The Italian deputy prime minister has blamed France for the European migrant crisis, accusing it of impoverishing African nations with "colonialist" policies. He promised to take the issue to the EU and other international bodies.

Luigi Di Maio, leader of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and Italy's Deputy PM, launched a scathing attack on France, which he argued is to blame for the inherent causes of the ongoing migrant crisis at EU borders.

The ongoing wave of anti-government protests in France is not limited to the Yellow Vests; a lesser known movement, known as the “Red Pens”, is also on the rise. Comprised of teachers and lecturers who are disillusioned with traditional trade unions, the movement is calling for direct action.

Like the Yellow Vests, the "Red Pens" first appeared on Facebook, and although the movement was established just over a month ago, on 12 December, 60,000 people have already joined the group. This is particularly impressive considering there are only 880,000 teachers in the country.

Disillusioned with trade unions, they intend to achieve their objectives via acts of civil disobedience and other tactics, including seizing premises, refusing to report on progress, and urging parents to boycott schools.

The gilets jaunes (yellow vest) movement has rattled the French establishment. For several months, crowds ranging from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands have been taking to the streets every weekend across the whole of France. They have had enormous success, extracting major concessions from the government. They continue to march.

Despite freezing temperatures and rain, tens of thousands of Yellow Vest protesters took to streets across France on Saturday for a tenth consecutive week of demonstrations, completely ignoring French President Emmanuel Macron's call for a "national debate" - the latest scheme we can add to the pile of failed gimmicks aimed at stopping the movement.

And while the MSM is largely ignoring the size and scope of the protests, independent journalists, select foreign news outlets and others have been documenting the mayhem.

French President Emmanuel Macron's willingness to listen to his people and curtail his arrogance raises doubts, French journalist Gilbert Mercier told Sputnik, commenting on the president's national debate initiative. Dubbing the idea a "political theatre", the journalist opined that Macron's only option is to follow General de Gaulle's example.

French President Emmanuel Macron's "grand national debate" is largely a PR stunt, and an attempt to diffuse a wave of protests which is not fading away, says Gilbert Mercier, a French journalist, serving as the editor-in-chief of the News Junkie Post and the author of "The Orwellian Empire".

"If you wish, it is political theatre, to show 'his people' that he is willing to listen," Mercier told Sputnik. "However, the way it has been choreographed, shows that Macron is planning to do most of the talking, or at least direct the debate, listen to other elected officials, but certainly not open the debate directly with any Gilets Jaunes".

France's "yellow vests" are holding another large-scale demonstration in Paris. The event's Facebook site states that the protesters intend to gather in the square near the Hotel National des Invalides, after which they plan to march through the streets of the French capital.

The demonstration, scheduled for Saturday, is titled "Act 10". As many as 80,000 law enforcement officers have been mobilized across France to keep order during the demonstrations which are also taking place in other French cities, the BFMTV broadcaster reported citing the French Interior Ministry.

The "Yellow Vests" rallies (named after the reflective garment French drivers are required to have in their vehicles) started in mid-November.

French President Emmanuel Macron claimed that European countries would not be allowed to pick and choose only policies that they like, but rather must share the burden of mass immigration.

This speech was largely aimed at the Eastern European countries who have consistently refused to take in Middle-Eastern and African migrants after seeing the damage done to Western countries, with Hungary, Poland and Slovakia putting up the biggest fights with the EU.

More than 84,000 people took part in the protests in Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg, and other French cities on Saturday.

Clashes eventually erupted at the iconic Champs Ulysses and Arc de Triomphe, with police using tear gas and water cannons to calm the angry crowds, RT reports. In Paris alone, 156 people were arrested during the standoff, with most of them put in custody, the law enforcers said.

Amid tensions between the French government and the ‘yellow vests’, former MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit has suggested that French President Emmanuel Macron could be replaced by a French Army General.

Speaking to Euronews, the former Green MEP suggested that the violent protests occurring across the country’s capital city will have a knock-on effect on the European elections, due to take place in May 2019, in favour of the far-right.

Mr Cohn-Bendit said: “History has shown us that such a crisis, a social crisis – it was the same in Germany in the 30s, that was a big crisis and there was big unemployment, and the communists thought it would go to the left, it would go towards socialism. It didn’t.”

