#civil unrest

[diablo1776]

Better have a plan

[isaacsapphire]

I should have posted sooner so I could let it run for a week and end before election day. Reblog for greater visibility please.

[reality-detective]

This is the Red Alert You Can’t Ignore: Iran’s Military on U.S. Soil, Deep State Chaos, and the Elite’s Plot to Destroy America from Within!

The moment of truth is here. The battle for America’s soul is no longer in the shadows. The Deep State is waging war on our own soil, and the global elite are covering it up. Foreign forces are already inside our borders, preparing to strike.

We are on the brink of civil war. This isn't a drill. The Deep State, desperate to save their crumbling empire, has unleashed foreign troops to sow chaos. Enemy soldiers have infiltrated our country. Their targets: our key states, our critical infrastructure, and YOU.

Foreign Forces in Our Cities – Military Operations Escalate

The military is actively engaging on U.S. soil, but it’s not just our forces. Foreign soldiers are here, right now, waiting to tear America apart from the inside. California, Texas, Florida—they’ve been infiltrated by globalist-backed mercenaries disguised as South American gangs. These aren’t street criminals; they’re soldiers in the Deep State’s war against the American people.

Iranian troops have been sighted in the western U.S.—yes, actual Iranian military units, placed here by the Deep State to bring America to its knees when the time comes. The elites have sold us out—politicians and globalist operatives are working with these foreign forces to trigger America’s collapse.

Infrastructure is the target. Power grids, water supplies, and transportation hubs are all vulnerable, and the plan is clear: shut America down from within. When the lights go out, panic will explode, and the chaos will only grow. This is how they intend to bring America to its knees—through engineered collapse, martial law, and total domination.

The Deep State’s Master Plan: Civil War and Chaos

This plot has been years in the making. Every crisis, every election, every war was designed to bring us to this breaking point. But now, the Deep State is pulling the trigger on their final operation: a staged civil war. The military buildup in states like Texas, Florida, and California is not just for civil unrest; it’s a preparation for war against domestic and foreign enemies working for the Deep State.

Their endgame? Unleash chaos, call in foreign troops to “restore order,” and seize control. This is about more than power—it’s about absolute domination. They want you to own nothing, control nothing, and obey everything.

The Satanic Cabal: The Elite Families Want You Dead

Behind this operation are satanic monsters—the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and their elite cronies who have been profiting from war, famine, and suffering for generations. These aren’t just businessmen. They are child traffickers, blood-drinkers, and war profiteers. The exposure of their networks is happening NOW.

Child trafficking, satanic rituals, organ harvesting—all of it is coming to light. The military is poised to blow their operations wide open, and they know their time is up.

The Quantum Financial System (QFS): Their Greatest Fear

The elite’s worst nightmare is the Global Currency Reset (GCR) and Quantum Financial System (QFS). Once it’s activated, the entire corrupt financial structure they’ve built crumbles. This is why they’re desperate to cause chaos and civil war. They need to stop the QFS from liberating humanity from their debt slavery system.

The storm is coming. The Deep State is moving fast, but we are faster. Prepare now. Stock up, stay alert, and get ready for the fight of your life.

I have been seeing this 👆 more and more...

The Storm Is Approaching 🤔

[effeminateebony]

Civil Rights For All

All Black Lives Matter

[alwaysbewoke]

[occvltswim]

"A Frenchman assassinated in Morocco: Émile Mauchamp, dispensary doctor in Marrakesh, stoned by the natives", illustration published in Le Petit Journal, No. 855, 1907

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 1, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Nov 02, 2024

Trump’s comments to right-wing media figure Tucker Carlson last night at an event in Glendale, Arizona, about former representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), coming as they have after the extraordinary racism and sexism of Trump’s Sunday event at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, have have highlighted the centrality of the campaign's attack on women. 

“She’s a radical war hawk,” Trump told Carlson, “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, OK? Let’s see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face.”  

Today, Trump surrogates have tried to say that he was referring to Cheney’s positions on American warfare, but it seems pretty clear he is fantasizing about seeing her in front of a firing squad. Journalist Magdi Jacobs noted the parallels between this statement and his 2020 command to the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” the precursor to the Proud Boys’ attacking the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. In both statements, Trump avoided explicitly calling for violence, but absolutely set the stage for it. 

