.
Now we have France filled with angry protesters and the media is pretending it isn’t really happening and not worthy of note.
Probably something to do with Russian Bots.
But how can this have happened ?
David Attenborough just said in Poland that the worlds people were calling for carbon taxes and the ex PM of Australia went so far as to claim that ordinary people were ‘screaming’ for a carbon tax
Screaming ‘about’ a carbon tax.
He is a daft galoot!
Auto
Well, never mind,
Sir David Attenborough claims (Evening Standard ,2 days ago)’the collapse of civilisation is on the horizon’ due to climate change .Not sure that this is what he meant.! Ho ho,Humm
The plans are merely “suspended”, not canceled. As soon as the heat dies down, the taxes will be resurected.
And when they do resurrect them taxes, they best hope the French people don’t decide to resurrect madam guillotine. just saying.
It’s spreading to Belgium.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/world/europe/belgium-protests.html
Belgium, albeit one of the smallest countries in the EU, has the largest lit road network than any other country in the EU, so I would not be surprised by this.
French police remove helmets as gesture of peace to protesters,
https://www.rt.com/news/445499-france-police-helmets-solidarity-protesters/