“Never, ever, ever, such social crises go to the left. It always goes to the right.

Alexandre Benalla, the disgraced former security aide to French President Emmanuel Macron, has been placed in custody amid a probe into the use of diplomatic passports after resigning from the Élysée Palace.

Benalla, who was sacked last year after a scandal over his beating of protesters, continued to use his government-issued passports to travel to other nations, French media revealed in December. Paris prosecutors opened an investigation in response and have now taken the former official into custody, the office reported on Thursday.

If we follow the logic and evidence presented in these seven points, we are forced to conclude that the fractures in France, Germany and the EU are widening by the day.

When is a nation-state no longer a functional state? It's an interesting question to ask of the European nation-states trapped in the devolving European Union. Longtime correspondent Mark G. recently posed seven indicators of dissolving national sovereignty; here's his commentary:

French riot police (CRS) are alleged to have begun deploying assault rifles with live ammunition for the first time during the ninth weekend of protest in a row by the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement.

French officers were caught on video brandishing what appeared to be Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles on the streets of the French capital near the Arc de Triomphe on Saturday, the Daily Mail reports.

Legitimately Elected French President Speaks On Macron Puppet, Yellow Vests, and Globalist Agenda

Marie Le Pen won the French presidential election.

Macron did not win the French election.

The Macron presidency is an unlawful, terrorist organization.

Macron is a Rothschild puppet placed in power against the will of the French people.

Germany and France are set to forge a pact aligning their defense, diplomatic and economic policies in an unprecedented “twinning” pact “regarded as a prototype for the future of the European Union,” according to The Times‘ Oliver Moody.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron will sign the “Aachen treaty” later this month which will govern a coordinated diplomatic front as well as joint actions on peacekeeping missions.

What’s more – areas on both sides of the Franco-German border will be encouraged to establish “Eurodistricts” in which both countries would merge water, electricity and public transport networks.

Berlin and Paris will offer cash to incentivise these cross-border areas, which could involve shared hospitals, joint business schemes or environmental projects. Some officials regard these experiments as a petri dish for the integration of the EU. –The Times

No word on whether France will accept half of Germany’s refugees.

LAST NOVEMBER, THE French started a new Saturday tradition: “Gilet jaune” protesters wearing yellow safety vests started to take to the streets by the tens of thousands in the morning, shouting slogans against the high cost of living, against French President Emmanuel Macron, and against his detested taxes and social service reforms.

By the afternoon, the protesters would clash with riot police, who would fire round after round of tear gas and flash grenades to disperse them. By dusk, protesters would break windows of bus stations and storefronts, and sometimes light cars on fire before fleeing when the cops came. And from the middle of the night into the morning, the other “gilets jaunes” — street cleaners, often immigrants, who also wear the safety vests — would clean up the mess.

Olivier Beziade suffered a “very serious brain injury” after being shot from behind by a police officer using a flash ball gun during the yellow vest demonstration in Bordeaux on Saturday. The father-of-three is currently in an induced coma in hospital, according to his family. A shocking video shows blood pouring from Mr Beziade’s head as he is treated by paramedics.

Mr Beziade’s wife Cindy told French media: “I’m furious. This is unacceptable. I won’t let it go. The pictures speak for themselves.

“The demonstration was calm until about 4.30pm. I was with my husband in Rue Sainte-Catherine.

“Then there was a bit of panic. We turned back to avoid teargas fumes and to go home. I turned first right, he took the first turning on the left.”

Mr Beziade was then shot by an officer with a flash ball gun, while another threw a stun grenade towards him.

Mrs Beziade added: “They shot at us like rabbits.”

Germany’s defence minister has confirmed that “a united EU military is becoming a reality,” after her ally and Chancellor Angela Merkel backed Emmanuel Macron’s call for a “real European army.”
“Europe’s army is already taking shape,” Ursula von der Leyen wrote in an opinion piece for Handelsblatt on Thursday.

“Germany and France are the driving forces in defence,” Ms von der Leyen boasted, adding that “We’re moving even further ahead with our close partner France” after the two countries agreed to sign a “new Elysèe Treaty” which, amongst other efforts to, in effect, merge aspects of the two countries, includes common defence.

