Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Green globalist President Macron has deployed non specialist police armed with semi-automatic weapons with large magazines to try to intimidate yellow vest carbon tax protestors.
French riot police are now using semi-automatic weapons with live ammunition against Yellow Vest protestors as Macron’s law and order crisis spirals
- Officers were filmed brandishing weapons by Arc de Triomphe in Paris today
- Riot police were on crowd control duty today facing off a mob of Gilet Jaunes
- Rifles at demonstration by unarmed citizens show how Macron crisis intensifies
- Last week former conservative minster said live fire should be used on ‘thugs’
By SOPHIE LAW FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 04:12 AEDT, 14 January 2019 | UPDATED: 10:39 AEDT, 14 January 2019French riot police have deployed semi-automatic weapons with live ammunition against Yellow Vest protestors for the first time.
Officers were filmed brandishing Heckler & Koch G36 weapons by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris on Saturday afternoon.
The presence of semi-automatic rifles at a demonstration by unarmed French citizens shows how President Emmanuel Macron’s law and order crisis spirals.
It comes after former conservative minister Luc Ferry called for live fire to be used against the ‘thugs’ from the Yellow Vest movement who he says ‘beat up police’.
…
Live ammunition 30 cartridge magazines could be seen as officers marched the streets, although none were used as 5000 police were deployed on the streets of the French capital.
Yellow Vest protestor Gilles Caron said: ‘The CRS with the guns were wearing riot control helmets and body armour – they were not a specialised firearms unit.
‘Their job was simply to threaten us with lethal weapons in a manner which is very troubling. We deserve some explanations.’
…
Read more (includes pictures of armed French police): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6586991/French-riot-police-using-semi-automatic-weapons-against-Yellow-Vest-protestors.html
The Yellow Vest protests erupted in response to President Macron’s efforts to raise fuel taxes, to try to discourage fossil fuel use. The regressive carbon tax triggered a furious response from the French people, especially workers from poor rural communities who utterly depend on fossil fuel for their livelihoods. The protests are continuing because of President Macron’s clumsy failure to reassure the protestors that he wants to address their concerns.
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Funny. Around Portland, OR, they pretty much let protestors do what they want with a stand-down order to police.
Of course, these are progressive protestors around here.
I keep forgetting who uses violence and intimidation as a go-to.
Points out why you let the people have weapons. In the US where most people have weapons the cops have to use nonlethal methods for crowd control or risk escalating things into a shooting match. Weapons enforce politeness. The custom of shaking hands originated to show the stranger that you are not carrying a weapon.
And that’s why they’re trying to get rid of them here.
“In the US where most people have weapons …”. If you mean firearms, I suspect that “most” may be an exaggeration. That sort of statement is commonly spread by politicians and the MSM. Not sure just how true it is.
All people have weapons of one kind or another.
In the US, in recent surveys about 30% of adults admit owning at least one firearm, while another 11% lives with someone who does. But poll respondents might be lying. The figure is probably higher. Most households however, maybe not.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/
While “most people have weapons” may be an exaggeration, the fact remains that anyone *could have* a weapon, so the posters point still stands.
So what?
This is what you find nowadays at UK music festivals, weekend-long events intended for families with young children. Assuming you can even find the event through a jungle of electronic snoopery and a forest of surveillance cameras.
Are you STILL gonna assert that ‘Everything Has Never Been Better’?
Comes off trying to exist on what is very effectively a Starvation Diet = one that revolves around cooked starch and refined sugar topped off with ‘recommended’ alcohol, cannabis and opium and made ever worse via vitamin deficiencies/depletions, esp A, B and D
It goes right to the very top – witness Brexit.
Climate Change is a nothing problem in comparison – even Dry January.
How’s it going?
Soon to start= Fat February – where you bin the wheat, corn, potatoes, donuts, chocolate, all other vegetable fats and use butter, coconut oil, lard and dripping in your cuisine.
