This is exactly why I'm basically getting increasingly dismissive over these occasional No Kings Protests. I know pretty much everyone there Saturday went home proud and didn't protest at all on Sunday. Having a big protest once every few months simply won't ever work. They aren't afraid of us in the slightest. Why would they be? They know what they are seeing is a blip on the radar. They can just sit back and wait a few hours and the pressure is off.
That photo of people sitting at a cafe table, defiant to the FIRE beside the speaks to the character of the people. “I’ll leave when I’m good and fscking ready.”
The problem is, French Protests are "easy" compared to American protest.
Half of the French population lives in Paris. if they want to have a million people show up at a single location, they just pop down to the local bakery, pick up a cw-as-ah, pop into the local coffee shop for uh cafehhh' and then take the metro a couple stops to protest square.
If a million people in the US want to show up to a protest. 3/4 of them have to drive 100+ miles
I'm as far from DC as driving from Belfast to Berlin, and I'm in the middle of the country. A lot of europeans have no sense of scale for how big the US is. Most of my life I haven't lived feasible driving distance to my own state capital.
This is of course, false. The whole Ile-de-France region has something like 12 millions inhabitants, roughly 18% of the French population. (huge but not 50% -_-) Most people don't go to Paris to strike or protest, they do it in the nearest town. Sometimes you are thousands. Sometimes your are tens. France and US have roughly the same urbanization rate: 80%. If people want to strike, they can organize where they are.
A large protest that makes the news is flashy and nice for awareness, but they're hard to organize and don't cause much long term problems if they're once in a blue moon. Vast majority of Americans live in urban areas, doing local protests won't be too different travel wise than for the French.
The problem is that they all happen where massive amounts of Democrats live, and even if we had a general strike, it would mostly affect Democrats. It's not like we all live a few hours from DC and can just stop everything there for miles, but that's what we need to do.
Americans do do this, all the time actually. There have been sustained protests in places like Minneapolis Los Angeles and Portland, and in the first Trump admin there were month long occupations of public space in those places and Seattle that were pretty widely covered and got harsh police crackdown responses.
Europeans like to push this narrative because they don't actually pay attention to what's happening here. Theyre too excited about any potential opportunity to dunk on Americans.
I think the point is that turning up and waving signs doesn't do anything if the people in power just.. don't care. Showing you are unhappy doesn't help if the people you are telling don't care about you being happy. When 'the french protests' are brought up, the american equivalent is a riot. There needs to be some concequence to things the rich care about, like businesses, labor, etc.
The protests I just cited got pretty out of hand, and involved the destruction of property and even the occupation of public spaces/buildings.
Unlike in France, though, American law enforcement has public support to violently crack down on protesters. They can kill and imprison with impunity. I suspect if French police did the same, they'd have quite a bit less courage.
France, like most other civilized countries, doesn't have healthcare tied to employment. If you lose your job in the US, you also lose your health insurance. You might be able to get a temporary, usually only a few months, extension to the policy you had while were employed at an increase in the amount you need to pay. If you get a new job, generally you won't be able to get insurance for a year or sometimes more, but only if the employer offers that benefit.
Trump and his people will not give a shit about the protests, because they know it means nothing, it cannot change anything. Unless it turns into a riot or civil war, trump administration will just laugh at the protests.
Oh it definitely upsets him. Because narcissists have a desperate need to be liked and get positive affirmations from everyone all the time. Fox news tells him everyone loves him, all his sycophants tell him he is the most popular president ever, when there are large scale protests, that threatens his delusion that he is the bestest boy in the whole world. This isn't the main point of the protests but he very much cares. he is super thin skinned and he hates it when people speak up against him.
That's the difference. When the French protest, the government knows shit can, and most likely will, go down. When you know that the millions of people outside your gates are more than willing to behead you if things won't change, you change things.
In the US, it's an afternoon walk, a blip in the news cycle, and by Monday everyone's self-congratulating themselves for "doing their best" and "showing up" while the leaders can go about their day as if nothing happened.
I keep saying this. They are dissolving and looting the entire government, lining their pockets and turning on their own citizens, completely unchecked with no concern for repercussion.
"You mean the peasants have opinions and cleverly worded signs?? They march the streets 1000 miles away, chanting in unison?? *sarcastically* OH NO, ANYTHING BUT THAT. Anyways, pass me another 8 ball and send the national guard in. Label them terrorists. *chugs champagne they didnt pay for from a bottle*"
I think you're missing what the French see as the point of a protest. Americans think the point of a protest is to communicate to the ruling class their dissatisfaction. They schedule protests on the weekend so that everyone can still get to work. For the French, leaving during work and grinding the country's productivity to a halt, stopping traffic, creating economic issues is the point of the protest. Trump and his people would care if that happened, but the US doesn't protest that way.
Also a lot more setting fires and fighting cops. If you just turn up on a sunday and wave 'we're mad' signs, the ruling elite won't care because it does literally nothing to them.
Yes that would bring a effect, but even if that happens, I doubt the MAGAs and trump admin would back down. They would try violence first, I think, not necessarily. But it’s a big possibility. And people gonna lose their lives, but in the end, everyone would go back to their lives. Just like the chinese 6.4 Tiananmen Square thing.
And for France, the France government are not as evil as the current trump admin. The only way to change the situation, very possibly is people defeat him by force. He’s got brainless supporters, and he’s gonna use anything to stay in power, laws can be rewritten, people can be bought or threatened. Read the history, only two ways this can be changed, one is natural death, the other is unnatural death. Protests are just fun for them.
The French people have shown time and time again for over a century they are 100% ready, willing, and able to burn everything to the ground if they are sick and tired of what the government is trying to do. When the government calls their "bluff" they start burning things until the government remembers what happened to the last government that didn't acquiesce to the needs/wants of the people and relents.
I keep saying, this is what protests are SUPPOSED to be! They are the civilized way of saying "...or else", but we've trained our government that it can ignore those warnings and no "or else" will come.
