Latest / Halliday’s Podcast / HALLIDAY'S HOME TEAM #15: Lyon Burns: Riots, Looting & France on the Edge – Billy Hart & Jean-Louis Lafayedneey Break It Down

Transcript

HALLIDAY'S HOME TEAM #15: Lyon Burns: Riots, Looting & France on the Edge – Billy Hart & Jean-Louis Lafayedneey Break It Down · Halliday’s Podcast

• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode twenty-five of Holiday's Podcast, coming to you live from Lyon.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Over the past week, France has seen some of its most serious unrest in years.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: What began as nationwide protests over the cost of living and conditions in schools escalated quickly last weekend into widespread riots, looting, and arson.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Town halls were attacked, businesses smashed, a tourist office here in Lyon was set on fire, and more than 2,000 people were arrested across the country.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: With further demonstrations already being called for, the question on a lot of people's minds is where does this go from here?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: To help us make sense of it today, I've got two Lyon residents with me who bring very different perspectives.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: First, Billy Hart, retired NYPD American now living here in Lyon.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Billy, you've had family visiting this past week, so you've been watching these events both as a local and through the eyes of people seeing France and Lyon for the first time.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Jean-Louis Lafayette, local French Scotsman who's lived through previous waves of protests, and can give us the ground level view of what's been happening in the streets and neighborhoods here.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Gentlemen, thanks for coming in.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Billy, let's start with you.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: What has this week felt like, especially with family in town?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I would say a lot more tension than uh normally felt.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_03: I was here for a couple years ago with the yellow vests as I walked through, and you know, they'd break uh a few bus stops and burn some garbage cans, but that was about it.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um for my sister coming, she was her first trip was supposed to be October 8th and after uh the attacks on Israel.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: So they had shut down Lyon Airport, Paris Airport.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: So I called her and I begged her, please don't come because I don't know what's gonna happen here.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um so she postponed her trip, and this was her return.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: I see so she came right right in the middle of it.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: She's got good timing.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And you uh I mean we went to the rugby uh on Saturday, Lou versus uh the Sharks.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh unfortunately, uh the Lou lost that game.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: But um whilst we were there, obviously it was all kicking off um on the Presquil.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for those that that don't know for our international audience, that's uh the the area of Lyon between the two rivers as they converge down at Confluence.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's really the the center of town.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I presume afterwards we left you and then you did a walk around.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: We did a walk around to Brateau, uh just got some coffee.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_03: But the uh owners of the restaurant were apologizing for the rioting.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh there were some stragglers running down the street over there.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_03: Nothing, nothing really, but the tension of walking back up to our you know, our house.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh she was a little nervous.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if you're not accustomed to that type of chaos, it could be a little much.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um going back to your time with the NYPD, uh, you've you've obviously seen protests and riots of a similar sort of level.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for me the worst was 2020 with the uh George Floyd riots, where much similar to this, fires breaking in, looting, um mass arrest, and then everybody released.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah, that was probably the most chaos I saw in New York City.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want to get into police tactics uh a little later, but um moving over to Jean-Louis, you actually went down to see the protests on Saturday.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so last Saturday I went down, I took my son because oh well I'll explain a bit why I took my son, but we both went down on Saturday afternoon to go and witness a protest for ourselves to see what was going on and to try and get an understanding of it, above and beyond what you see on the TV and what you read in the newspapers, and of course what you see on social media.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_04: My son, who's 14, is one of the people who's somewhat affected by the core ideals behind the student protests, bearing in mind these are two different protests who've converged into one, isn't it?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_04: You were talking about the two rivers of Lyon converging to make uh to make one.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_04: Well, this protest is supposed to be two in one.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_04: So you've got the students on the one side who are claiming a bunch of things, which we'll go into in a sec, because it's not that simple to understand, and then the on the other side you've got the yellow vests who've resurrected their uh their presence.