That's how they still have that 3 hour lunch break, in Italy we don't even have minimun wage and will retire by like 80 if we keep doing nothing, in the meantime the french will retire before 70 and have 12€/h minimum wage.
Honestly the french fully understand how democracy works, the parties need to represent the people, if they don't, the people need to force their hand, the politicians are there to make the beaurocracy easier and quicker, not to rule over the people, in fact the politicians should be subservient to the people
in theory that's a perfect democracy, one where the people can remove their representatives at any moment. however in many places, including where i live, someone HAS to go: "StIll BeTTeR tHaN tHe CoMMieS!!!!1!!1!1" while the country goes to shit
"A perfect democracy would also require perfectly rational and educated leaders and house members" there, I FTFY bro. /s (or is it though?)
You are correct though, this political system only works if all parties involved only collectively work towards the betterment of life within said country. Which, let's be real here, is never going to happen.
Living in France i won't lie, we have it better than most other places. Being fr though, it also very very much fucking sucks here. Our taxes are not used towards the betterment of contributing citizens for the most part. Infrastructure is shit and getting worse by the minute. Hospitals are on their knees and getting rarer by the minute. Public school? Half of them are a joke and lacking means, hence the current highschooler movement. So so so many more global society issues that are only now poking their ugly heads that will most definitely only keep getting worse every year with the current direction of the country, led by politicians that care more about their image and poll results than leaving the country in a better place than it was when they got here (debt went x3 the last 5 years)...
Anyways, you get the gist. Like everyone else, we're fighting for survival, just being more noisy about it, but I doubt we get much done tbh. We take what we can, but it's not much.
I'm not talking about a perfect democracy I'm talking about whether or not a political system should be considered democratic.
I wouldn't classify any of the existing "liberal democracies" as a democracy. I think a more appropriate term for them would be representative aristocracy.
It's interesting how close your criticism gets from a rather popular line of thinking in France where the current system is often (mostly derogatorily) called a presidential monarchy
Well I'm not unique, its in line with a well established socialist critique of "liberal democracy".
Liberal democracy has politicians win elections to gain power. Those elections aren't won by thoughtful debate about policy, they are won by maximizing positive influence campaigns and minimizing negative influence campaigns.
Therefore politicians and political parties are not interested in what their constituents would want, but instead are interested in courting(or avoid upsetting) the most powerful influence groups.
Influence groups are made up of organized wealth, or a combination of organized wealth and organized people. Organized people can become an influence groups without organized wealth, but that isn't very sustainable.
Having the ability to remove representatives just makes it a less terrible elective aristocracy, you CANNOT vote for people to rule in your stead in a democracy, those two are antithetical despite 2 centuries of propaganda to associate democracy with elected politicians democracy was created in opp to shit like this. Either you vote on laws (direct) or drawn citizen vote on them (indirect). The rest isn't the people governing.
I think theoritical democracy is when people who make a difference are selected randomly. So called representative democracy has just become a circus so that wealthy people keep more political leverage than the masses. It holds because we can vote once in a while and feel "represented". Would you want a jury to be elected at your trial? I don't think so. Yet nobody questions it in the executive and legislative branch.
Current situation is they can't pass unpopular legislation with the 1% out of fear of losing its position.
In "democracies" like that it's very difficult to ever get a tax raise on the rich passed.
So the only difference would be a dictatorship of the majority rather than the (capitalist) minority. That's a positive change even if not going as far as would be needed.
It's not a constant, sadly, there's been a rise in complacency, bootlicking and repression even in France, and those social victories we fought for might be sacrificed on the altar of populism soon.
The french people aren't the only ones who understand how democracy works, sadly the ultra rich understand quite well how to make even the most stubborn of Gauls vote against their own interests
Last year I was in Italy and an Italian friend was explaining the issues with unemployed and lack of opportunity for young people, and she made an interesting comment.
She said, “If we were French we would be marching in the streets and burning things, but we are Italian so we just take it and wonder why nothing changes.”
I’m not an advocate of violence, but… the French definitely make themselves heard when their government doesn’t want to listen.
Je suis Français et le faire d’élire quelqu'un n’est pas de la démocratie dans le sens strict du terme.
La Suisse est un bien meilleur exemple.
Les pays nordique sont pas mal non plus.
En France on a la culture contestataire, on voit les acquis sociaux que nos aïeux ont obtenu au pri de mai 1968. .
On a bouffer nos droits petit à petit pour voir grossir les inégalités sociales et aujourd'hui on essaie de nous dire que les responsables c’est les étrangers et les gauchistes alors que c’est le résultat de décennie de gestions de droite et de corruption.
On est pas trop con et on oublie pas qu'on à jamais rien sans violence, d’ailleurs la base de mai 68 c’est les étudiants, l’etat est en train de s’en prendre à nos jeunes qui ont des raisons légitimes de se plaindre.