Tear gas and baton charges were used by French police on thousands of Yellow Vest protestors threatening the Arc de Triomphe in Paris today during more mass anti-government demonstrations.

The ugly scenes came on the 9th Saturday in a row of violence that now routinely reduces the capital city to a war zone.

In Paris, epicentre of the fiery street clashes and vandalism that have made global headlines, 5,000 riot police were on hand, using tall barricades and armoured vehicles to lock down the central Place de la Concorde and surrounding districts.

Hundreds of officers were also on guard on the Champs-Elysees, where banks, jewellery stores and other shops had boarded up windows in anticipation of renewed looting and violence.

The Yellow Vest movement has taken to the streets across France for a 9th week of anti-government protests, as the Gilets Jaunes movement appeared to surge in both number and intensity. While the demonstrations were largely peaceful for most involved, there were several violent skirmishes with police.

The protesters called for French President Emmanuel Macron’s resignation, pelting police with rocks, bottles and other improvised projectiles, while authorities used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protests which have been ongoing for nine weeks.

More than 200 people were arrested in Paris on Saturday in the ninth weekend of so-called "yellow vests" protests, which have been rocking the country since November.

Protesters called for French President Emmanuel Macron’s resignation and pelted police officers with bottles, improvised projectiles and flares, while officers responded with tear gas and water cannons.

Yellow Vest demonstrators returned to the streets of Paris and other French cities on Saturday, and some were met by police with tear gas and water cannons as the authorities pledged zero tolerance to violence.
More than 84,000 people took part in the protests in Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg, and other cities, according to Interior Ministry data.

Around 8,000 demonstrators, both locals and those coming from other parts of the country, were rallying in the French capital. Some 5,000 riot police with special equipment and armored vehicles oversaw the protests.

Because for the mass of ordinary people, far from the political, financial, media centers of power in Paris, democracy is already moribund, and their movement is an effort to save it. Ever since Margaret Thatcher decreed that “there is no alternative”, Western economic policy is made by technocrats for the benefit of financial markets, claiming that such benefits will trickle down to the populace. The trickle has largely dried up, and people are tired of having their needs and wishes totally ignored by an elite who “know best”.

President Emmanuel Macron’s New Year’s Eve address to the nation made it perfectly clear that after one unconvincing stab at throwing a few crumbs to the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) protest movement, he has determined to get tough

France is entering a period of turmoil. The situation is very complex, but here are a few points to help grasp what this is all about.

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The Yellow Vests have reached critical mass. And the movement has now created the perfect storm for President Emmanuel Macron.

He can no longer ignore it, even though he tried to do so. And his lack of understanding of the situation as well as his open contempt for his opposition has placed him in a political vice.

Ignoring the problem will only make him look weaker and more disinterested. He could address the situation, put France first and step aside for new elections, which is the decent thing to do.

But, he’s chosen the predictable third option, crack down on the protesters in a futile show of strength. Authoritarians react to challenges like clockwork.

French Democracy Dead or Alive? Or perhaps one should say, buried or revived? Because for the mass of ordinary people, far from the political, financial, media centers of power in Paris, democracy is already moribund, and their movement is an effort to save it. Ever since Margaret Thatcher decreed that “there is no alternative”, Western economic policy is made by technocrats for the benefit of financial markets, claiming that such benefits will trickle down to the populace. The trickle has largely dried up, and people are tired of having their needs and wishes totally ignored by an elite who “know best”.

Yellow waistcoats do not want to leave doubts as to what their country's membership in the EU is about.

Protests in France have begun as a revolt against the idea of Emanuel Macron to increase gasoline taxes, however, as the demonstrations move to the surface, deeper problems with the policies of the French president are emerging.

On social networks, various versions of the requirements of the Yellow Vests circulate in everyone's request that France leave the European Union and NATO. Protestant groups have been stripped from across the Paris flag today by a flag of the EU flag that stands next to the state flag in order to keep only French symbols on masts.

After Makron had given up fuel taxes, the protests were initially reduced to an extent. However, in recent weeks there has been a rapid increase in the number of demonstrators who are still unhappy with the drastic fall in living standards and the authoritarian control of the media.