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_04: So we went down there, and I took my son because he's been talking to me a lot about what he sees at school, what the people around him are saying, what his teachers are saying, and what he sees in social media on all the groups that he's on, including the groups who uh who are you know not protesters but down there to sack the place.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_04: So he was the one who told me, look, I've um I've seen all these groups, we uh they I know they're gonna go down there and destroy the place.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_04: And he was telling me that you know they've got grievances, and uh you know, we've had these sort of debates at home all week leading up to last Saturday.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_04: So I decided to take him down there because I wanted him to see it for himself, because he was to my mind talking all this nonsense about what was going on, so and all this I would almost say propaganda nonsense coming from the teachers at school as well as the people around him at school and probably all the stuff he saw on social media.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_04: So I wanted to take him down there so he could see it for himself, he could experience it.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_04: Now I only took him on the margins of it.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_04: We didn't we didn't go right into the heart of it, but we were close enough, and we wandered around, and he was shit scared, and it was uh it was quite an interesting uh experience to see him with me.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, I went down there on Saturday, I saw enough to get a gauge of what's going on and what you know.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_04: I saw some looting, of course, I saw uh burning, I saw, you know, you hear the bang, bang, bang of the of of smoke.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_04: Smoke grenades.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, like the smoke grenades from the police, but also the fireworks from the from the mocchi, as they're called in French, the kind of fireworks they use as uh as a as a sort of weapon, don't they?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_04: And they're quite frightening because you can be hundreds of meters away and you can hear that.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_04: It's uh and then you see the smoke and you hear the noise and you see the pro so I saw some protesters, but mainly looters, is what I saw.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: So what did he what was he hearing?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: What were some of the uh into your words uh propaganda that he was hearing from his teachers and fellow classmates?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_04: So you have to understand, yeah.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_04: I use the word propaganda, I go be careful about the words I use, but you have to understand the well, let's just talk a little bit about what the students are actually protesting about, which kicked this whole thing off in the first place.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_04: Because then the Yellow Vest just got involved afterwards, it wasn't the Yellow Vest first, then the students, it was students, then Yellow Vest, then the the looters.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_04: Uh and there's a new French word for these guys, cassur.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_04: Previously they would have used the word racque or something like that, but now they use the word casser.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: What does casseur stand for?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_04: Casseur means someone who breaks shit, essentially.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Right, okay.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I suppose the closest one-word translation would be looter, right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_04: Pillager, sacquer.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_04: You know, like when the Danes came over.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, Viking, exactly.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_04: That's what I was thinking.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_04: Viking is probably the closest, the closest uh term.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_04: So the school protests are mainly about so the lycien, you know, in France you you I think it's like in America where you you have middle school and you have high school.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_04: Right?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_04: So this is about high school, more than middle school.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_04: My kid's in middle school, but he's going into high school soon, so it does affect him.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_04: The protests are about high school.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_04: Why?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_04: Because uh they're saying essentially two things.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_04: Uh one, uh conditions are not conducive to being uh best for learning and progressing.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_04: And the second thing is the uh path to university, in French is called parcours soup, is uh not fit for purpose.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's highly convoluted.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh most parents don't truly understand it.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_04: So when you speak to other parents about what are your kids doing, what university they're going to, how are they navigating it, is very, very complicated.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_04: So they're complaining about these two things, which may or may not be legitimate.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_04: I think the second one is legitimate, the parkour, because even myself I've tried to understand how you know when my kids do eventually go to university, if indeed they do, how does it work?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_04: How do they get there?