Ordinary French folks, Les Jilly Joneses, use vast amounts of buerre in their cooking. It possibly aids the digestion of ‘cake’
Ooooohh, I smell a Cause & Effect ‘problem’…
What say you computer haha
I have an acquaintance in Holland who wrote to me that their police are in favour of the uprising.
Their advice is no damage and we are with you.
Popular uprisings have been driven by in-your-face and in-your-wallet governments.
They date back to Ancient Egypt when they forced dynastic changes.
In 1975 Barbara Bell published that a cooling trend impaired the Nile floods and food became scarce. But not to the governing classes.
The palace guards were “of the people” and when push came to shove laid down their spears.
Food distribution went back to the markets.
In 1989, East German border guards laid down their AK-47s and folk went “cross-border-shopping”.
And took down the Berlin Wall and Communism.
Socialists took to “Global Warming” and “Climate Change”>
With the recent action in Europe this uprising is spreading.
The San Francisco rent-a-mob as they became know dissipated some years later. A large lawless homeless encampment was allowed to grow on the plaza as a matter of city policy. It became to dangerous for the protesters.
Well, let’s just hope that old Macaroni is hoist by his own petard before too much longer…
1. You can’t tell what kind of ammunition is in the magazine without looking at the ammo itself, i.e. is it “live” ammunition or blanks. Blanks usually require a muzzle device to restrict the gas so there is enough to cause the action to cycle. There are rare examples of special magazines with special ammunition to use with grenade launchers.
2. Issuing rifles with ammunition is ineffective as an intimidation tactic unless everyone believes that the police are authorized to use deadly force. Typically, there has to be arguable threat of death or bodily injury to make it legally justifiable. The media however are unlikely to consider any use of force to be justifiable.
3. US police commonly have SEMI-AUTO rifles/carbines in their vehicles, usually AR15/M4 flavored. Very, very rarely are they full auto. European police are much more likely to have FA available, though that is dependent on the country and the police force.
I can’t see the value of full auto for police weapons anyway. What are they going to do ‘spray and pray’ a crowd of people hoping that the trouble makers will be the only ones hit?
I seem to remember that Victor Yanukovich of Ukraine did the exactly the same
But it did not end very well for him….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Ukrainian_revolution
R
French National Police (civilian) got 204 G36C/K (short-barreled variants) in 2016 to combat terrorists.
https://www.politico.eu/article/paris-police-receive-assault-rifles-and-shields-terror-attacks-counter-terrorism-isil-islamic-state-isis-europe-news/
No surprise that the weapons will now be used against protestors who threaten police with violence, or maybe even if peaceful.
The National Gendarmerie (military with civil policing role) of course already had assault rifles.
The linked article specifically calls them “assault rifles”, so, unless the reporting be bad, the police G36s are capable of full auto fire, not just semiauto, as implied by the badly-worded Daily Mail article.
It makes sense that the BAC unit would want real assault rifles, since the Paris terror attacks included AKMs, which is why the buy included 7.62x39mm-proof shields.
You are correct. The G-36 is a military grade, fully automatic assault rifle.
There are semiauto variants, but they’re not called G36, and the National Police bought G36s.
Shooting the G36 carbine version, ie K-variant (for “Kurz” or short), with 12.5″ barrel. The C-version (for Compact) is even shorter, with a nine-inch barrel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTt8TsqIcoc
French National Police bought both short variants.
Standard barrel length is 18.9″. But it still overheats and loses accuracy during long firefights in hot environments, such as common in Afghanistan. The Bundeswehr began phasing it out in 2015, due to this problem.
Too much polymer, not enough metal. Carried lightening up too far.
HK416, ancestor of USMC M27, is better. It benefitted from experience with G36.
British police worried about their G36s after overheating reports. But not to worry. A) Bobbies unlikely to get in prolonged, full auto fire fights, and B) Britain doesn’t get as hot as Afghanistan. As in, not even.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3056013/British-anti-terror-police-using-assault-rifles-not-shoot-straight-hot-weather.html
So now French police shot a yellow vest Protestor in the head for protesting CAGW and the economy-busting taxes and policies it entails..