This morning, Cheney responded to Trump’s threat “This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”

While Trump began to attack Cheney openly when she accepted the role of vice-chair of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, where her presence clearly made Republicans—like Cassidy Hutchinson, aide to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows—willing to share what they knew, Trump’s recent bloody fantasies appear to have broader meaning.

Cheney has emerged as the key figure to urge Republican women to vote against Trump, and it is becoming increasingly clear that Trump’s reelection is in trouble in part because white women are abandoning him. The early hints that this is happening, like the huge gender gap showing up in early voting, have sparked a right-wing frenzy of attempts to restore the power of white men over the women in their lives. Right-wing men are insisting that wives should vote as their husbands do, or that women should lose the ability to vote altogether. 

Trump’s suggestion that Cheney should face a firing squad seems to be a general expression of the anger of white men accustomed to dictating the terms of public life when faced with the reality that they can no longer count on being able to cow the people around them.

Trump’s attack on Cheney has galvanized his unpopularity with women, while the larger meaning of the MAGAs’ attacks on women got additional illustration with the news broken today by Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana of ProPublica that a pregnant 18-year-old in Texas suffering from sepsis was turned away from emergency rooms twice before doctors at a third visit required two ultrasounds to make sure her fetus no longer had a heartbeat before they would move her into intensive care. She died within hours.  

Today’s news continued to be bad for Trump. Last week, on the Joe Rogan podcast, Trump talked about the CHIPS and Science Act that authorized about $280 billion to encourage domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors in the U.S. While the law has brought significant private investment into the construction of new manufacturing plants and has created manufacturing jobs, Trump complained to Rogan, “That chip deal is so bad.” 

After listening to that conversation, journalist Luke Radel asked House speaker Mike Johnson in a report aired today whether, with Trump opposed to the bill and with Republicans having voted against it, the Republicans will try to repeal the law if they get majorities in Congress. Johnson responded “I expect we probably will, but we haven’t developed that part of the agenda yet.”

Republicans are determined to cut government spending to make way for more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. But the CHIPS and Science Act has brought important supply chains home and has created more than 115,000 new high-paying jobs in the U.S. 

And it has brought significant investment to battleground states: $19.5 billion to Arizona, $75 million to Georgia, $325 million to Michigan, $750 million to North Carolina, and $93 million to Pennsylvania. Johnson quickly realized that acknowledging the Republicans’ hopes of repealing it was a bad mistake days before an election and, claiming he had not heard the question accurately, said he had no intent to undermine the CHIPS and Science Act. 

At a closed-door meeting earlier this week, Johnson said repealing the Affordable Care Act is a Republican priority. He tried to walk this comment back, as well, but Pennsylvania Republican senatorial candidate Dave McCormick kept the issue in front of voters when he was caught on a hot mic saying he wants to reform the ACA and that he opposes the provision in the ACA that allows children to stay on their parent’s health insurance until they’re 26.

Trump’s mental state continues to deteriorate, taking with it the former president’s inhibitions. After going on a rant about the people he blamed for troubles with his microphone at a sparsely attended rally in Warren, Michigan, the Republican nominee for president of the United States of America simulated oral sex on stage.

An official with the Harris campaign told reporters today that they “fully expect” Trump will replay the game plan of 2020 and claim victory on election night, before all the votes are fully counted. In an interview on Wednesday, Harris noted that they were ready if Trump prematurely declared victory: “We are sadly ready if he does and, if we know that he is actually manipulating the press and attempting to manipulate the consensus of the American people...we are prepared to respond,” she said. 

Washington State governor Jay Inslee has activated the state’s National Guard so it will be “fully prepared to respond to any…civil unrest” before or after the election. 

The Department of Justice today announced it would monitor the polls in 86 jurisdictions in 27 states to make sure they comply with federal voting rights laws. Although the federal government has monitored certain polls since 1965, officials in the states of Florida, Missouri, and Texas promptly announced they would not permit Department of Justice officials inside polling stations.

Meanwhile, Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris made two stops in Wisconsin today before packing the Wisconsin State Fair Exposition Center in West Allis near Milwaukee. 

In Madison, Harris told a reporter: “What I am enjoying about this moment most is that in spite of how my opponent spends full time trying to divide the American people, what I am seeing is people coming together under one roof who seemingly have nothing in common and know they have everything in common, and I think that is in the best interest of the strength of our nation.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[scotianostra]

April 11th 1882 we saw an incident during the Highland Clearances happened on Skye that has become known as The Battle of the Braes.

