<div dir="ltr"><div>Hi Spike, <br>sorry for the delayed response; I’m not always able to keep up with the flow of emails.<br> <br>I’m fairly familiar with the situation in France. First of all, France is certainly no stranger to long-lasting and vigorous protests.The unrest began with high-school students demonstrating against overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages, and deteriorating school buildings (btw, exactly the same problems that we have in Italy). Students' protest quickly merged with broader cost-of-living anger, drawing hundreds of thousands into the streets.</div><div>Coming to your questions: "Can’t the government put more money into them? Cannot the French government cut taxes to reduce the cost of living? Why cannot the French government build more housing?"</div><div>Although some announcements have been made, particularly regarding investments in schools, the current government's spending capacity is very limited. Public debt has increased rapidly in recent years, well beyond the 3% of GDP threshold adopted by European Union countries. There is no parliamentary majority to pass the needed laws, and new elections are expected within a few months. In the meantime, the financial markets are placing additional pressure on French public finances and savers. The spread between French government bonds (OATs) and German Bunds has risen to around 160 basis points, significantly higher than the Italian BTP-Bund spread, which stands at about 115 basis points.</div><div><br></div><div>There would naturally be a lot more to say and explain, but the ultra short answers to your questions are:</div><div><br></div><div>why do French protest? Because of the cost of living.</div><div>can the government do something? Not much.</div><div><br></div><div>ciao</div><div>stefano</div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, Oct 27, 2026 at 3:45 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div class="msg3903749739703855085"><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="m_3903749739703855085WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><div><div style="border-width:1pt medium medium;border-style:solid none none;border-color:rgb(225,225,225) currentcolor currentcolor;padding:3pt 0in 0in"><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> <a href="mailto:spike@rainier66.com" target="_blank">spike@rainier66.com</a> <<a href="mailto:spike@rainier66.com" target="_blank">spike@rainier66.com</a>> <br><b>Subject:</b> disadvantage of x<u></u><u></u></span></p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">>…TwitterX has been disparaged as a news source. I can offer a perfect example: I have seen there so many contradictory explanations for the riots in France, I have no unified theory on why there are riots there. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">…<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">>…Many here use news sources which present a unified theory. Do share please. Why are there riots in France? spike<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">From the non-response, I conclude that the unified theory news sources don’t know why there are riots in France either. I listed some theories. Are the riots about all the stuff I listed? But if a protest is about everything, it is about nothing. <u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">Meanwhile, there are opportunistic looters taking advantage of the gendarmes being distracted by more urgent concerns than guarding bourgeoise merchants, so the looters cheerfully go about smashing and grabbing designer purses and such. If the protests are about everything, and consequently about nothing, they are about distracting law enforcement, providing cover for looters.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif">spike<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div></div>_______________________________________________<br>
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