Quand il y aura la bavure de trop ça va prendre de l'ampleur.
Après on est pas forcément un exemple à suivre. Personne n’est parfait et donc on en à vite marre des gens qu'on met au pouvoir.
Bon les avancées de 68 on se les ait fait doucement dérobées sans rien dire, les syndicats ne sont que l'ombre d'eux mêmes, les fédérations sauf quelques unes ont ete éclaté et a part les etudiants il n'y a pas vraiment de vecteur commun pour reunir tout le monde sous un meme drapeau. Et puis là on nous sucre les avancées sociales d'apres guerre, gentiment à coup de rentabilité de croissance etc.. j'espère pour les etudiants qu'ils obtiendront quelques cessions parce que le monde du travail s'est tellement pourri de l'interieur que ça va piquer pour eux, autant qu'ils changent le monde du travail plutot que de faire comme nous et de s'y adapter.
I still remember seeing a video from Beau of the Fifth Column about a strike in the US. ( quickly looked it up, it was "Let's Talk About UPS and Labor" )
In it he speak about the fact that you see article about how they are "the highest paid" ( with I guess the undertone of "yet they complain" in those articles ), this is what he says : "why do you think they're the highest paid because they have the best representation because they're bargaining as a collective rather than just an individual walking in trying to strike a deal with a multi-billion dollar company that doesn't even know their name".
This meme is pretty much the same as those article, it present french people as privileged who fight for the smallest thing, when the reality is that you need to fight for every attempt at eroding your rights. They only look privileged because others lost that fight ( and on many front even the French are losing that fight against politician who decide to rule ).
Americans are too scared of inconveniencing anyone while protesting. Once weekend ends, they drop their signs and return to making money for the oligarchs. Then act all surprised that their "protests" don't achieve anything
My British ass hates to say it but they absolutely have the right idea. Labour laws live and die by people's willingness to push for them. Unfortunately the only thing that we'll riot for is xenophobia...
Jokes aside, in most companies, we barely have an hour lunch break. In some domains (like in stores and supermarket), we generally have only 30-45 minutes.
However, students always had 2 hours, but it’s getting more and more only a 1-hour lunch break, and I already had some years where once or twice a week, I had only five minutes. Though it was because of my options (I was doing Latin).
So yeah, lunch WAS sacred in France. And it technically culturally still is, but with too many politicians and industrials glazing on the american model, and already for decades now, we are ending up with a lot of companies (and schools) that barely want to give us lunch break at all.
As a substitute History/Geography/Civic life teacher in France (yes, we teach the three as linked subjects), I am both proud of our students for protesting and appalled : I spend years trying to get into education and its budget is constantly cut to the profit of no one but bean counters and consultants...
Also, teaching the importance of civil rights, all the troubles we had to go through to obtain them and then have the government walk all over them is infuriating : how can kids adhere to the principles of our nation if the government itself does not ???
To be fair, these kids definitely have good reason to protest. Education lacks funding, a lot of teachers are pretty awful, school hours are absolutely horrid (back in high school I had at least one day a week that lasted from 8 am all the way to 6 pm), and many, many more issues. What makes everything violent is the police and people who just want to cause violence (though mainly just the police tbh)
hey OP ? Kindly shut up. First off, we have all those rights BECAUSE we are fighting. People were injured, died, decades before i was born, so i could have a better life and rights that you're just boilin down to "a 3 hours lunch break".
But also, have you read the news ? High schoolers, teachers, and unions are in the street to protest against lack of funding in education and the government is answering by blowing a kids hand off, trying to drown one in the river, shooting another one in the teeth point-blank with a rubber bullet.... The level of violence we've seen, against mostly STUDENT, is appaling. So fuck off with that.
God, I wish we Americans could pull this shit over not having healthcare or our entire political system being bought out by billionaires. But no, we have to save it for when the fascist crybaby loses an election.
i don't like this post.
Some kids were almost drowned, some was shot at close range and lost all his teeth, another one had his hand tear up by a grenade.
in tree days (3) there was 2000 arrests most of them where ultra violent.
All of this is because of the cops and it is a conscious strategy by the french state.
It is not "5 minutes less on our lunch break".
Americans, when their boss pays them 3$/h, refuses their paid leaves and call them up in the middle of the night after a heart surgery to know if they're going to be at their desk by 8am
The current protest are about HIGHSCHOOLERS being stuck in school from 8 to 6 (you guys have "9 to 5" right?)
