Member-only story
The French protests deserve more attention than Hong Kong
The yellow vest and pension reform protests in France portend issues that most industrialized nations will have to face sooner or later
France has spent much of the last seventeen months embroiled in chaos. French President Immanuel Macron has asked the French people to be more French — and pay even higher taxes than they already do — and to be more American — and work longer hours before retirement. These mutually contradictory requests have predictably ticked off the French people, many hundreds of thousands of whom have spent over a year protesting in the streets of over 100 cities all over France. A compliant international media has graciously refused to press too hard in its coverage of the protests and the attendant violence and Macron can continue to pretend that his government is competently addressing the situation.
The scenes in the streets of Paris and other French cities bear many resemblances to another long-running protest movement on the other side of the world. In Hong Kong, a protest about a singular issue — an extradition bill — quickly transformed into a mass movement replete with demands about democracy. Many of the demonstrations have been met with violence by, and dealt out to, the Hong Kong police. Yet the…