Got it….
Leftists governments have employed these tactics before, and it didn’t end very well…:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6593807/Shocking-video-shows-fireman-Yellow-Vest-protestor-shot-head-French-police.html
It was a rubber bullet, but was still enough to cause life-threatening head trauma.
The initial report on this matter erred in one point: The Heckler & Koch G-36 assault rifles the frech policemen featured are fully automatic, military grade assault rifles which are used by a number of NATO-members including Germany. They can be set to single shot or three-shot burst, too. But technically, they are fully automatic military assault rifles.
Background info on the yellow vest movement. Its more than just a gas tax. That was just the last straw.
https://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm?frm=189550&sec_id=189550
They said that Global Warming would bring on armed conflict around the world, and it appears they were right.
This seems to support what others have said many times: (in essence) socialism leads to tyranny.
More accurately, it leads to a form of neo-feudalism. The middle class is squeezed out of existence by tax and wealth transfer schemes. The upper class elites become a new de facto aristocracy and retain all the perks of modern life. The lower and underclasses are bribed into going along with promises of free stuff, promises that are promptly forgotten once power is secured and the new nobility no longer need pretend to care about the welfare of the peasantry.
drednicolson – you are correct. I’ve posted this several times…
Here is how modern politics works:
The far-left is winning, especially in the developing world – over half the countries in the world are pseudo-Marxist dictatorships, based on their leftist phony rhetoric, but are actually just military dictatorships, run for the ruling elite and their armed thugs – see Zimbabwe and Venezuela… and North Korea, Cuba, the Soviet Union countries and many more..
The left gains political power by promising imbeciles lots of free stuff. Then they destroy the economy, create widespread poverty and live like kings atop a ruined state – because you can’t be kings without lots of peasants. Venezuela and Zimbabwe used to be wealthy countries – look at them now. Look at North Korea vs South Korea. Compare Cuba to neighboring island nations.
It is really no different in the developed world. Get elected by lazy greedy imbeciles, destroy the economy with fake green energy and other crazy policies, and live like kings on top of a ruined economy, looking down on all the peasants.
From my post above:
“… over half the countries in the world are pseudo-Marxist dictatorships, based on their leftist phony rhetoric, but are actually just military dictatorships, run for the ruling elite and their armed thugs – see Zimbabwe…”
The latest news from Zimbabwe:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/zimbabwe-leader-violence-by-security-forces-unacceptable-1.4263464
[excerpt]
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s president on Tuesday said “unacceptable” violence by security forces will be investigated after a days-long crackdown on economic unrest, while a doctor said the 12 documented deaths and more than 300 people wounded are likely “are just a fraction of the actual victims.”
[end of excerpt]
This is what Justin Trudeau wants for Canada – he wants to be our mad king. Justin’s performance record ranks him with George III of England, who in later years became quite insane. But Justin does not have the excuse of old age – he is simply crazy – with emphasis on the simple part.
Hmmm, resorting to gunpowder – Hey! that’s made with charcoal, a fossil fuel!!!! Don’t the greenies have a
renewable weapon? Why not threaten them with windmill blades? Birds and bats have found them to be quite lethal.
As you’re no doubt aware, modern propellants don’t rely on charcoal, as does the low explosive black powder. They descend from gun cotton, ie nitrocellulose.
But of course, carbon is still involved, with hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen.
Hey perhaps you can show them how to make weapons powered by Molten Salt Reactors. That’d be up your ally 😉
Charcoal is not a fossil fuel, it is partially-combusted wood – and, therefore “sustainable and renewable”
french like flics. They dislike gens d’armes.
Especially mounted gens d’armes.
Protesters should bring some guillotines lol. Not real ones of course.
Or just go pantless. Sans coulottes. Of course, a few years later some jumped-up Corsican responded with cannons.