The other thing is that they are roughly the size of texas land wise and like 1/5 the population. If something is going down in Paris or Marseille it basically shuts down everything and if you can't make it to work you probably won't lose your job. 50-100k people show up to protest, things are changing. In the US 8M people showed up for no kings last week and it was good for morale but had basically no impact on the operation of the country.
what have their protests done? Macron is still in charge, their pension age is still raised, the infamous garbage workers' strike was called off after like a month with zero progress. Not to mention, a lot of the protests are things like the already heavily subsidized French agricultural sector protesting EU trade deals, as well as the French far right.
Tell me you don't know anything about the topic you're being cynical about without telling me you don't know anything about it. https://time.com/5476534/french-protests-successful-macron/ They don't always get what they want but they get it a lot more often than we do.
your article mentions several cases where anti-liberal factions such as the farmers won concessions by raising a stink. A reminder that MAGA and the Tea Party were also protest movements in the US.
You forgot Ku Klux Klan, Vanguard America, Rise Above Movement and Anti-Communist Action amongst many other radical right organizations who have held minuscule protests in the last 20 years in the US. The absolute largest alt right protest in the US was at most half a million Tea Party supporters in 346 cities during the April 15, 2009 Tax Day protests. You need real popular support to force change through protests. Alt right groups don't actually have that because most people are sane/rational.
And mostly just people trying to show off their witty comments. "Ha ha, look how clever I am. This will surely result in positive change. I hope I go viral!" Ffs
Not really. And, it usually has a negative affect with average people, who will resent the protest, rather than agree with it. Plus, if you disrupt profits to corporations, they will eventually be more likely to change or push for change with the politicians they own.
Blocking the roads prevent people getting to work and shopping and general transportation of goods, which in turn will disrupt production and commerce, so it helps you get to the goals of wrecking profits. There really isn't any way to completely disrupt the near end-stage capitalistic machine that isn't going to be really inconvenient to the average person in the process.
It's not? I don't see how it's not, but do agree the average person's morals are too self centered to care about it beyond it's interrupting their day/income. Which is the main problem with protesting.
Well, as a Floridian, all it has managed to do here, is get DeSantis to create a law where you can legally run over a protestor with your car if they block the road. I just dont know how effective road blocking really is.
The trouble with French people is they don't understand hiw big America is. It's smaller than the state of Texas, and it's the largest country in Europe. Denmark is only half the size of South Carolina, and it's the 40th state in size.
Also, I think a lot of people confuse population and land size my state is bigger than denmark, but their population is WAY higher. Their protests would be so much more organized and effective, we can't afford to all drive to one city and then protest, let alone organize that across the wide open and empty space. We also don't have public transit, etc, logistics is different and people throwing shit are just looking for an internet fight and don't want to think.
You do not understand what a rebellion actually means do you ? You only need 500 people walking into the new york Stock exchance and 500 walking into the FED building, then a few thousand outside blocking the way in. Watch how fast the response changes !
Nobody cares about cotton fields in South Carolina. You block and occupy neuralgic points and just put the administration out of business. Banks, Admin buildings, government agencies.
And vast majority of Americans live in urban areas, not in the empty space 5h away from the city. What has the size of the US got to do with ability to protest other than an excuse to promote helplessness? There's no need to have a million people all gathered at the same time in the same city from the surrounding ones to protest. Smaller, dispersed local protests are easier to keep going and can cause more issues than a singular large mass.
I know, that's why I made this meme. Continental Europe is as big as the US, with twice the population. Infrastructure and traffic laws are way too different. "But Texas is big" is as much of a nonsensical argument as "but french roads are winding".
Some bigger rally in less places would be more impressive. Like, in every capital city some tens of thousands people, instead of some dozen in every little provincial town, like someone else already said. Like here: /gallery/RRAE0oE/comment/2496166931 "That, and what I see is 25 people with signs besides the road. It should be 2500 blocking the road."
The saddest part is you don't even see how that fact totally undercuts your "argument". It's not about just size (though apparently it is for you) it's about density.
So, the population density in Texas, as of 2026, is approximately 121 people per square mile. In France it is 315–316 people per square mile. Would you clarify your point? Or better, would you please explain to me what do you think my "argument" is?
For a lot of Americans, the nearest place they could go to actually cause a problem is miles away. Remember, we don't have trains. I can't just hop on a high-speed rail and get to Dallas in an hour, I have to drive there three hours out and three hours back and then somehow find a place to park my car. And if people are flooding in for a protest, there is nowhere to park my car.
We do. Trust me, we do, probably better than the average American do. But tell me, how does the size of texas prevent you from protesting? I feel this is gonna be interesting. Dumb but interesting...
Do people in France who live in small towns go do tiny little ten-person demonstrations? No, they flock to the large cities where they can actually disrupt something. How do they do that? Well a fairly large portion already live in one, and the rest are rarely far from one so they can bus in. Even the ones further out can hop on a train. In the US, you can walk for a week or you can drive for three hours. But if everyone flocks to the cities, where will they park their cars?
This guy replies and then blocks people so they can't say anything back. I did not say anything about who lives in an urban area. Urban does not mean big city. Urban means it's not a collection of farms in the middle of nowhere. The cutoff is 5,000 people. That's the small towns I'm talking about. And yeah, you CAN protest there. I never said you couldn't. But you know damn well that every small town in America having ten to twenty people standing on a corner or marching won't do shit.
Lol he unblocked me so he could reply and then blocked me again. What a little fucking coward. That map puts a population density of 1,000 as third from the top of its scale. That's about the population density of a small town. Those massive yellow areas are still not even urban. Also in France about the furthest you can possibly be from a large city is if you live between Paris and Lyon, about 150 miles from each. That's about 1/3 of the Oklahoma panhandle, to give you an idea of the scale.
In America, most of us have to work. And we cannot afford to take the day off. So many of us are a few bad months from destitution. You mostly see the young, the elderly, and those who's job is home/child maintenance protesting. This is intentional.