As well as the government removing budget for education, leading those same kids being 30 per class, straight up not having teachers for some classes and in the worst cases, unhealty damaged schools (cold, hot and with rats)
The teenagers of the country are standing up for their right to education, so just know this meme comes of as petty and ignorant to me
It's about high-schoolers being stuck in school from 8-6 in buildings that are actively falling appart, with subjects where they have had no teachers and no substitute teachers either, no plans for education. I'm a tutor and one of my students last year in CE1 (so 7yo kid) was missing her teacher from October to April. She kept getting substitutes after substitutes but no one long term. Back in my senior year of high-school, I had no Spanish teacher for almost two semesters. I presented only two out four subjects for my oral test. She was never replaced. It's tragic lol.
And that's why we still have the shit we have. Can't let governments take too much ease or you become the US or the UK (and even then they don't even always listen until their lives are in actual danger)
The French know how to get livable wages and good benefits from their job, so what if they gotta start a few fires every now and then to make the government remember their place.
these jokes about people standing up for their rights seem so wrong to me. I don't really think that the upper class has anything to do with these in a directe sense, but it seems their efforts in making us believe that the average person working 40h+ a week until they are 70, and still just about scraping by, are reflected in these posts.
French citizens are goated. Americans could learn a thing or two from the French. If we had a fraction of the gumption the French have then people like Donald Trump wouldn't be in office for fear of a horde of protestors that would put Jan 6th to shame.
Our indolence may be out undoing. We need to make the Epstein class understand who has the numbers here. 10% of the US population mobilizing simultaneously across all major metro areas would be more than any police force could withstand.
Actually the hate the French jokes were an American psyop because they refused to invade Iraq
You can see it in early 2000s stuff like Freedom Fries or the liberal TV show The West Wing suddenly making fun of the French for... having healthcare, because the US "pays for their army (?)"
I find this meme funny "but"
To contextualise, Macron's has ruined french society. People has never been so poor. And you make fun of french riots but the reels one were back in 2020 with yellow jackets. Things since then are quite silly compared to whats coming in the next days.
Still, your meme is funny.
Students are not even rioting. Most are just marching; there are some high school blockades and, naturally, some incidents that get out of hand, but many reports point to people who aren't actually from those schools. And recently, a cop was caught red-handed acting as an agent provocateur (wearing a balaclava and throwing an object at the kids).
We do have a lot of police violence and suspicious of cops in civilian clothes creating problems to justify répression (jk we have videos and proof of this. It’s ridiculous)
If you guys enjoy working your asses off with no lunch break while the billionaires get more billions, that's fine, but don't mock the ones that are fighting for their rights.
as much as we hate on the french, they sure know how to tell their government to fuck off and the rest of the world really cant figure out how to do that
This is very funny to me, a French, because in my referential it's very far from enough. We got nothing out of it yet, the governement doesn't give a s*** anymore, and a high schooler just LOST HIS HAND because our police is out of control. The only thing that bothers me is that it's the high schools that are on fire, and not Macron.
We dont have 3 hours lunch break. The most common
is probably 1h though some people may take more, like 1h30. 2h or more is clearly on the higher end if people use it do to sport for instance.
As they should, governments will always take advantage of fully docile populations, you NEED to show that you're capable of flipping the table to keep them on their toes and they will always try to test you
Haha so funny, btw a 15 year old kid just lost his hand to a grenade thrown by a cop but you’re right, they sure are so wacky and burn things for the hell of it.
Makes era of political violence & mass beheading civilians the founding mythos of their nation
Questions why their public destroys half a city everytime they do something somewhat polarising
Even for the sake of meme, it is diminishing for the current protests.
Highschoolers demanding more teachers and less rat-infested, falling-apart, leaking-ceilings classrooms. Firefighters outraged at the decrease of their budget, despite the intensification of fires...
We're past the lunchbreak discussion, and by a lot.
Gotta love the cops, in civilian attire and refusing to show their id, breaking stuff and throwing rocks, too...
Part of the reason American media bashes the French is because they’re afraid if they don’t we’ll actually notice all the stuff their government does for them.
I wish we protested half as much as the French here in Australia. Instead we don't give a shit and just let the corrupt politicians and mining magnates erode away our country out from under us.
This is in bad taste considering that right now in France, high schoolers are protesting for better education in public schools (teachers being replaced when absent, better infrastructures, better materials...) and are very much being beat up by the police. One kid just got his hand blown up by a hand grenade thrown by a cop. Yes you read that right, yes this is happening in France and not some dictatorship like North Korea or whatever.
I'll keep saying it. Both corporations and governments are slippery slopes just itching to take away all your rights and privileges boiling frog style.
You need to always whip them into shape
Yes we protest, and unlike america, we have more than 10 days off work per year, we don’t pay a 30 min ambulance ride 8000$ ourselves, we eat food that does not look like toys and our police does not kill our folks (so far).
Stop making fun of us fighting for our rights and try to google « democracy ».
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