Lord MacDonald sought help from the law to evict the stubborn crofters, and in April 1882 the locals woke to the sight of a sheriff officer. Charged with issuing eviction notices, the sheriff was met with an angry reaction and forced to burn the notices.

Following this initial confrontation, reinforcements were requested from Glasgow. 50 police officers travelled to Skye with the intention of evicting the crofters, who once again stood their ground.

Arriving at Braes, the police were faced down by a mob of around 100 men, woman and children from the local community, many of whom were armed with an array of primitive weapons. Wielding clubs, sticks and stones, the Battle of the Braes erupted and the crofters clashed with the police.

Several people were injured in the Battle of the Braes while others were arrested and subsequently fined for their involvement. Despite the outcome, the crofters still stood firm in their refusals and military intervention was considered.

The Battle of the Braes sparked similar unrest elsewhere in Skye, with locals in Glendale incensed at the treatment of other islanders.

Notably, the incident prompted a public outcry. Sympathetic press coverage of the dispute galvanised widespread support for the crofters. Sensing the mood, the government refused to authorise military intervention and a commission was launched to examine the plight of the crofters.

The Napier Commission, chaired by Lord Francis Napier, ultimately led to the introduction of new legislation aimed at improving security for crofters via the Crofters Act of 1886.

The Act was modelled largely on the Irish Land Acts of 1870 and 1881 and granted crofters security of tenure.

Today, the Battle of the Braes is a celebrated event in both the history of Skye and broader Scottish history. A monument commemorates the efforts of the crofters while a popular folk song also celebrates the event.

[kevinwikse]

The Left is Admitting what they Plan to Do.

What’s up with all these liberal media outlets and counties already saying “it might take weeks” and “we won’t know the results on the 5th”? Looks like they're building a narrative—maybe even a counter-narrative. This is straight-up pre-conditioning, telling you exactly what they’re planning. And as I’ve been saying for years: civil unrest during a contested election is the goal, using millions of migrants as paramilitary operatives. In my highly educated opinion, this is a CCP-backed coup to overthrow the U.S.

For years, I’ve documented (with screenshots) that the CCP is behind the migrant invasion, staging a cold invasion of the U.S. Now, Chinese President Xi is openly saying he’s ready for war. The Left’s violence is all they have left, and they’re signaling loud and clear. If they pop off—and it sure looks like they will—they need to be put down, once and for all. America can’t survive with this vulgar mind virus and cancer eating away at it.

[agentfascinateur]

Israel funding far-right UK riots

My guess is because the Labour Government didn't contest the ICC arrest warrants on Israeli officials.

[zombieprepperr]

“It’s soup for my family”

I have a new proposal for a symbol to unite under.

Hippie peace sign combined with a soup can. A reference to an interview did where the orange man said that rioters were using soup cans in place of bricks so that they could conceal them and throw them further.

The peace sighn was made popular during protest of the Vietnam war by anti war and anti draft protest.

I combined the two into a stance not only against the orange man but also against the military industrial complex his party members profit from.

Also a horns version with the tomato If you want to go with that instead. Rock and punk is anti establishment after all.

[diablo1776]

Another 1K showed up today. Always ready.

BCM 13.7" Gunfighter HK2 Mod w/ HuxWrx QD 5.56 Supressor #FormidableSolutions

[sataniccapitalist]

“As losses from strikes, riots, and civil commotion surge, insurers are grappling with these escalating threats and how best to manage them.”

[reality-detective]

Aren't you mad as hell watching this shit show? What's it going to take for you? Where do you draw the line? Ignoring it won't make it go away and the shit is gonna eventually hit the fan. 🤔

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I couldn’t help be concerned with what is happening in Paris right now with the rioting and destruction of such a beautiful city. Are you fine? Are you safe in Paris? What do you make of this madness?

Yes, I’m perfectly fine and safe. I feel almost embarrassed to even answer. Everything is fine but it has been an eventful few days. 

I was caught in Nanterre on the second night of violence and managed to walk home safely in the early hours. Nanterre is a mix of social housing, students but also part of La Défense which is Paris’ central business district where a lot of the major corporates are based on the west side of Paris. It’s an ugly concrete and glass sprawling city within a city of sky scrapers, shaping malls and social housing.