My family of 4 could get by on ramen noodles for a month if it meant that from then on, we had universal healthcare. Americans (I am 1) expect to be able to protest without it costing us anything. This attitude of, "it would be hard on my finances for a month so I guess I won't bother" is how you lose everything. I'm not trying to be insulting, but you have to decide what's more important to you: temporary money, or long-term rights/freedoms. The truth is: you just aren't desperate enough yet.
I think you're missing what the French see as the point of a protest. Americans think the point of a protest is to communicate to the ruling class their dissatisfaction. They schedule protests on the weekend so that everyone can still get to work. For the French, leaving during work and grinding the country's productivity to a halt, stopping traffic, creating economic issues is the point of the protest. Trump and his people would care if that happened, but the US doesn't protest that way.
On the other hand, the food at the supermarket is free if you just take it. Get some friends and away you go. There are options available to both survive and push for meaningful change, but they hit Americans where it really hurts; in the ego.
Can your boss legally fire you for going to a protest? Ours can.
If yours can, could you still get medical care? We cannot.
You also likely have social safety net programs like food assistance, housing support, etc. Here you can't qualify for those if you make above $3k/month or have more than $3k in assets, or if you don't work for 3+ months. Oh, and average unemployment length is about 6 months, so ...have fun starving I guess.
All the things you mention came not as manna from heaven.,,, and also: the lack of it, is not a natural disaster but a choice. Your choices. Live by it or change it.
Sooo, what if we protest directly after work? What if we start a coalition where 1-5 people are protesting on every street corner, an hour or two every day & night? I think we can achieve that. The trick is to keep inviting people to join the efforts. Give them a card, or share contact info. We can't ask them to protest that day, they're probably busy then. But help them plan a protest that works around their own schedule.
What bs. You have to work in france as well. You can protest after work or at the weekend. The only thing that hinders you from protesting is your convenience. You have to sacrifice your freetime to protest. You are not willing to do that, fine. But thats on you, thats on America. France is willing to do those sacrifices, that's all there is to say
Us french don't get paid when we protest. The most prepared have syndicate who can give some compensation but most of the time, strikes and protest come at the cost of loss of income. Hence why this whole "the french are professional protester" has become more and more bullshit. Most people can't afford to strike or protest...
You also have one of the strongest and most robust social safety nets in Europe, collective bargaining agreements that cover 90+% of your workforce, and a LOT of legally mandated time off that accrues at a rate that's more than 3 times higher than the HIGHEST accrual rate in the US.
For the record, only 20 US states have any amount of legally mandated time off and most of those states have very strict rules on usage.
True. But most of it was obtained by a few taking risk (risks mitigated by syndicate and union funds to a point) to get those results. Now we're slowly losing them because more and more people aren't willing, or able, to protest.
The guy below me replies and blocks people so you can't counter their misinformation. I never said they use their vacation days to strike. OP's post is about protests, and you can use your vacation days in France to attend a protest. You are not required to tell your employer why you are taking a vacation day. As long as you comply with their notice requirements, there is nothing preventing you from using vacation time to exercise your right of speech to publicly complain about the government.
What misinformation? True, you can join a protest if you're already on vacation and it wasn't the main purpose of said vacation, you cannot take a day of vacation with the purpose to protest or strike. Several people have lost their job over it... Been a union representative for long enough to know what we can and can't. And i blocked you 'cause I know you were gonna spill more bullshit excuse (which you just did, guess i shouldn't have went back on my comment or i wouldn't have noticed the BS).
Yeah what a coward, unblocking me to reply and then blocking again. Go ahead and cite the law. Or show me a news article. Give me some proof of someone being disciplined or fired because he took time off to attend a protest, not because of any lawless action that happened at the protest or because he was protesting his own employer (which would make it a strike).
And i'm gonna block you again, not to avoid a reponse (i have faith in my argument) but because I don't want to carry on with a sterile argument... That said downvote me if you want, I couldn't care ^^ Have a nice day...
Hardly. Protests should have demands that must be met. If missing work means you might miss rent, then covering or freezing rent becomes another demand that must be met. Its the difference between waving funny signs and making demands.
The problem with having concise demands is that it requires some kind of leadership. The French have opposition party leaders and union heads with huge bases that can be decisive. Meanwhile, there are millions of us scattered all over the country trying to do things by committee.
Work stoppages work. That's why the American government has, at times, employed a policy of violence to suppress them. I'm not saying you are wrong. I am saying you are arguing from a position of privilege that you do not see. If I don't work, I don't make enough to cover rent. If I don't pay rent, after THREE days, my landlord can begin eviction. And from the laws point of view *I* am the problem.
If I'm unhoused, I and my family would very rapidly be unable to maintain the personal hygiene and appearance requirements of our jobs. If I'm evicted, other landlords are legally allowed to refuse to rent to me because I have been previously evicted.
As an American, this thought is exactly one of the reasons why the world increasingly thinks all Americans are a bunch of pussies or fascists. The same thing applies everywhere that has constant protests going on. They have been willing to temporarily give up everything to get real change. We collectively aren't, and we haven't been for like 60 years now. Most of the world wishes we would do something while fully knowing we will never go anything ... 1
Basically the rest of the world is just hoping our country has its inevitable complete collapse before we destroy them first. They have zero faith in us.
That’s what your government counting on. Ya‘ll to poor to protest properly. If half of the country stop working and go to the streets, the economy flattens and this is when the billionaires will kick the orange goblin out of office.
I hope this doesn't sound too discouraging, but well. Billionaires are evil fucks. And by definition they have the resources to hold out longer than the average American worker. So it depends - will they kick Dump out of office and allow slightly less exploitation in order to get the profits rolling again faster, or will they try to starve folks out entirely in order to reinstitute slavery as they want?