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_04: What are the universities they can go to?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_04: And it's very, very it's a highly convoluted system here in France.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_04: So there is that, and it's difficult, it's really, really difficult.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_04: You've got to do a whole bunch of things, apply, and essentially what ends up happening, I think, is you get a furthering of the elite.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_04: It's a self-reinforcing cycle because when you look at the universities, the the top universities in France and go in there and wander around, what are you gonna see?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_04: You're not gonna see a lot of diversity.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_04: Why is this, in my view?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_04: It's because the way to get to university is quite complex.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_04: And if your parents aren't behind you helping you, you need the money as well, because you've got the private universities, which are quite expensive, and the public universities, which are essentially free but not great, maybe.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_04: It's it's if you if you don't have the wherewithal to help your kid get there, and there's no one else who's really gonna help you, it's very complicated to navigate this system.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's you know, it's probably a legit, it's I it's in my view, it's probably a legitimate thing to go after.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_04: And then on the other side, when they're talking about the conditions in class, etc., not enough uh too many students, not enough teachers.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I guess um I'm a little bit surprised about that angle because what happens in France, I don't know if it's the same in the USA, but what happens in France is the transition from middle school to high school, a lot of kids drop out.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_04: Really?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_04: So there's a lot of kids who don't make it to high school, they go and get jobs, they go become um, you know, they get vocational training, apprentices, that kind of stuff.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_04: So there's a there's a fair amount of that.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_04: So normally when you so even for example, here where we live, the local middle and high school, the middle school has a very bad reputation, the high school has a very good reputation.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_04: Why?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_04: Because you've had this system where you've you've you've lost a bunch of less academically inclined, right?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_04: So and that that typically tends as far as I understand tends to be the case.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm a little bit surprised they're complaining about I would be complaining about the the middle schools, the middle schools are the ones who are where where things are not going great, um, rather than the high schools, as far as I understand.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_04: But anyway, that's and what my kid was hearing was that he was talking about all this stuff about how the the conditions were very poor at school, and that um the he was saying that you know the protesters were all people who had uh genuine grievances and and you know the poverty was was was a part to play in all that, and that and that's why they were destroying stuff.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: And we at home were saying, look, the destruction of property and etc.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_04: has got nothing to do with your grievances at school.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely not.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_04: And so you've got to separate these two things, and he just wouldn't listen.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: So But there's protests.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, France has a France are very good at it, right?
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: They've got a long history of protests, and they do it very well.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the Gilets jaunes uh protests, I mean the barbecues and roundabouts and to most effect, um, they were peaceful and calm, but this clearly got completely out of control.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so the question is what what's changed?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_04: Why why in 2020, 2021 the Yellow Vest and there was a lot of them on the streets, etc., and it was all over the country, why is that more or less peaceful?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_04: And this one has become a shit show.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a decision.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's a whether by the politicians to allow a certain level uh past the protest itself, whether it's you know, large group gatherings in other locations, they determine how the police response initially is gonna go.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: Whether it's hands-on, you know, if you if you come to this area, say it's you know the town hall, you know, city hall, like you can't come into Tarot to protect it.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: You come in, then they should be arrested and pulled away and prosecuted.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_03: In New York, the problem was the prosecution.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: You got arrested, pulled out of a riot, and you were back out the next day doing another one.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: So there has to be consequences for stepping outside the line to destroy property to affect these people's lives.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, yeah, sure they destroyed, you know, attacked Starbucks and the big name international companies, but they were they were looting the mom and pop stores as well.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: And you could tell right away because the next day when we went down, they were out there sweeping right away, cleaning, you know, trying to to recover their personal business.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: But I think it's part it's a decision on the politicians and then the police uh response.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: I'd be curious to see your what you observed on the police when you were down there.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_04: Well, just on the police side, one of the things that my son was m complaining about in the week leading up to the protests is the police.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I and this is where I use the word propaganda because from his teachers, I'm afraid to say, as well as all the students and all the social media groups he's on, in terms of hundreds of people on some of these groups on TikTok.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I haven't seen it myself, so I can only go on what he saw me.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_04: But he says that there are police who infiltrate these groups to try and figure out where the next protest is going on, where they're gonna be.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_04: And it's obvious to these people who the police are when they come on with the types of questions they ask, the way they speak.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_04: And he was saying that um the police brutality has been dreadful.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_04: And he says that all the students at school are talking about how bad the police are, how brutal they are, you know, about the kid losing his hand, about um another kid losing his her eye, I think it was.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and so he's been I guess he's scared.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_04: Sure.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_04: And all the other kids are frightened because when they leave school, you know, there's been blockades of schools, it's blocus it's called in French, where people stand outside the colleges and the schools and try and stop people going in or hassle people when they go in and out.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_04: And that's been going on at my kids' school.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's been he's in the Kwahus up in the his school up in the Kwaus.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_04: So it's been happening.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_03: He's been Who are the people blocking?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, you got a mix, you got some unemployed people, you got some high school students, you've got the local, you know, rough kids who come from the banlieu, you got there's a there's a bunch of people who are doing it.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_04: And some of them are doing it for the so my kids have been uh tried to get money taken away from him from people who are doing it.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_04: So he's he's been he's had a bit of a rough time of it, and he's obviously not the only one.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_04: So um in terms of the the police thing, I wanted him to see that also.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_04: I wanted him to come and understand that the police are not the enemy, the police are our friends.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_04: That's certainly my view.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: And I wanted him to, and we, you know, him, his mother and I have been trying to impress on him that the police are there to protect us, they're not there to attack us, and that what he's been hearing from other students and teachers and what he sees in social media groups is some form of anti-police propaganda, right?