It’s very much like the City of London with the three poorest boroughs on its doorstep - for those familiar with London will know what I mean. Over 200,000 people commute daily into La Défense and its daily grind on the crowded RER and bus lines. I go in often as I have a ton of meetings there with corporate clients.

I don’t know anyone who really loves La Défense but at least its sky scrapers don’t pollute the Paris sky line as it shunted to the far west of Paris. There is no question there is a disconnect between the wealth of La Défense and the surrounding social housing and urban sprawl in the surrounding communes of Courbevoie, La Garenne-Colombes, Puteaux, and Nanterre.

But whilst these communes are rapidly being gentrified Nanterre has proven resistant. Nanterre has a particular place in Parisian history as it was where the Paris May riots of 1968 began when the students at the university there (and that spread to other Paris university campuses like the Sorbonne) lighted the revolt that has had reverberations down to the present day.

In any case, I was out to dinner with some work-healed friends and colleagues and also a couple of outside friends. One of whom was the son of my downstairs neighbour (and good friend), a retired army general. The son is also an army officer - a special forces operator back from the Sahel and working at the Hexagone Balard, the home of the French armed forces and French ministry of armed forces (like the Pentagon). The young captain was doing a temporary assignment and we get on great as it wasn’t so long ago I was in uniform out in Afghanistan.

Anyway, I had invited him to join a few of my corporate work friends of mine - who worked in la Défense with other firms - for a friendly after work dinner. We went to a Moroccan restaurant on the edge of Nanterre as it was highly recommended by one of my friends. The meal was great and everyone got on just fine. We had a such a good time that we lost track of time and it was late.

But our night was about to take a more eventful turn.

As several people slouched off one work colleague - she was Moroccan and actually lived in Nanterre - couldn’t get hold of an Uber. She lived with her mother and her younger teenage brother. In fact, this colleague of mine was a junior intern and I had been pushing her to join us after her stint was up as I really thought she had the smarts and the energy to succeed. But she was often put off by the snobbery of some in the office (she didn’t go to the right schools) and felt socially a fish out of water. But we got on really well and I enjoyed mentoring her because she worked hard and I don’t tolerate airs and graces in my team (very un-french).

So anyway, she was stuck and so was another friend, a banker, who lived in the same neighbourhood as I did. We couldn’t leave my Moroccan friend alone and so both the Captain SF and I decided that we would walk her home to her apartment building. My banker friend was not so keen; she clearly felt like a fish out of water as we walked through Nanterre with youths on the street and a few explosions could be heard in the distance.

Anyway, we made it to my Moroccan intern’s apartment without incident despite alarming signs of more youths spilling on to the streets. The mother was incredibly generous and insisted we stay for tea and sweets in their small cramped apartment. This was typical Arabic hospitality which I’ve always found whenever I’ve traveled to North Africa. Capt SF endeared himself to the mother and her younger brother by speaking in fluent Arabic. My banker friend did show faultless manners but she clearly agitated and wanted to go home. Capt SF and I looked outside the high rise apartment window and could survey the scene below. There were fireworks now lighting up the night sky and more noise of rampant youths, but no sign of the police. Back at the table, my banker friend and my Moroccan friend were engaged in a polite but tense discussion about the death of Nahel and police brutality. It was like water and oil - each came from different sides. Both made valid points.

As interesting as these discussions were I was more concerned about what we were going to do. Capt SF -  a calming figure and one you would trust with your life - was stoic. We looked at the situation clinically and thought it was wiser to sit this one out until things calmed down. It’s better to let the night run its course - the youths would do their looting and burning and the police and the pompiers would do their stuff. But it would burn out, eventually. We both agreed that the early hours were the best time to move out on foot - so best we stayed put.

The mother and my Moroccan intern insisted that we stay and make ourselves at home. So instead of watching the TV coverage, we tried to get some valuable sleep. Watching the tv screen does nothing other than heighten the fear of things outside of your control. Besides watching the tv screen was like watching headless chickens running around with all these talking head commentators in the news studios were not saying anything original. Capt SF had been on his mobile and he was phoning his military colleagues at the Hexagone to get a security appraisal from their police and security sources. So we weren’t entirely blasé about this. We knew what was happening, and in the end you have to deal what is in front of you, which in our case was a few streets away.

The teen brother wanted to go out and see what was happening and his mother pleaded with him to stay inside safe and not go out and join his neighbour head friends outside. It took the intervention of Capt SF to convince him to respect his mother’s wishes and told him he was the man of the house and he needed to behave in that way to his mother and older sister. But the youth’s blood was up at the injustice of Nahel’s killing and he was fed up with the police picking on him. he wanted to join his mates outside on the streets.

