Mastodawn

nation of professional protesters

https://sh.itjust.works/post/56935952

Do those actually achieve anything? The biggest protests we hard about where the ones against pensions reform and this reform was only delayed when the ruling party failed to form the government several times. It was result of typical politics, not protests.

What I see happening over and over in Spain is:

Some union announces a strike and presents it demands

They sit and negotiate with the government

(optional) They don’t reach an agreement, strike is enacted and services are limited to legally guaranteed 'necessary minimum’

They reach an agreement, strike ends.

No protests, no grilling on the tram rails. Just negotiating and using legal leverage. Last one was railway strikes after series of accidents. They reached an agreement before the strike. Unions called it “historic” and won better investment in maintenance and personnel.

So, do the French protest actually achieve anything or does it only look nice in memes? Can someone give some examples of what they won recently?

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ivn

They achieve a lot less since Macron is in power. He “listen to the street” (to the unions actually) a lot less than its predecessors. The yellow jackets had to go very far, with a lot of victims, just to get a few concessions. Repression is a lot more fierce with a lot of police violence. This had the effect of discouraging a lot of people, protests are generally smaller lately. It makes some think that direct actions is the only way now but not much has happened.

To find national protests with real achievement you’ll need to search before Macron. There were some local achievements lately though. And protest are not done alone, there are usually strikes, negotiations and legal leverages at the same time.

This picture is actually from 2018 I think, so the beginning of Macron as president.