Yup. Nappy’s career took off after he mowed down Parisian protestors with grapeshot.
i wonder how the french police single out the “yellow vest carbon tax protestors” from those protesting other issues
Shoot them all. Let God sort them out.
It worked against the Albigensians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnaud_Amalric
Raising people’s basic cost of living in times of wage stagnation will get them into the streets eventfully. This is what the socialist/green politicians are playing at. The French get there more quickly that others in the West.
Lying about the underlying science and costs behind planned energy cost increases. Expect blow back.
Looking the other way while immigration laws are violated. Expect blow back.
These two issues alone are enough to create unmanageable frictions in society.
This is very serious, and lots of BS being talked here, so take a look at some facts.
Mutilations of all sorts in large numbers…never been seen before, and a clear modification of the police code of conduct.
When a state claims a monopoly of violence then one should not be suprised if the next step will be the emergence of Ak47s + various other cheap and easy available stuff on various Marseille’s street corners, as the spiral of violence radicalises people to defend themselves.
We are literally 2mm away from it, especially after the Macron cretinous 6hr monologue from last night surrounded by an audience of leche-culs..and the never ending Benalla saga!
This is well worth watching, if you speak french as Aude is an excellent presenter and interviewer.
Would seem pointless having a weapon and loading it with blanks
You really dont get a great deal of magazine choices with those weapon types, they dont get much demand for low capacity magazines
When outnumbered 100+ to one by a crowd that has sometimes been violent and attacked in packs , what type of weapong would you want? regardless of where you stood personally and just had to do your job? Yes if it escalates people may get shot?
All those blokes that appear in airports and train stations during major event are also using “high capacity” magazines and live ammo. Never seems to be a dram then.
The whole thing reads like a liberal beat up. Escalate and escalate and then be surprised when there are consequences.
TBQH what has just been written here, sound like something from an extreme right wing lunatic fringe, defending the “ESTABLISHMENT.
“The whole thing reads like a liberal beat up. Escalate and escalate and then be surprised when there are consequences.”
Are you OK up there?
I can understand a lot of people writing here are from over the pond.
They are used to violence, schools being shot up, presidents assassinated, etc all in the so called name of “freedom” and the right to bear arms. You reap what you sow.
I don’t see kids going into classes or synagogues spraying bullets, in the UK or France, precisely because guns are not for sale on the high street, and by and large UK police are UNARMED.
(I don’t put terrorists and social movements/demonstrators on the same page do you?)
I don’t like to read here, nutters claiming legitimacy for killing people in the name of freedom and democracy.
In the commentary above it’s scary to read it multiple times, legitimising violence, glorifying lethal weapons.
That’s what it sure looks like it to me, as you gloat over all the intricate little details of every automatic gun you have ever tried in your lives….
That’s so infantile I can’t believe I read this on WUWT.
Violence begets violence.
I heard the same stuff this evening from a Frenchman… “in Africa there are too many Africans..”, so presumably we should cull them, which of course we already do, by refusing them aid to wipe out easy stuff such as malaria etc…
I suggested we had a big enough cull in Europe in 1941-3 with 20 million dead, and maybe the cull should start with him…never mind past centuries going in there and dragging them across to America to use as slave labour.
It’s called glorifying genocide and crimes against humanity.
You are only 1 STANLEY MILLGRAM button away from doing it yourself then.
Your really believe this crap?
“When outnumbered 100+ to one by a crowd that has sometimes been violent and attacked in packs”…
Go watch the (full length) video above and you will see for yourself, the police who pulled a gun on the peaceful crowd on the Champs Elysees provoked them by throwing explosive grenades and tear gas, before they got angry and went after them…
(guess what the MM edited out all that didn’t they!)
…or the CRS commander in Toulon beating the daylights out of an unarmed protestor – getting NO SANCTIONS cos they are acting in total impunity.
WTF!
If you want to comment about events in France, at least have the decency to know what European culture is about and spend some time here!