Block the airports. Its fast, simple, cheap, and requires few people. The rich can hold out forever against the poor, BUT if they can't get around easily, that slows down A LOT. Most of the rich rely on the poor to keep them functioning: to cook their food, do their grocery shopping, drive their cars and yachts and helicopters. This doesn't take much! There's about 400 people you need to really inconvenience to make change, and we don't do it.
They'll never vote out dump, corporations donate to conservatives for very salient reasons, not just because one CEO has ideology. What the billionaire class has to fear is the execs beneath them, who desperately want to be billionaires - if we held out long enough that stocks began to be really damaged, boards of directors might eject those CEOs where possible and install someone else, someone who will be willing to talk out of both sides of their mouth so they can become the ruling parasite.
If you still scheduled your protest to the weekends, like a good marionette ‘ll do, nothing will change. You have YouTube. Look at what the French do and how. Convince your bosses to protest on your side. That said, good luck to all of us…
It takes 6 semi trucks to block the major entrances/exits of the public to an airport. 6 guys to drive them. The problem isn't the size of our country. The problem is we're protesting as if we're asking nicely instead of DEMANDING change. Like cardboard signs held by old women who refuse to block a street is going to change anything. If your protest can be ignored, it WILL be. The solution is simple, fast, and inexpensive: disrupt the airports and watch how fast things change.
There was no disagreement that there should be more demands and action, I was saying that comparing the US to France doesn't work because of the size and population centers. However you bring great examples to the table, so I have some things to think about on how I'm seeing this. Thanks for brain food.
tinyfootprints
The French had it figured out in 1789.
AgamemnonsMemes
Less fires and fighting cops too, thats a problem
Detacheddavid
... and they also use a kind of cutting machine if the change does not happen.
EroticZombiePants
This is exactly why I'm basically getting increasingly dismissive over these occasional No Kings Protests. I know pretty much everyone there Saturday went home proud and didn't protest at all on Sunday. Having a big protest once every few months simply won't ever work. They aren't afraid of us in the slightest. Why would they be? They know what they are seeing is a blip on the radar. They can just sit back and wait a few hours and the pressure is off.
WhenWillThenBeNowSoon
100% and we use to need the power of boycotting more.
Smashaga
That photo of people sitting at a cafe table, defiant to the FIRE beside the speaks to the character of the people. “I’ll leave when I’m good and fscking ready.”
thismyburnerbutyoucangetdigits
This French couple gets around. This is like the 50th person they’ve said this to
Osiricus
Our utter lack of fire and guillotines probably seems troubling to them too.
aChungusAmongUs
Yeah… just plan it every quarter on a nice Saturday afternoon. That’ll change things
Subsound
No wonder you arent the project manager of anything
ParaspriteHugger
And they come prepared!
Ijustwantquiet
Were they playing the music the Ice Cream Trucks play?
RuminatingYak
Single protests don't do anything. In Serbia, people have been protesting their corrupt government since 2024 and they still aren't done: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_anti-corruption_protests
AnOceanOfStars
They meant to say "putting a greedy, corrupt psychopath to the guillotine every night".
marioClickCat
A very good point.
One day of a No Kings march accomplishes nothing.
Huor
Yesh think of the Maidan movement in Ukraine
BendOverAndIllShowYa
This is kind of nonsense. Did you not see daily protests in Minneapolis?!??!! I see protests locally all the time.
3845i
So true...
amoth
also the French had a lot of success with cutting off heads
eetsumkaus
a reminder that the French spent more of the century after lopping off Louis XVI's head under monarchy than they did as an actual republic
elgalileo
Yeah we didn't get it right the first times, but they too were booted at some point.
LordHosk
The problem is, French Protests are "easy" compared to American protest.
Half of the French population lives in Paris. if they want to have a million people show up at a single location, they just pop down to the local bakery, pick up a cw-as-ah, pop into the local coffee shop for uh cafehhh' and then take the metro a couple stops to protest square.
If a million people in the US want to show up to a protest. 3/4 of them have to drive 100+ miles
RevolutionOnHerLips
I'm as far from DC as driving from Belfast to Berlin, and I'm in the middle of the country. A lot of europeans have no sense of scale for how big the US is. Most of my life I haven't lived feasible driving distance to my own state capital.
elgalileo
This is of course, false. The whole Ile-de-France region has something like 12 millions inhabitants, roughly 18% of the French population. (huge but not 50% -_-) Most people don't go to Paris to strike or protest, they do it in the nearest town. Sometimes you are thousands. Sometimes your are tens. France and US have roughly the same urbanization rate: 80%. If people want to strike, they can organize where they are.
Namjies
A large protest that makes the news is flashy and nice for awareness, but they're hard to organize and don't cause much long term problems if they're once in a blue moon. Vast majority of Americans live in urban areas, doing local protests won't be too different travel wise than for the French.
Dannoboyo
The problem is that they all happen where massive amounts of Democrats live, and even if we had a general strike, it would mostly affect Democrats. It's not like we all live a few hours from DC and can just stop everything there for miles, but that's what we need to do.
BackToTheOriginalUsername
French don't migrate to Paris each time a strike is announced. A few do but most join protest in the closest city...
Dannoboyo
Yes.
i18736524742069
It’s why No Kings is great for media coverage and clips, but does nothing to threaten those in power and actually cause change
rossimus
Americans do do this, all the time actually. There have been sustained protests in places like Minneapolis Los Angeles and Portland, and in the first Trump admin there were month long occupations of public space in those places and Seattle that were pretty widely covered and got harsh police crackdown responses.
Europeans like to push this narrative because they don't actually pay attention to what's happening here. Theyre too excited about any potential opportunity to dunk on Americans.
AgamemnonsMemes
I think the point is that turning up and waving signs doesn't do anything if the people in power just.. don't care. Showing you are unhappy doesn't help if the people you are telling don't care about you being happy. When 'the french protests' are brought up, the american equivalent is a riot. There needs to be some concequence to things the rich care about, like businesses, labor, etc.
rossimus
The protests I just cited got pretty out of hand, and involved the destruction of property and even the occupation of public spaces/buildings.