No one could stop him from going. Not even his distraught mother. Capt SF went out with him and an hour later they were back. Something happened or something was said but Capt SF had convinced him to come back. I couldn’t say what though but the teen was shaken and he was apologetic to his mother and sister for leaving them.

Meanwhile my banker friend had grown more agitated and couldn’t understand why Capt SF and I just wanted to sleep through this and be so chill about it. She was clearly scared and nervous - this was not her normal surroundings. I didn’t blame her because it’s natural to fear the unknown. I calmed her down and tried to take her mind off things. In that moment I hadn’t realised just how all this so so surreal for her.  She came from the very closed and privileged world of the 6th and the 16th arrondissement of Paris. To her credit she was putting on a brave face.

Around 3am we finally decided there was enough lull in the commotion outside for us to risk going out. My intern gave us base ball caps to wear and we took off any bling like hand bags or jewellery for her to look after. My banker friend and I wore borrowed hoodies and we changed our high heels to our sneakers (always in my tote bag).

Once outside we lowered our base ball caps and walked calmly through the streets. It wasn’t a pretty sight with the over turned cars and the smell of rubber and metal in the air. There was broken glass every where and shop windows were smashed to pieces. There were a few rioters clad in black hoodies and baseball caps with masks on. They largely paid no attention to us as they were bent on looting and burning stuff. We only saw the riot police in the distance amongst the plumes of smoke.

There were one or two tense situations that fell in our path. One was seeing a resident (an Arab-French) fighting off black and Arab youths who were trying to burn his car. They pushed and jostled him and he was shouting at them in French that they were scum for trashing people’s property. He was hopelessly outnumbered. Capt. SF told me to stay and look after my friend while he went to deal with it. He just calmly walked over and picked up a metal pipe and swung it the youth who seemed the ringleader. Just to make his point he did clinical forearm smash on the youth’s nose and he buckled over in intense pain. Capt. SF threatened them with the swinging pipe and they got the message. They left the badly bruised Arab resident alone as they hurriedly ran away into the next street.Once the Arab resient seemed okay, we called over other nearby residents to take him home to his elderly wife.

Eventually we made it into our arrondissement where everything was a picture of calm - it felt like a different world. We walked my banker friend home to her apartment, all safe and sound. Capt SF made it back to our apartment building where we had a well deserved glass of single malt scotch whisky.

Now I am back at work. What a drama.

Honestly, some of the reaction outside of France is way out of proportion to what is happening - which is incredibly serious - to what is actually happening. Yes, there is civil unrest and riots in certain parts of Paris but it’s not a full scale insurrection or the first shots of a civil war. People need to calm down.

What is happening now is very much what happens at periodic intervals whenever a tragic shooting occurs in recent years, most recently with the death of Adama Traoré in 2016. Traoré was a black French young man who died in custody after being restrained and apprehended by police. His death triggered riots and protests against police brutality in France. The riots unleashed back then lasted for around three weeks before the state took back control.

The death of the teenager, Nahel, is a familiar one. The 17 year old Algerian-French was shot dead during a routine traffic stop in a Paris suburb on Tuesday. According to prosecutors, Nahel was pulled over for traffic violations. Police initially claimed one officer used his firearm because Nahel was driving at him, but a video of the events on social media showed this was not the case. In the now infamous video of Nahel’s tragic death, the two policemen stand on the side of a stationary yellow Mercedes, with one pointing his firearm at the driver. “You are going to get a bullet in the head,” a voice is heard saying. The officer shoots the boy point-blank as the car quickly drives away, reaching a crossroad a few metres ahead before crashing. Nahel died from his wounds shortly after.

Within this tragic tale likes two narratives driven by two caricatured and irreconcilable camps. On one side a perfect police force that never makes a mistake, on the other indignant victims who are only angels. When all is said and done, the police officer did not have to shoot, and the young driver in a Mercedes, if he had obeyed the police, would be alive. In the French political debate, these two truths are never confronted; they clash sterilely. It's a poor debate, a sad debate, which only fuels violence, because each side only wants to see the worst in the other.

There is plenty of blame to go around. No doubt the there are many reasons to explain this madness, but I will just limit myself to a couple of observations.