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_04: Spread by whom?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's uh but is it anti-police or is it anti-establishment and they're the representation of the establishment in the scene.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's been a buzzword in the US since uh 2020, defund the police.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: You know, and it's still around, people are still talking about it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: How's that in fact?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's um so when I when you asked the question, what what did I see for the police?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, the police were all concentrated in one area.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: So where the looting was going on in Lyon, and there was a lot of it, there was no police.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_04: So it felt lawless.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_04: So the police were in one area or concentrated in a bunch of areas, dealing with the the the heart of the protest, the actual, let's call it the protest.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_04: And what was going on around that, within maybe I don't know, a kilometer either way of a radius around that, is all the looting and all the guys wandering around because there's no public transport, so you had to walk.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_04: So we parked our car on the edge of this, and my son was like, if you leave your car here, we might not be here when we get back.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, I know, but I want a new one anyway.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_04: We'll take that race.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: I might have a garbage can at the show.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is that your Tesla that you're taking down?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, it's a Tesla.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_04: Oh my god.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_04: I don't I don't have a Tesla.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_04: No, it's uh it's a Runo French car.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_04: If it was a Tesla, I probably wouldn't have parked it.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_04: No way.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_04: So we walked into town, so we were going contra flow because by the time we were there, a lot of the looting was either going on or had happened.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_04: So people were kind of wandering, coming out, and I was we were watching people come away with all the stuff they'd looted.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_04: And I walked past this four-star hotel that people were looting at the time.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_04: Uh took some photos, and it's just you know, even I didn't even want to take photos because pulling my camera out and taking photos of people I felt was already a little bit risky, putting myself and my son at risk.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_04: And my son was, I mean, the he he became like a sort of uh I don't know, like a sort of thermometer for me, a barometer of what's going on.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_04: He was frightened from the moment we got out of the car.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_04: And he, you know, when we were walking down the street, he'd never seen anything like this.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_04: It's kind of like you know, Mad Max type thing.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's very different when you see it in real life and when you see the scenes on TV.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and the smell, yeah.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_04: Things burning, noise, smell and people shouting.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can almost taste the um the sort of anger.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_04: Someone kicked kicked a can at us when we're walking down the road, and you know, I could see my my son was petrified at that point, and there was three or four of them who'd kicked a can on purpose at me when we were walking down the street, and I just looked at them, and uh they kind of carried on.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, ooh, thank God for that.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and afterwards, when we were driving back, my son said, Yeah, when that guy kicked the can, I was really worried you were gonna say something, and then that would be the end of us.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_04: I was like, Don't worry, I'm a little bit more sensible than that.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_04: So we carried on walking towards the city center.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, the police I just saw the police from a distance with the um with the main protests.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_04: Where we were was more where the looting was going on and where people were leaving the main protest to either go home or move to a different part of the protest or whatever.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_04: So they were they were very focused.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_04: Whereas I think this time around it will be different.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_04: I think there'll be police posted a little bit more strategically everywhere.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Back in February, we went down and we covered on the podcast uh the death of uh Quentin de Ronk.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Quentin duan, of course.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it was um the first time I had seen a protest, but it was very organized.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: The protest organizers knew exactly, they were told exactly where they were going to go.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh certain streets cordoned off.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was the leaders at the front, you know, navigating, big police presence.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was one um episode, I would say, that where it looked like it might kick off, but otherwise, it was very, very controlled.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's important for listeners, and what just important for people to understand that these aren't organic occurrences in the sense that you know people aren't just all of a sudden running out of their homes and and going to a specific part of town.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess my question to the both of you, because you've been on the other side, obviously the police side, Billy.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this is now probably your your second or third um protest that you've experienced, uh Jean-Louis.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: But was that the case they were sort of organized to protest through the center of town?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: And did they lose control of it?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And back to an obvious question, why would you allow a protest to go uh potentially highly explode?