I have to agree with most of that. In the UK, almost all police are normally unarmed. It is a great reassurance to me.
Here in Oz or police are armed. It’s not pleasant. I’ve learned to accept it, but it still makes me uncomfortable. Luckily the general public is not armed. Since we brought in fun control, we don’t have mad shootings in the way we did (which caused fun control to be introduced).
People say that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws have guns. The fact is that most civilian gun deaths are not perpetrated by career outlaws, but by ordinary individuals, either demonstrably crazy or insane due to drug use.
I’m not happy around guns, and would not willingly live in a country where most people can just go and buy one.
Homicide and assault rates have actually increased in many US cities with heavy firearm regulation. Gun-control advocates and a complicit media hide this and claim the opposite by only counting cases where firearms were involved. They’ll breathlessly cover any shooting while staying largely mum about stabbings, beatings, and other forms of physical assault.
The rub is that there’s lots of ways to murder someone. A gun is just one way. But a gun is also an effective deterrant against most of the other ways.
Firearm ownership prevents far more violent deaths than it enables.
“I’m not happy around guns, and would not willingly live in a country where most people can just go and buy one.” Well, you need to stay where you are. I am happy around guns, own several and fire weapons routinely, mine and those owned by others. I do firearms maintenance and upgrades for many people, mounted a very nice multiple use scope for a friend who is a cop last week, low light/no light, integrated laser range finder, aim over scope fiber optic sight and integrated 500 lumen light. His wife bought it for him for Christmas and I got a great deal of enjoyment out of mounting it and then doing bench zero. Too bad it was on an AR. Oh, well, can’t have everything!
ZZ Wanderer, “The fact is that most civilian gun deaths are not perpetrated by career outlaws, ..”
Nonsense. In utopian metropolitan communities like Chicago it is very clear that those who have been arrested while in the company of others who were subsequently shot, were themselves likely to be shot. It is true that the majority of deaths by gun fire are suicides, and few of those poor souls were criminals prior to taking their own lives. Howver, if you remove the 22,000 who took their lives by firearms, the remainder are largely the victims of “career” criminals. And the majority of those victims are likely criminals themselves.
“Viral Video Shows EU-branded Armoured Vehicle Crushing Paris Protests”
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/12/09/viral-video-show-eu-branded-armoured-vehicle-crushing-paris-protests/
Since when did the E.U. have their own army ?
https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-emmanuel-macron-eu-army-to-complement-nato/
Why do so many Brussels bureaucrats have French given names and German family names?
Because the EU is in effect a French-German lead union. I really wanted to see the UK pull out under Brexit and watch the whole EU fall apart. The EU was an experiment at a United States type union that has failed dramatically. Where the USA is a success the EU failed. There is no common border, language or culture, and until the 90’s, no common currency. Thank reason the UK held on to Stirling.
Not entirely true. The Euro was actually attempted before in the 19th century I believe. It failed for exactly the same reason it will fail this time. Germany and France got sick of supporting the poorer countries.
Those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it.
This was jammed with errors and bs.
“Because the EU is in effect a French-German lead union.”
Not any more, since the ex-USSR members joined up.
Heard of the Visegrad group?
France no longer has any credibility, Germany is dependent on Gazprom, and Benelux is tiny.
“I really wanted to see the UK pull out under Brexit and watch the whole EU fall apart.”
It’s falling apart quite well without the UK contribution to it.
Britain has for decades overestimated its importance and influence.
Old habits die hard.
“The EU was an experiment at a United States type union that has failed dramatically.”
I don’t call dramatic failure the ability to travel from Riga to Madrid without ever having your passport or ID checked.
Have you ever tried it?
“Where the USA is a success the EU failed. There is no common border, language or culture, and until the 90’s, no common currency. ”
This is real rubbish.
Schengen is the common border from OSLO to ATHENS.
The problem is, Britain didn’t sign Schengen and there are countries that stayed outside it inc Ireland. Even Switzerland is in.