The judicial outcome of this case will determine the general mood in the days to come. But Macron has blundered. Quite apart the bad optics of going to an Elton John concert on the second night of rioting and appearing to live on a different planet - perhaps he really is Jupiter - as he said of himself once - and he lives on Mount Olympus after all. Macron has to take responsibility for this hot mess. Oblivious to the principle of separation of powers, without waiting for the results of the ongoing judicial interrogation of the two police officers involved, he hastened to publicly condemn the shooting and demand “fast justice”.

In other words, Macron responded to a potentially incendiary situation by feeding the flames, while appearing grossly weak to anti-racist activists and extremist leftist politicians; groups that for several years have sought to force the pernicious American Black Lives Matter (BLM) and critical race theory narrative onto France which has a very different history of its race issues to the ones in the US.

The Far left have taken to the streets egged on by far left activists such as the old French war horse of the left, Jean-luc Mélenchon, doing his best Stalinist tribute act. There is no question they complicit in many of the night time rioting and looting.

The French police are far from blameless. Badly paid, working long hours of which too many are devoted to paperwork, they suffer one of the highest suicide rates among all French professions. Unlike the gendarmerie, they’re not trained to military standards; instances of violent handling of protesters, for example, are common. Half of them vote Le Pen and yet they are also blue collar and are multi-ethnic in make up (so it’s not always about race). Yet one also has to take into account that there were 26,000 recorded “refus d’obtempérer” (refusal to obey police instructions or commands) in 2021.

Almost every time, flics are scared of being attacked, often with good reason: banlieues around France’s largest cities are the scene of recurrent ranged battles waged with heavy weapons. Police authority is challenged at almost every turn by a population that doesn’t acknowledge the very notion of authority. While nobody believes they are perfect, the French Forces de l’ordre are broadly popular (if less among the under-30s), which explains the success of former home secretaries like Nicolas Sarkozy. A majority of the French would oppose any kind of “defund the police” movement. How, then, can Macron hope to unite the country?

This is the third lethal shooting of its kind to take place in France this year. In 2022, a record 13 people were killed by police for failing to stop for the police. That’s six times more than in 2021. While police say fatal shootings during road checks can be attributed to an increase in cases of non-compliance and dangerous behaviour at the wheel, many experts say the correlation doesn’t explain the spike in deadly shootings.

All roads seem to lead back to a key security bill that was passed by the French government in 2017.

The law was designed to combat terrorism, with it making permanent some of the unique measures introduced in the wake of the 2015 Paris attacks and the state of emergency that followed. Many critics - human rights groups and leftists at the time -  fervently criticised the law, saying it dangerously broadened the legal framework for when a police officer could use their firearm.

The numbers speak for themselves. French researchers carried out a study to understand the spike in fatal shootings by police and found that five times as many people in vehicles were shot by police after the law was introduced. While cases of non-compliance increased by about 35% on average since 2017, the researches argued this didn’t justify the 350% increase in fatal shootings on vehicles for the same period. They felt that the 2017 put lives at risk at the hands of the police.

Before the law was enacted, police officers in France (like all citizens) were subject to the principles of self-defence and could only respond “proportionately” to an “actual and real” attack.Self-defence is still the base principle, but the 2017 law also allows the use of firearms when a driver is likely to endanger the physical integrity or life of others.

Expanding the use of firearms but maintaining the two pillars of “absolute necessity” and “strict proportionality” of legitimate defence have led to confusion. Many have argued that this ambiguity could result in police officers feeling permitted to use their weapons in incorrect circumstances.

Within the French police force, resorting to violence is not uncommon, nor is racial and religious discrimination. Activists have renewed calls to tackle what they see as such systemic abuse, particularly in neighbourhoods like the one in which Nahel lived, where many residents struggle with poverty alongside racial and other discrimination.  

But supporters of the police and their conduct in the context of the 2017 security bill argue that the rise is mostly due to an increase in cases of non-compliance. If one compares the number of non-compliance cases, which have been rising steadily, with the number of shootings, the proportions haven’t changed that much. As one senior police officer said when interviewed, “A failure to comply case occurs every 20 minutes in France,” referencing a statistic that is often hammered home regularly by police unions but also the Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

The French Highway Code stipulates that a driver can be stopped by police to have their driving documents checked at any time without any visible violation of the law.