Unlike in France, though, American law enforcement has public support to violently crack down on protesters. They can kill and imprison with impunity. I suspect if French police did the same, they'd have quite a bit less courage.
IDoStuffZ
Set up shifts. Work your 8 hours at indentured servant work place. Come out do your 4-6 hours in the trenches. Repeat
phoenix0path
The people of France can get to their capitol in minutes.
We cannot.
CrimsonPermanentAssurance
Economic pain is the point, not going to the capital
Rijacki
It is easier to do a daily protest until change happens if you're not concerned about having health care coverage for you and your family.
Rijacki
France, like most other civilized countries, doesn't have healthcare tied to employment. If you lose your job in the US, you also lose your health insurance. You might be able to get a temporary, usually only a few months, extension to the policy you had while were employed at an increase in the amount you need to pay. If you get a new job, generally you won't be able to get insurance for a year or sometimes more, but only if the employer offers that benefit.
FentuckyCriedKhicken
Trump and his people will not give a shit about the protests, because they know it means nothing, it cannot change anything. Unless it turns into a riot or civil war, trump administration will just laugh at the protests.
Rhythmaster
Oh it definitely upsets him. Because narcissists have a desperate need to be liked and get positive affirmations from everyone all the time. Fox news tells him everyone loves him, all his sycophants tell him he is the most popular president ever, when there are large scale protests, that threatens his delusion that he is the bestest boy in the whole world. This isn't the main point of the protests but he very much cares. he is super thin skinned and he hates it when people speak up against him.
LordHelmetTheThird
That's the difference. When the French protest, the government knows shit can, and most likely will, go down. When you know that the millions of people outside your gates are more than willing to behead you if things won't change, you change things.
In the US, it's an afternoon walk, a blip in the news cycle, and by Monday everyone's self-congratulating themselves for "doing their best" and "showing up" while the leaders can go about their day as if nothing happened.
counterintel
I keep saying this. They are dissolving and looting the entire government, lining their pockets and turning on their own citizens, completely unchecked with no concern for repercussion.
"You mean the peasants have opinions and cleverly worded signs?? They march the streets 1000 miles away, chanting in unison?? *sarcastically* OH NO, ANYTHING BUT THAT. Anyways, pass me another 8 ball and send the national guard in. Label them terrorists. *chugs champagne they didnt pay for from a bottle*"
hyptosis
This is true, until things start burning and dying they'll just keep on raping.
igetit41
I think you're missing what the French see as the point of a protest. Americans think the point of a protest is to communicate to the ruling class their dissatisfaction. They schedule protests on the weekend so that everyone can still get to work. For the French, leaving during work and grinding the country's productivity to a halt, stopping traffic, creating economic issues is the point of the protest. Trump and his people would care if that happened, but the US doesn't protest that way.
AgamemnonsMemes
Also a lot more setting fires and fighting cops. If you just turn up on a sunday and wave 'we're mad' signs, the ruling elite won't care because it does literally nothing to them.
FentuckyCriedKhicken
Yes that would bring a effect, but even if that happens, I doubt the MAGAs and trump admin would back down. They would try violence first, I think, not necessarily. But it’s a big possibility. And people gonna lose their lives, but in the end, everyone would go back to their lives. Just like the chinese 6.4 Tiananmen Square thing.
FentuckyCriedKhicken
And for France, the France government are not as evil as the current trump admin. The only way to change the situation, very possibly is people defeat him by force. He’s got brainless supporters, and he’s gonna use anything to stay in power, laws can be rewritten, people can be bought or threatened. Read the history, only two ways this can be changed, one is natural death, the other is unnatural death. Protests are just fun for them.
Peden1
The French don't fuck around. Their protests are legit
Hurch
The French seem to know what might happen if their citizens are ignored.
pandajack
Yes, like "le git your neck in my guillotine."
makesense
French still get things when they don't work. Our protest strategy goes along with our 'having to deal with Capitalism' thing.
kahlas
The French people have shown time and time again for over a century they are 100% ready, willing, and able to burn everything to the ground if they are sick and tired of what the government is trying to do. When the government calls their "bluff" they start burning things until the government remembers what happened to the last government that didn't acquiesce to the needs/wants of the people and relents.
thejon
I keep saying, this is what protests are SUPPOSED to be! They are the civilized way of saying "...or else", but we've trained our government that it can ignore those warnings and no "or else" will come.
It's time to bring back the "or else".
somethingstupidandclever
The other thing is that they are roughly the size of texas land wise and like 1/5 the population. If something is going down in Paris or Marseille it basically shuts down everything and if you can't make it to work you probably won't lose your job. 50-100k people show up to protest, things are changing. In the US 8M people showed up for no kings last week and it was good for morale but had basically no impact on the operation of the country.
Daemencer
Yet they rarely yield anything these last few years.
eetsumkaus
what have their protests done? Macron is still in charge, their pension age is still raised, the infamous garbage workers' strike was called off after like a month with zero progress. Not to mention, a lot of the protests are things like the already heavily subsidized French agricultural sector protesting EU trade deals, as well as the French far right.
19marcurious57
I see your problem. You probably are Alsatian, hence the doubts.
rockiesmagicnumber
wait is this french racism/regional prejudice I'm witnessing? Decent-faith question, if not Good.
kahlas
Tell me you don't know anything about the topic you're being cynical about without telling me you don't know anything about it. https://time.com/5476534/french-protests-successful-macron/ They don't always get what they want but they get it a lot more often than we do.
eetsumkaus
your article mentions several cases where anti-liberal factions such as the farmers won concessions by raising a stink. A reminder that MAGA and the Tea Party were also protest movements in the US.
kahlas
You forgot Ku Klux Klan, Vanguard America, Rise Above Movement and Anti-Communist Action amongst many other radical right organizations who have held minuscule protests in the last 20 years in the US. The absolute largest alt right protest in the US was at most half a million Tea Party supporters in 346 cities during the April 15, 2009 Tax Day protests. You need real popular support to force change through protests. Alt right groups don't actually have that because most people are sane/rational.
hyptosis
i think they USED to not fuck around, you know, when they cut off heads
nevercompromisenoteven
Death is so final, but cow poop stinks for a long time..
r44jcch4zf
I am French and I approve this message.
