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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   35217 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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After the kerfuffle everyone moves on. There's no reason to think it will be different this time.

There might be indication of this being an unusually severe flare-up, or that forces on the ground feel otherwise, when we read the following communiqué by the main French police unions, essentially declaring France is in a civil war and that the police is in the resistance against the government:

"Now that's enough...

Facing these savage hordes, asking for calm is no longer enough, it must be imposed!

Restoring the republican order and putting the apprehended beyond the capacity to harm should be the only political signals to give.

In the face of such exactions, the police family must stand together.

Our colleagues, like the majority of citizens, can no longer bear the tyranny of these violent minorities.

The time is not for union action, but for combat against these "pests". Surrendering, capitulating, and pleasing them by laying down arms are not the solutions in light of the gravity of the situation.

All means must be put in place to restore the rule of law as quickly as possible.

Once restored, we already know that we will relive this mess that we have been enduring for decades.

For these reasons, Alliance Police Nationale and UNSA Police will take their responsibilities and warn the government from now on that at the end, we will be in action and without concrete measures for the legal protection of the Police, an appropriate penal response, significant means provided, the police will judge the extent of the consideration given.

Today the police are in combat because we are at war. Tomorrow we will be in resistance and the government will have to become aware of it."

I haven't verified the authenticity of this (I found it off some nobody on Twitter, and they were a left-leaning pro-capitulation to these ethnics), or know enough facts on the ground to interpret it. I've attached a screenshot of the original French.

/images/168830496294208.webp

You have to understand that in France all public rhetoric is much grander than it is in the Anglosphere, which seemed to have had a self-conscious moment sometime in the 1960s or 1970s after which grandiose speeches were declared eternally "cringe". Even Obama only partially got away with it, and that was mostly when he was quoting MLK or JFK or Lincoln or a founding father. This extends to everything (even corporate memos or emails from the CEO if you've ever worked with the French). By itself it doesn't mean anything. Macron himself makes grandiose speeches all the time about France's civilizational mission blah blah blah and nothing happens.

So when you hear this, and you imagine, like, a prominent police official in the US or UK saying this:

Facing these savage hordes, asking for calm is no longer enough, it must be imposed!

..and it representing this huge moment of change where the wool falls from their eyes and the civilizational meaning of all this becomes clear,

well, you're kind of thinking of it the wrong way. That's just how the French speak, loudly and with a very small stick.

I get this same feeling watching Putin speeches. Even through subtitles, there is a sort of aesthetic appeal that is wholly missing from the speech of American politicians.

I haven't verified the authenticity of this (I found it off some nobody on Twitter, and they were a left-leaning pro-capitulation to these ethnics)

It's on the UNSA Twitter (with a follow-up post saying that the 'we are at war' phrase was a reference to Macron saying the same about COVID.)

Thank you, and looks like French domestic media is already weighing in as well.

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