A widespread increase in suspected drug-related road checks has also played a key role, increasing the potential for cases of non-compliance. 453,000 drug screenings were carried out in 2020. This number went up by nearly 30% since 2018, and is set to double in the coming years, according to the French road safety authority.

Also, a lack of insurance can also lead precarious drivers to refuse an inspection. According to the French Guarantee Fund (Fonds de Garantie des Victimes), there were nearly 30,000 victims of road accidents caused by uninsured drivers in 2019.

But in most instances, cases of non-compliance have risen sharply since a points system for French driving licenses was introduced in the 1990s. Drivers start with 12 points and if they commit traffic violations, lose points. Police unions have argued that the system incentivises drivers to flee in order to avoid losing their critical driving licence and their potential jobs that require it.

In 1993, a year after the introduction of the points-based driving licence, the number of refusals to comply was 1,099. Thirty years later, this figure has increased 25-fold. The term 'failure to comply' covers a wide variety of situations. It can be in the context of a standard roadside check, when an offence is detected, or during an urban rodeo with a driver who does anything and everything" to evade police.

While Nahel’s fatal shooting on Tuesday was not the first of its kind this year, 2023 has seen a drop in the number of people killed after not complying with a traffic stop so far, yet it is only June. There were three such killings in 2021 and two in 2020, none in 2019 and 6 in both 2018 and 2017, according to a Reuters tally, which clearly shows the majority of victims since 2017 were of Black and Arab origin.

In other words this whole non-compliance mess is ambiguous enough to create deadly situation in which a 17 year old boy was killed by a trigger-happy police officer.

With one year to go before the Paris Olympics, trigger-happy police, blazing buildings and pillaged shops is hardly the type of PR President Macron had hoped for as he seeks to guild France’s image abroad. the latest crisis is fraught with political danger at a time when his power has already been sapped by a lack of a parliamentary majority that has emboldened his enemies.

While the rioting continues, Macron faces criticism on the Right for having a trembling hand by failing to impose tough measures such as a state of emergency and on the Left for failing to go further in condemning police brutality. His response has been typically Macron in which he has condemned the shooting as inexcusable and the rioting and resulting violence as unjustifiable.

How hard will it be for Macon to traverse the high wire act when the flames from the banlieues could rage higher? We shall see in the coming days and weeks. More worryingly the school vacations will begin in which most of France will go on the their annual ‘grande vacation’ in July or August. What will happen to the youth left behind in the Paris banlieues?

Pauvre France.

Thanks for your question.

[originalleftist]

Biden addressed the Gaza protests. I haven't watched the full address yet, but apparently he said the expected things, ie asserting the right to peaceful protest, while also insisting on the rule of law. So far so good, as President it's his responsibility to uphold both.

I do think he erred in not specifically addressing the violence against Gaza protesters at UCLA, as President he must uphold the rule of law for everyone, regardless of which side they're on.

That said, I think Biden's mostly hands-off approach to the protests and responses to them may actually be a good thing. I'm sure Republicans desperately want a Federal military/National Guard crackdown on the protests- they will play this as being "pro-Israel" and "pro-rule of law", but they likely know that any violence will ultimately be blamed on Biden, and can be more easily blamed directly on him if he orders the National Guard in. Their dream is a Kent State before the election, to break off young and progressive voters*, and get them engaging in street violence that the fascist Right can then use to justify a violent crackdown, and as Whataboutism to deflect from and excuse their own planned post-election violence.

So far, Biden isn't taking the bait. And by keeping mostly hands-off, he is drawing a clear distinction between himself and Trump. Because I trust we all remember how Trump handled the Black Lives Matter protests in the months before the election in 2020 (and if you don't, you really should): He suggested shooting protesters, sent secret police to Democratic areas to grab people off the streets, and used the military to clear out protesters in DC ahead of a photo-op- when he wasn't cowering in the White House bunker.

Once again, Biden's response may be lacking in some respects, but it is WORLDS better than what Trump offers. Except, of course, for Republicans, who was violent unrest to damage Biden, and Leftist/anarchist "accelerationists", who want to maximize violence because they believe it will lead to a Marxist revolution*, instead of the more likely prolonged civil war or fascist dictatorship.

Edit: Think I'm kidding about this? The fascist Right is VERY actively trying to recruit and co-opt the radical Left. If I didn't know that before, the sight of "Communists for Trump" stickers (including one of Marx wearing a MAGA hat) defacing a bus stop in my CANADIAN home town last night would be proof enough.