December 15, place de l’Opéra, Paris. Three yellow vests read out an address ‘to the French people and the president of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron’ saying: ‘This movement belongs to no one and to everyone. It gives voice to a people who for 40 years have been dispossessed of everything that enabled them to believe in their future and their greatness.’

The anger provoked by a fuel tax produced, within a month, a wider diagnosis of what ails society and democracy. Mass movements that bring together people with minimal organisation encourage rapid politicisation, which explains why ‘the people’ have discovered that they are ‘dispossessed of their future’ a year after electing as president a man who boasts he swept aside the two parties that alternated in power for 40 years.

Macron has come unstuck. As did previous wunderkinder just as young, smiling and modern: Laurent Fabius, Tony Blair, Matteo Renzi. The liberal bourgeoisie are hugely disappointed.

The early XX century French monarchist philosopher, Charles Maurras, wrote: “The Republic is bad at governing but good at defending itself.” Seldom have these words seemed more true than during the Gilets Jaunes protests.
I live right in the heart of Paris, overlooking the Prime Minister’s office, Hôtel Matignon, and a short distance from the scenes of some of the violence witnessed last Saturday. Ever since the Yellow Vests started to demonstrate at the beginning of December, I have seen, just outside my own front door, the massive police presence defending the seat of government while leaving the rest of the city, and indeed the rest of the country, to the mercy of rioters.

The partnership at the center of European integration is unraveling just when Euroskeptic forces are coming together. If French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel cannot start rebuilding the political center, next year's European Parliament election will produce the biggest victory yet for anti-EU populists.

French President Macron has been acting very odd during the commemorations of the end of World War I which were held in Europe recently. He called for a European army and likened the USA as posing as big a threat to Europe as Russia or China. Macron wants a “real European army” and likened “nationalism” to leprosy” (first link). That last comment is clearly an insult to US President Donald Trump, who is a leading nationalist, as well as to various European heads of state who are strong nationalists. Macron’s insistence that the USA is as big a threat to Europe as Russia or China is a huge insult to all Americans and all the nations of the British Empire that saved France in two world wars.

Yellow Vest protesters are hoping to trigger a bank run with a nationwide coordinated cash withdrawal. By threatening the French financial system, protesters say, they want to peacefully force the government to pass their reforms.

“If the banks weaken, the state weakens immediately,” said Yellow Vest “sympathizer” Tahz San on Facebook. “It’s elected officials' worst nightmare.”

Activists from a French protest movement encouraged supporters Wednesday to set off a bank run by emptying their accounts, while the government urged citizens to express their discontent in a national debate instead of weekly demonstrations disrupting the streets of Paris.

Activists from the yellow vest movement, which started with protests over fuel tax increases, recommended the massive cash withdrawals on social media. One protester, Maxime Nicolle called it the “tax collector’s referendum.”

Marking up the Arc de Triomphe, smashing the face of the Marianne statue, a symbol of the French state, and trashing private property along the Champs-Elysees will be considered minor incidents if the Yellow Vests pull off their next move—an organized run on the banks.

According to activist Tahz San, the aim of the latest protest is to “scare this (French) state completely legally and without any violence, yet more effectively than ever expected.”

The Associated Press reports Gilets Jaunes activists “hope the move will force the government to listen to their demands, notably their call for more direct democracy through the implementation of popular votes that allow citizens to propose new laws.”

Instead of listening to the demands of a majority of the French people—polls show around 80% support for the movement—the state will roll out the military and pass a draconian law criminalizing organized protest.

Construction will begin soon on a "big new wall" in the French port city of Calais to prevent refugees and migrants from entering Britain, the UK has announced.

The four-meter (13 foot) high wall is part of a £17 million ($23 million) deal struck between Britain and France earlier this year to try to block migrants from crossing the English Channel.

"We've done the fence. Now we're doing a wall," British Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill announced at a government hearing on Tuesday.

It is the latest attempt to enhance border security in Calais, home to a controversial makeshift camp known as "The Jungle," where thousands of displaced people live in squalid conditions.