2B4UALL
Different laws, rights and social conditions
jeejeejerrycotton
Yes that is the point of the OP.
LordHosk
Different housing conditions, half of France lives in Paris,
Lagunitas707
Just an FYI, the population of France is approximately 69.1 million, 2.1 million live in Paris, and 13.2 million in the Paris metro area.
ThailandExpress
+ better public transport & trains can go to protest in the capital and make it back home in one day so they go without getting fired
damogen
How do you think they got those?
BillHubbard
That, and what I see is 25 people with signs besides the road. It should be 2500 blocking the road.
QuitLookinAtMineAim
And mostly just people trying to show off their witty comments. "Ha ha, look how clever I am. This will surely result in positive change. I hope I go viral!" Ffs
Bojovnik84
I agree with the increase, but blocking a road doesn't do the same. Instead, they should block up corporate business locations and affect their sales.
johnblood616
"Protest in the way I like"
SinStar87
I think halting infrastructure, like blocking roads from being used by customers or transport, does that?
Bojovnik84
Not really. And, it usually has a negative affect with average people, who will resent the protest, rather than agree with it. Plus, if you disrupt profits to corporations, they will eventually be more likely to change or push for change with the politicians they own.
EroticZombiePants
Blocking the roads prevent people getting to work and shopping and general transportation of goods, which in turn will disrupt production and commerce, so it helps you get to the goals of wrecking profits. There really isn't any way to completely disrupt the near end-stage capitalistic machine that isn't going to be really inconvenient to the average person in the process.
SinStar87
It's not? I don't see how it's not, but do agree the average person's morals are too self centered to care about it beyond it's interrupting their day/income. Which is the main problem with protesting.
Bojovnik84
Well, as a Floridian, all it has managed to do here, is get DeSantis to create a law where you can legally run over a protestor with your car if they block the road. I just dont know how effective road blocking really is.
glovelyday
The trouble with French people is they don't understand hiw big America is. It's smaller than the state of Texas, and it's the largest country in Europe. Denmark is only half the size of South Carolina, and it's the 40th state in size.
jeejeejerrycotton
Wow you are too dumb to even be American. Russian?
hyptosis
No other country does, my state is bigger than most other entire countries. It isn't comparable unless you're in china or canada. Russia I suppose.
hyptosis
Also, I think a lot of people confuse population and land size my state is bigger than denmark, but their population is WAY higher. Their protests would be so much more organized and effective, we can't afford to all drive to one city and then protest, let alone organize that across the wide open and empty space. We also don't have public transit, etc, logistics is different and people throwing shit are just looking for an internet fight and don't want to think.
RyanH42
And Texans can't, say, storm the governor's mansion because...
rockiesmagicnumber
Because for every Texan storming the governor's mansion there are 5 fascist Texans with guns opposing them.
FreshBundleOfStick
American when they can't do something that every other country has figured out : "America too big, have you seen Texas"?
Tolocamp
You do not understand what a rebellion actually means do you ? You only need 500 people walking into the new york Stock exchance and 500 walking into the FED building, then a few thousand outside blocking the way in. Watch how fast the response changes !
Nobody cares about cotton fields in South Carolina. You block and occupy neuralgic points and just put the administration out of business. Banks, Admin buildings, government agencies.
US is big ! Never was an argument to anything.
Namjies
And vast majority of Americans live in urban areas, not in the empty space 5h away from the city. What has the size of the US got to do with ability to protest other than an excuse to promote helplessness? There's no need to have a million people all gathered at the same time in the same city from the surrounding ones to protest. Smaller, dispersed local protests are easier to keep going and can cause more issues than a singular large mass.
ProfessorVanDiggenSagg
glovelyday
Or drive 15 hours and still be in Texas.
LordHosk
LOL
rockiesmagicnumber
I live in Denver and the nearest major cities are 8hr away. This is hilarious to me - both in earnest AND in sarcasm!
ProfessorVanDiggenSagg
I know, that's why I made this meme. Continental Europe is as big as the US, with twice the population. Infrastructure and traffic laws are way too different. "But Texas is big" is as much of a nonsensical argument as "but french roads are winding".
rockiesmagicnumber
ohmygod how did you know i live in denver
ProfessorVanDiggenSagg
lol *looks at username*
PaperinoVB
France has more than double the population of Texas, though. Size hardly counts. (bad pun not intended but acknowledged)
Daliena06
Size *sorta* counts? At least if you want colossal protests in D.C, because that means transporting all those people out there.
PaperinoVB
Some bigger rally in less places would be more impressive. Like, in every capital city some tens of thousands people, instead of some dozen in every little provincial town, like someone else already said. Like here: /gallery/RRAE0oE/comment/2496166931
"That, and what I see is 25 people with signs besides the road. It should be 2500 blocking the road."
glovelyday
The saddest part is you don't even see how that fact totally undercuts your "argument". It's not about just size (though apparently it is for you) it's about density.
PaperinoVB
So, the population density in Texas, as of 2026, is approximately 121 people per square mile. In France it is 315–316 people per square mile. Would you clarify your point? Or better, would you please explain to me what do you think my "argument" is?
2074red2074
For a lot of Americans, the nearest place they could go to actually cause a problem is miles away. Remember, we don't have trains. I can't just hop on a high-speed rail and get to Dallas in an hour, I have to drive there three hours out and three hours back and then somehow find a place to park my car. And if people are flooding in for a protest, there is nowhere to park my car.
glovelyday
You have no argument. Want people to gather in the capital? Paris to Marseilles, 500 miles. Washington DC to LA, 2700 miles.