Schengen is a huge problem for UK residents and nationals, because when the UK withdraws from the EU, no UK expat has any longer a Schengen visa, never mind the 100s of Indians, Japanese+many other UK residents who currently can’t even visit Calais for a weekend trip.
I can’t invite a UK res, Japanese friend to Warsaw because he doesn’t have a visa!
The common diplomatic language in the EU has always been French (It was actually used by the Russian Tsar’s court btw).
The common lingua franca for all communication has become English, thanks to the Internet.
Culture?
What is the common denominator between JS Bach and Edward Elgar?
Do we use a Chinese pentatonic scale or not have A at 440hz? (invented by Germany)
Do you realise the Covent Garden opera orchestra is led by a Russian?
Do we not have mp3 (invented in Germany), GSM phones & roaming (invented in UK), FM stereo broadcast and Formula 1, football, rugby and tennis (all invented in UK) PAL instead of NTSC, centigrade & DAB (both invented in France).
How many different nationalities are in London?
Under who’s banner are you likely to be buried?
As a majority it’s likely to be under the roof of catholic/protestant/orthodox..
Do grave yards look any different in Scotland or Lithuania?
No common currency.
Large numbers in the economy APART FROM the EURO exist, gold is traded in London and oil is traded in USD.
Poland kept the Zloti, Sweden and Denmark kept their Krone, amongst the others such as the Swiss.
“Thank reason the UK held on to Stirling.”
Stirling is in Scotland.
STERLING currency (spelt with an E) is one of the few reserve currencies in the world , for historical reasons. The others are the EURO, the SWISS FRANC, the USD.
If you can believe Sterling is of importance after Thatcher burnt off all the oil, & Gordon Brown sold off all the UK gold reserves, you are delusional.
WOW! You nitpick a spelling error. How about POUND STERLING? Does that soothe your precious feelings?
“The pound sterling, commonly known as the pound and less commonly referred to as Sterling, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Antarctic Territory, and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence. Wikipedia”
“I don’t call dramatic failure the ability to travel from Riga to Madrid without ever having your passport or ID checked.
Have you ever tried it?”
Never tried Riga to Madrid, but from England (Dover) to France (Calais) AFTER I got my “no borders” EU (GB) red passport in the early 90’s I certainly DID have to carry and present it at borders. Maybe it’s different now, I don’t live in the UK anymore have not since 1995.
Patrick,
He said …
After entering Europe, I never have to show my passport, even when entering and leaving countries like Monaco. That is a huge advantage.
“Zig Zag Wanderer January 17, 2019 at 4:17 am
…even when entering and leaving countries like Monaco. That is a huge advantage.”
Monaco ISN’T a country.
“There is no common border, language or culture, and until the 90’s, no common currency. ”
This is real rubbish.
Schengen is the common border from OSLO to ATHENS.
The problem is, Britain didn’t sign Schengen and there are countries that stayed outside it inc Ireland. Even Switzerland is in.
It’s rubbish that there’s no common border because Schengen. yet Schengen isn’t common to all EU participants (*as you yourself go on to point out*) – Britain didn’t sign on, and other countries also stayed outside it. So in other words “real rubbish” is a more apt descriptor for your claim about Schengen being the common border since by your own admission it isn’t.
Interesting that they are using live ammo against these protesters. Seems as though if you’re a leftist mob causing violence over a leftist cause, the cops just sit on the side and watch.
The H&K G36 is not a SMG, it is an assault rifle, and fires 5.56 NATO rounds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_G36
You can get it in an SBR config that effectively makes it a sub gun, point being modern arms are highly adaptable, which confuses many people as to exactly what they are looking at. I have fired reduced M4s which were barely as long as my forearm, same in an AK. Many people seeing them would call them submachineguns when technically they are not. Lets us not even get into the multitude of definitions/nomenclature that endlessly comes out of BATF, just considering it makes me head hurt!
Qu’ils mangent de la énergie verte.