Italy’s Euroskeptic deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has said he wants Italy and Poland to join together to create a “European Spring” which could end the long-standing French and German domination on the continent.

Speaking during a press conference with Polish Interior Minister Joachim Brudzi?ski in Warsaw on Wednesday, Salvini said that Poland and Italy “will be part of the new spring of Europe, the renaissance of European values” which would create a “new equilibrium” where the dominance of France and Germany is diminished.

The leader of the Northern League party said that upcoming European parliamentary elections, set for May, could lead away from a Europe “that is run by bureaucrats.”

France is signaling it's making preparations for a massive new crackdown on the gilets jaunes or "yellow vests" anti-government protests that have gripped the country for seven weeks. A new law under consideration could make any demonstration illegal to begin with if not previously approved by authorities, in an initiative already being compared to the pre-Maiden so-called "dictatorship law" in Ukraine.

In the name of reigning in the violence that has recently included torching structures along the prestigious Boulevard Saint Germain in Paris, and smashing through the gates of government ministry buildings, the French government appears set to enact something close to a martial law scenario prohibiting almost any protest and curtailing freedom of speech.

The Yellow Vests have reached critical mass. And the movement has now created the perfect storm for President Emmanuel Macron.

He can no longer ignore it, even though he tried to do so. And his lack of understanding of the situation as well as his open contempt for his opposition has placed him in a political vice.

Ignoring the problem will only make him look weaker and more disinterested. He could address the situation, put France first and step aside for new elections, which is the decent thing to do.

But, he’s chosen the predictable third option, crack down on the protesters in a futile show of strength. Authoritarians react to challenges like clockwork.

Disobedience is met with violence. More disobedience is met with more violence.

Within hours of the “Yellow Vest” protesters announcing a bank run in France, the Euro has begun to plunge sharply, already falling 0.23%.

With the proposed “bank run” idea already spreading to neighboring countries such as Italy and the UK, it appears that the effects may be strong. It is important to note that it appears that the alleged “bank run” has not even yet begun – it is only an idea being floated in social media and elsewhere – but it seems to already be shaking up the Euro markets.

Many in France have become disillusioned with their government, who they see as openly selling them to globalist interests, and with the EU in particular, who they feel is a tyrannical organization which is overriding the sovereignty of their nation.

Yellow vest activists are urging French citizens to empty their bank accounts and spark a massive run on French banks in their long-standing fight with the government.

Ahead of a ninth straight weekend of planned protests in Paris and across France, yellow vests are issuing calls on social media for massive cash withdrawals from banks.

Protesters hope the move will force the government to listen to their demands, notably their call for more direct democracy through the implementation of popular votes that allow citizens to propose new laws.

Activist Maxime Nicolle called it the “tax collector’s referendum.”

In a video message, Nicolle said “we are going to get our bread back ... You’re making money with our dough, and we’re fed up.”

Emmanuel Macron earlier voiced the idea of building a European military so that fellow EU nations could defend themselves from wide-ranging threats. The French leader subsequently came under fire from the White House, which called on him to pay his fair share of NATO membership.

Donald Trump took to Twitter on Saturday to deliver a rebuke to Emmanuel Macron, chastising the French president's ideas of a pan-European army and divisive environmental policies.

Trump scolded Macron for his proposal to create a single European army so that Europe would have a greater military autonomy. The 45th POTUS has repeatedly claimed that many NATO members have not been dishing out enough cash for the alliance's needs.

"The idea of a European Military didn't work out too well in WWI or WWII. But the US was there for you, and always will be. All we ask is that you pay your fair share of NATO," he added.

Last spring Donald Trump confessed that his relationship with Emmanuel Macron, who became the first foreign leader to make a state visit to the United States under 45, was indeed special. Today, the presidential bromance is back in the spotlight amid Trump’s visit to Paris and his somewhat angry tweet directed at the French president.

The French government has announced plans to tighten laws on undeclared protests, in response to violent unrest from the Yellow Vest, or 'Gilet Jaunes', movement.

"Macron your goose is cooked, the chicks are in the street!"

That was the chant by one large contingent of women marching in the French city of Toulouse on Sunday as female-led demonstrations took place across France in order to keep the pressure on President Emmanuel Macron while also pushing back the increasing displays of violence some within the broader "Yellow Vest" (or Gilets Jaunes) movement argue is overshadowing the underlying political message.