PaperinoVB
State capital should be enough.
BackToTheOriginalUsername
We do. Trust me, we do, probably better than the average American do. But tell me, how does the size of texas prevent you from protesting?
I feel this is gonna be interesting. Dumb but interesting...
2074red2074
Do people in France who live in small towns go do tiny little ten-person demonstrations? No, they flock to the large cities where they can actually disrupt something. How do they do that? Well a fairly large portion already live in one, and the rest are rarely far from one so they can bus in. Even the ones further out can hop on a train. In the US, you can walk for a week or you can drive for three hours. But if everyone flocks to the cities, where will they park their cars?
BackToTheOriginalUsername
82% of american lives in cities or urban area...The vast majority of US citizen could easily access protest areas...
BackToTheOriginalUsername
Also: yes you have small scale protest when people can't join a bigger protest (and I assure you not all can flock to big cities)...
2074red2074
This guy replies and then blocks people so they can't say anything back. I did not say anything about who lives in an urban area. Urban does not mean big city. Urban means it's not a collection of farms in the middle of nowhere. The cutoff is 5,000 people. That's the small towns I'm talking about. And yeah, you CAN protest there. I never said you couldn't. But you know damn well that every small town in America having ten to twenty people standing on a corner or marching won't do shit.
BackToTheOriginalUsername
Population density. Looks like plenty of people near medium and big cities to me...
2074red2074
Lol he unblocked me so he could reply and then blocked me again. What a little fucking coward. That map puts a population density of 1,000 as third from the top of its scale. That's about the population density of a small town. Those massive yellow areas are still not even urban. Also in France about the furthest you can possibly be from a large city is if you live between Paris and Lyon, about 150 miles from each. That's about 1/3 of the Oklahoma panhandle, to give you an idea of the scale.
thisisjunk
In America, most of us have to work. And we cannot afford to take the day off. So many of us are a few bad months from destitution. You mostly see the young, the elderly, and those who's job is home/child maintenance protesting. This is intentional.
jeejeejerrycotton
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU.
BlastyMcBlastblast
its the perfect trap: too desperate to risk rocking the boat that keeps you all desperate.
Illinifan88
Yep. People still have something to lose. We're quickly approaching the point where that won't be true anymore though.
ThrowAwayAcct0000
My family of 4 could get by on ramen noodles for a month if it meant that from then on, we had universal healthcare. Americans (I am 1) expect to be able to protest without it costing us anything. This attitude of, "it would be hard on my finances for a month so I guess I won't bother" is how you lose everything. I'm not trying to be insulting, but you have to decide what's more important to you: temporary money, or long-term rights/freedoms. The truth is: you just aren't desperate enough yet.
areyouelonmusk
You people have months? If I missed a paycheck we'd be so far behind that it takes 4 months to recover
stercusmoriturussum
Catch-22
WhenWillThenBeNowSoon
True. I’m one bad week away from being completely screwed.
McFrazzlestache
Sooo, they kill us anyway, then. Might as well put all your eggs in one guillotine.
Soyjohn
Unions and strike funds
Zetor
Marx and Engels: Did we fuckin stutter?
AgamemnonsMemes
Oh well, guess you're screwed them, might as well give up
igetit41
I think you're missing what the French see as the point of a protest. Americans think the point of a protest is to communicate to the ruling class their dissatisfaction. They schedule protests on the weekend so that everyone can still get to work. For the French, leaving during work and grinding the country's productivity to a halt, stopping traffic, creating economic issues is the point of the protest. Trump and his people would care if that happened, but the US doesn't protest that way.
SlaaneshiRightsFront
On the other hand, the food at the supermarket is free if you just take it. Get some friends and away you go. There are options available to both survive and push for meaningful change, but they hit Americans where it really hurts; in the ego.
okkehel
It is typical for US people to think they are the only ones who have to work for a living. What is it with you people over there.
thejon
Can your boss legally fire you for going to a protest? Ours can.
If yours can, could you still get medical care? We cannot.
You also likely have social safety net programs like food assistance, housing support, etc. Here you can't qualify for those if you make above $3k/month or have more than $3k in assets, or if you don't work for 3+ months. Oh, and average unemployment length is about 6 months, so ...have fun starving I guess.
okkehel
All the things you mention came not as manna from heaven.,,, and also: the lack of it, is not a natural disaster but a choice. Your choices. Live by it or change it.
mindstorm8191
Sooo, what if we protest directly after work? What if we start a coalition where 1-5 people are protesting on every street corner, an hour or two every day & night? I think we can achieve that.
The trick is to keep inviting people to join the efforts. Give them a card, or share contact info. We can't ask them to protest that day, they're probably busy then. But help them plan a protest that works around their own schedule.
Dyamonde
And guess why that's the case? Because you didn't protest before things became this bad.
raskirorikson8
What bs. You have to work in france as well. You can protest after work or at the weekend. The only thing that hinders you from protesting is your convenience. You have to sacrifice your freetime to protest. You are not willing to do that, fine. But thats on you, thats on America. France is willing to do those sacrifices, that's all there is to say
BackToTheOriginalUsername
Us french don't get paid when we protest. The most prepared have syndicate who can give some compensation but most of the time, strikes and protest come at the cost of loss of income.
Hence why this whole "the french are professional protester" has become more and more bullshit.
Most people can't afford to strike or protest...
Badprenup
You also have one of the strongest and most robust social safety nets in Europe, collective bargaining agreements that cover 90+% of your workforce, and a LOT of legally mandated time off that accrues at a rate that's more than 3 times higher than the HIGHEST accrual rate in the US.
For the record, only 20 US states have any amount of legally mandated time off and most of those states have very strict rules on usage.
timmyg683000
Your just reciting more cause to protest.
EroticZombiePants
I'm pretty sure they got all of that through protesting though.
ThrowAwayAcct0000
And you know how they got all of those things? They had to protest and fight for it.
