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> Burning cars and breaking windows isn’t peaceful protest. A few people doing that doesn't invalidate a peaceful protest that has lasted months now without do

> Burning cars and breaking windows isn’t peaceful protest. A few people doing that doesn't invalidate a peaceful protest that has lasted months now without doing any major damage (if you exclude Macron's approval ratings, of course). Of course, when you have a lot of upset people it's easy to have a few problems--specially after months of protesting without the government doing anything major to address people's concerns. It's also a common tactic from governments to infiltrate into peaceful protests and cause damage and disorders on purpose, to have an excuse to use force against protesters. In Italy it's common practice to send the secret service to attack the Police, and then reply with beating everyone up. Some politicians have even confirmed this practice in the open (Cossiga, for example).

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> that doesn't invalidate a peaceful protest I agree. Peaceful protest with violent elements, and the government deploying force to deter the violent elements, isn’t an oxymoron. The violent elements don’t invalidate the peaceful ones. And the armed response shouldn’t besmudge the government per se. > It's also a common tactic from governments to infiltrate into peaceful protests and cause damage and disorders on purpose Need a citation on this being “common.” Would also need some proof of this happening in Paris. Otherwise, we’re going into conspiracy theory land. Given the violence made France look more inept than any of the demands did, given Paris gave into many of the policy demands, and given France’s fourth estate is reasonably competitive and competent, I’m sceptical of the claim that the looting was a false flag operation.
- nkkollaw 8y ago
  > Need a citation on this being “common.” Would also need some proof of this happening in Paris. Otherwise, we’re going into conspiracy theory land. I'm not familiar with the French secret service, but since I've seen proof of this technique being regularly deployed in other countries it would just seem common sense to me to think that the French would do the same. Cossiga's "confession" is even on Wikipedia (https://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francesco_Cossiga https://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francesco_Cossiga), he said in short: "the best is doing what I used to do when I was interior minister: let them protest, send the Police home and infiltrate protests to make them destroy the city. Then, when they lost the public opinion's approval, beat them up until they can't walk and the protest is over." I think it's just normal business.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > I've seen proof of this technique being regularly deployed in other countries it would just seem common sense to me to think that the French would do the same Italy has well-known corruption and mafia problems. Its press is less free than [1] and political system quite different from France’s. Even then, its frequency of violent protests is much higher than that of false flag operations. Globally, there are more examples of peaceful protests becoming violent than of false flag operations. One’s prior should default to the former while being wary of the latter. [1] https://rsf.org/en/ranking https://rsf.org/en/ranking
    - pessimizer 8y ago
      > Globally, there are more examples of peaceful protests becoming violent than of false flag operations. Not saying anything about France, but what was your prior that led into determining this? Your prior shouldn't be just as questionable as the problem you're using it for.

JumpCrisscross 8y ago

> that doesn't invalidate a peaceful protest I agree. Peaceful protest with violent elements, and the government deploying force to deter the violent elements, isn’t an oxymoron. The violent elements don’t invalidate the peaceful ones. And the armed response shouldn’t besmudge the government per se. > It's also a common tactic from governments to infiltrate into peaceful protests and cause damage and disorders on purpose Need a citation on this being “common.” Would also need some proof of this happening in Paris. Otherwise, we’re going into conspiracy theory land. Given the violence made France look more inept than any of the demands did, given Paris gave into many of the policy demands, and given France’s fourth estate is reasonably competitive and competent, I’m sceptical of the claim that the looting was a false flag operation.

nkkollaw 8y ago
> Need a citation on this being “common.” Would also need some proof of this happening in Paris. Otherwise, we’re going into conspiracy theory land. I'm not familiar with the French secret service, but since I've seen proof of this technique being regularly deployed in other countries it would just seem common sense to me to think that the French would do the same. Cossiga's "confession" is even on Wikipedia (https://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francesco_Cossiga https://it.wikiquote.org/wiki/Francesco_Cossiga), he said in short: "the best is doing what I used to do when I was interior minister: let them protest, send the Police home and infiltrate protests to make them destroy the city. Then, when they lost the public opinion's approval, beat them up until they can't walk and the protest is over." I think it's just normal business.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > I've seen proof of this technique being regularly deployed in other countries it would just seem common sense to me to think that the French would do the same Italy has well-known corruption and mafia problems. Its press is less free than [1] and political system quite different from France’s. Even then, its frequency of violent protests is much higher than that of false flag operations. Globally, there are more examples of peaceful protests becoming violent than of false flag operations. One’s prior should default to the former while being wary of the latter. [1] https://rsf.org/en/ranking https://rsf.org/en/ranking
  - pessimizer 8y ago
    > Globally, there are more examples of peaceful protests becoming violent than of false flag operations. Not saying anything about France, but what was your prior that led into determining this? Your prior shouldn't be just as questionable as the problem you're using it for.