"All the media ever reports is the violence, and we are forgetting the root of the problem" which is the fight against austerity, one protester named Karen, a 42-year-old nurse, told Agence France Presse on the streets of Marseilles.

Sunday's demonstrations followed a day of protests on Saturday during which violence broke out in Paris and other cities as those participating in "Act VIII" protests under the Yellow Vest banner clashed with French riot police, erected barricades, and started fires:

After the protests began peacefully, Paris police deployed teargas and batons as protesters began to riot during the so-called 'Act VIII" Day of Rage, while marches were underway in several other cities across France and London. Protesters in Paris hurled objects at riot police manning bridge barricades over the Seine river, while garbage bins were torched along the upscale Boulevard Saint Germain.

French authorities have arrested a key organizer of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement for leading an unauthorized demonstration, signaling a crackdown on the anti-government demonstrators after nearly two months of violence-filled protests.

Eric Drouet, a truck driver from the suburbs of Paris, was arrested in Paris on Wednesday evening near the iconic Champs-Élysées avenue - a prime location for the yellow vests to gather. Drouet was detained while leading a commemoration of yellow vests who have died since the movement's inception, most of whom were hit by cars during protests at roundabouts throughout the country, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Masked thugs broke into a French government ministry tonight - leading to the 'emergency evacuation' of government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux during a day of Yellow Vests rioting.

The 41-year-old, who is one of President Emmanuel Macron's most senior lieutenants, was rushed to safety by police during the drama.

Dramatic footage shows how a forklift taken from a nearby construction site was used to smash through the entrance of the building.

'Around fifteen masked people dressed in black broke into Mr Griveaux's office at about 4.30 on Saturday,' said an investigating source.

The Yellow Vest movement has become full of agitators who only want to “overthrow the government,” a spokesman for President Emmanuel Macron’s government said of the protests that gripped France since November.

Benjamin Griveaux made the comments following the government’s first Council of Ministers meeting of 2019 on Friday, as cabinet members returned from their two week Christmas break.

A group associated with Yellow Vests has written a fiery open letter to Emmanuel Macron, warning the French president against treating people like beggars, rejecting his nationwide debate, and demanding a major tax reduction.

The missive was posted in the Angry France group on Facebook, which unites almost 300,000 supporters of the Yellow Vest movement, and was also sent to the local media late on Thursday.

“Anger will turn into hatred if you continue, from your pedestal, you and your associates, to look at little people like beggars,” the protesters warned Macron.

The wave of so-called yellow vest protests — named after the obligatory attribute of French drivers — started in France in mid-November.

"Yellow Vest" protesters are demonstrating for the eighth week in a row in Paris on 5 January.

AFP has reported that the French police in Paris have started using tear gas against the "yellow vests", who began to throw bottles and stones at the guards.

In less than two months, the yellow vests (“gilets jaunes”) movement in France has reshaped the political landscape in Europe. For a seventh straight week, demonstrations continued across the country even after concessions from a cowed President Emmanuel Macron while inspiring a wave of similar gatherings in neighboring states like Belgium and the Netherlands. Just as el-Sisi’s dictatorship banned the sale of high-visibility vests to prevent copycat rallies in Egypt, corporate media has predictably worked overtime trying to demonize the spontaneous and mostly leaderless working class movement in the hopes it will not spread elsewhere.

In a televised speech on Monday, the French president vowed that his reform agenda would move forward in spite of ongoing Yellow Vests protests against his government.

French National Rally Party leader Marine Le Pen has lashed out at Emmanuel Macron over his unconciliatory attitude toward those protesting his socio-economic agenda, calling him an "imposter" and a "pyromaniac" via her official Twitter account.

Her party, meanwhile, offered a more detailed criticism of the president's speech.

"At a moment when the nation is in need of conciliation, of a sublime and fraternal vision, of a president who is once again presidential, that is to say, an arbitrator, the French listened during this new year's address to the speech of a clan chief, an ideologue of globalisation and an impudent professor of morality," the statement, published on the party's official Facebook page, said.