BackToTheOriginalUsername
True. But most of it was obtained by a few taking risk (risks mitigated by syndicate and union funds to a point) to get those results. Now we're slowly losing them because more and more people aren't willing, or able, to protest.
amoth
unlike the French, who never work and are just c est la vie..
2074red2074
The French have vacation days they can use.
BackToTheOriginalUsername
That is showing a poor knowledge of French rules. You can't strike or protest during your vacations days...
2074red2074
The guy below me replies and blocks people so you can't counter their misinformation. I never said they use their vacation days to strike. OP's post is about protests, and you can use your vacation days in France to attend a protest. You are not required to tell your employer why you are taking a vacation day. As long as you comply with their notice requirements, there is nothing preventing you from using vacation time to exercise your right of speech to publicly complain about the government.
BackToTheOriginalUsername
What misinformation? True, you can join a protest if you're already on vacation and it wasn't the main purpose of said vacation, you cannot take a day of vacation with the purpose to protest or strike. Several people have lost their job over it...
Been a union representative for long enough to know what we can and can't.
And i blocked you 'cause I know you were gonna spill more bullshit excuse (which you just did, guess i shouldn't have went back on my comment or i wouldn't have noticed the BS).
2074red2074
Yeah what a coward, unblocking me to reply and then blocking again. Go ahead and cite the law. Or show me a news article. Give me some proof of someone being disciplined or fired because he took time off to attend a protest, not because of any lawless action that happened at the protest or because he was protesting his own employer (which would make it a strike).
BackToTheOriginalUsername
And i'm gonna block you again, not to avoid a reponse (i have faith in my argument) but because I don't want to carry on with a sterile argument...
That said downvote me if you want, I couldn't care ^^
Have a nice day...
CrimsonPermanentAssurance
Hardly. Protests should have demands that must be met. If missing work means you might miss rent, then covering or freezing rent becomes another demand that must be met. Its the difference between waving funny signs and making demands.
theworldcouldbeflat
Whole lot of people just not realizing death by Canadians is just as bad as Republicans.
squirrelgirl86
The problem with having concise demands is that it requires some kind of leadership. The French have opposition party leaders and union heads with huge bases that can be decisive. Meanwhile, there are millions of us scattered all over the country trying to do things by committee.
thisisjunk
Work stoppages work. That's why the American government has, at times, employed a policy of violence to suppress them. I'm not saying you are wrong. I am saying you are arguing from a position of privilege that you do not see. If I don't work, I don't make enough to cover rent. If I don't pay rent, after THREE days, my landlord can begin eviction. And from the laws point of view *I* am the problem.
thisisjunk
If I'm unhoused, I and my family would very rapidly be unable to maintain the personal hygiene and appearance requirements of our jobs. If I'm evicted, other landlords are legally allowed to refuse to rent to me because I have been previously evicted.
EroticZombiePants
As an American, this thought is exactly one of the reasons why the world increasingly thinks all Americans are a bunch of pussies or fascists. The same thing applies everywhere that has constant protests going on. They have been willing to temporarily give up everything to get real change. We collectively aren't, and we haven't been for like 60 years now. Most of the world wishes we would do something while fully knowing we will never go anything ... 1
EroticZombiePants
Basically the rest of the world is just hoping our country has its inevitable complete collapse before we destroy them first. They have zero faith in us.
rockiesmagicnumber
it's the whole "temporarily embarrassed millionaire" thing - "as soon as OUR people are in office, THEN I'll hit it big"
Edzard
That’s what your government counting on. Ya‘ll to poor to protest properly. If half of the country stop working and go to the streets, the economy flattens and this is when the billionaires will kick the orange goblin out of office.
Midgarmerc
Well first they'll deploy the police and claim protesting is terrorism.
Daliena06
I hope this doesn't sound too discouraging, but well. Billionaires are evil fucks. And by definition they have the resources to hold out longer than the average American worker. So it depends - will they kick Dump out of office and allow slightly less exploitation in order to get the profits rolling again faster, or will they try to starve folks out entirely in order to reinstitute slavery as they want?
ThrowAwayAcct0000
Block the airports. Its fast, simple, cheap, and requires few people. The rich can hold out forever against the poor, BUT if they can't get around easily, that slows down A LOT. Most of the rich rely on the poor to keep them functioning: to cook their food, do their grocery shopping, drive their cars and yachts and helicopters. This doesn't take much! There's about 400 people you need to really inconvenience to make change, and we don't do it.
RevolutionOnHerLips
They'll never vote out dump, corporations donate to conservatives for very salient reasons, not just because one CEO has ideology. What the billionaire class has to fear is the execs beneath them, who desperately want to be billionaires - if we held out long enough that stocks began to be really damaged, boards of directors might eject those CEOs where possible and install someone else, someone who will be willing to talk out of both sides of their mouth so they can become the ruling parasite.
Edzard
If you still scheduled your protest to the weekends, like a good marionette ‘ll do, nothing will change. You have YouTube. Look at what the French do and how. Convince your bosses to protest on your side. That said, good luck to all of us…
KawaiiInari
France is like the size of Texas compared to the whole US. We can't protest the same. We have to find solutions that work for us.
ThrowAwayAcct0000
It takes 6 semi trucks to block the major entrances/exits of the public to an airport. 6 guys to drive them. The problem isn't the size of our country. The problem is we're protesting as if we're asking nicely instead of DEMANDING change. Like cardboard signs held by old women who refuse to block a street is going to change anything. If your protest can be ignored, it WILL be. The solution is simple, fast, and inexpensive: disrupt the airports and watch how fast things change.
KawaiiInari
There was no disagreement that there should be more demands and action, I was saying that comparing the US to France doesn't work because of the size and population centers. However you bring great examples to the table, so I have some things to think about on how I'm seeing this. Thanks for brain food.
thejon
Tax records for real property are generally public record. We need to start protesting on the streets of elected officials homes.
To be clear, this is not a call for violence, but it is absolutely a call for disruption and the threat of violence if peaceful means fail.