FRANCE IN DISTRESS – AT 1:20 P.M. ET:   France is just recovering from a terror attack in Strasbourg.  and is now bracing for new "demonstrations" by violent protesters.  The country is unstable.  And the British government barely has the support of Commons.  And other European countries are in economic distress.  And our own government is wracked with bitter clashes.

Welcome to the free world.

From AP:

PARIS (AP) — Anticipating a fifth straight weekend of violent protests, France’s president on Friday called for calm and the Paris police chief warned that armored vehicles and thousands of officers will be deployed again in the French capital.

Police chief Michel Delpuech told RTL radio that security services intend to deploy Saturday in the same numbers as last weekend, with about 8,000 officers and 14 armored vehicles protecting the streets of Paris during a planned anti-government protest by the yellow vest movement.

Delpuech said the biggest difference will be the deployment of more groups of patrol officers to catch vandals, who last weekend roamed the streets around the elegant Champs Elysees, looting and causing damage. Police arrested more than 1,000 people in Paris last weekend and 135 people were injured, including 17 police officers.

French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner also urged protesters to express themselves peacefully after a police shootout on Thursday ended a two-day manhunt for a man suspected of killing four people near a Christmas market in the eastern city of Strasbourg. Hundreds of police were mobilized in the search, which ended with the suspect being shot dead.

“I can’t stand the idea that today people applaud police forces and that tomorrow some people will think it makes sense to throw stones at us,” Castaner said from Strasbourg.

A sixth “yellow vest” protester was killed this week, hit by a truck at a protest roadblock. Despite calls from authorities urging protesters — who wear the fluorescent safety vests that France requires drivers to keep in their cars — to stop their violence demonstrations, the movement rocking the country since mid-November has showed no signs of abating.

“Last week, we pretty much handled the yellow vests but we also witnessed scenes of breakage and looting by criminals,” Delpuech said. “Our goal will be to better control this aspect.”

The protests began Nov. 17 against a rise in gas taxes but have morphed into an expression of rage against France’s high taxes and a sense that President Emmanuel Macron’s government does not care about French workers.

Macron has acknowledged he’s partially responsible for the anger and has announced a series of measures aimed at improving French workers’ spending power but has refused to reinstate a wealth tax that was lifted to spur investment in France.

COMMENT:  We must be careful not to glorify the protesters.  Some deeper reporting suggests that the leaders of these protests have fascistic ideas, which wouldn't surprise me.  They are taking advantage of real frustration among the French people.

The instability in the West is striking.  It reminds me of 1968, when the United States suffered two political assassinations – Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy – and violence at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  Americans for a time seemed to lose confidence in their own country, and we went through a period of instability and doubt, culminating in the resignation of President Nixon in 1974. 

We were lucky, during that time, to have Ronald Reagan waiting in the wings.  I don't see another Reagan right now.

December 14, 2018