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's it's not lost on anyone, I think, that people aren't happy with the status quo, right?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: People are not happy with the cost of living, people aren't um happy with certain political stances, wars happening.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: It it's it's very clear.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got a very heightened political situation already.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, clearly the intelligence would have shown that this is explosive.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Let's proceed anyway.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: You have to expect that those are the those are the results.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think it was very predictable for that last one because the weeks before they were protesting in Paris as well, and it started getting out of hand.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um the police.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, as far as my experience, politicians drive a lot of it.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the tactics for the you know, this scale riot are you know, they're trained.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: They're you know, these guys, I think the CRS, I think is you know, I think that's France's main protest response.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you see them walking around, they got all the equipment on.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, those guys are trained for what they're gonna do.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: And it sounds like I mean they had some control at Belcor minus the uh tourist office, but it it's not their responsibility outside.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like the way we divide it up, if you're assigned to that protest, that's your job.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_03: But the local police still have to maintain vigilance because they know there's gonna be spill off.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh you know, that high end area.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: In Lyon, that's easily predictable.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_03: Republic and all the shops.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that sh there should have been a visible manpower put out.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: And that that really stops some of these kids that aren't really sure they want to get involved and like, all right, if nobody's looking, I can throw a rock through the window and get a new pair of sneakers.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_03: That prevents a lot of that.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: And it didn't sound like Lyon was prepared outside of the actual demonstration itself.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: Following the activities over the weekend, a French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez offered his resignation after admitting police lost control.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly they lost control, but this is an impossible job for the police.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Jean-Louis, you know, you experienced it with your son.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether or not his opinion of the of the police changed, but you can't all the training in the world can't prepare you for something like this.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to be bricking it as a as a young uh policeman or woman going in.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's chaos.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And like you were saying, if you've not got the right numb I mean, what are the right numbers?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how do you how do you how can you predict how many people are going to show up?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um whether or not you can actually effectively do your job.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: It seems like, you know, just my experience with protests here, they happen often enough where you the people the politicians and the police hierarchy should be able to judge whether it's the location of the protest, how many people are uh expected to arrive, time of day, holidays, previous weeks.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think it was somewhat predictable that this was going to kick off in Lyon at least.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: But are we are we honestly expecting that the police are gonna keep um control of a uh of essentially a population that's becoming more disenchanted and disgruntled with with politicians who seem to be stoking the fire, well actually pouring gasoline on the fire.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: When you see those police and those and their actions of the day, whether they're I think it was the Bastille, they were running across the square, then they were running back.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I don't know.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_03: Well that was the in but in Paris.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what the um what's the square, the Republic.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Place de la Rip.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Place the Republic, yeah.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I I just from the clips of the news, so you don't know what the uh you know the background of that actual action was.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, to look confused, you see like fifty cops running across with the bats out, kicking uh tear gas cans.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_03: You know, if you see the cops at that moment look confused or overpowered, that's a failure of all the preparation going into that day.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: What you're seeing is the the rubber hitting the road.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's already done.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: No time for prep is over.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: This is that is they were acting with the available resources that they had, and they were trying to do the best they can.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's the way I look at it.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_04: So who who in France decides the police presence on the street in particular cities?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_04: Is it down to the local mayor of the city, or is it the interior minister who decides the the asset the police assets are going to be on the ground?
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_03: I know it's different here because gendarmerie is is a federal police, basically, right?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_04: Who are not in the cities, the gendarmes.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_04: They're in the towns and the and the and the countryside.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_04: They're not in the city.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_04: You won't find gendarmes in the city.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_04: So the the police do the city and the gendarmes do everything else.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, how big is uh Lyon local police force?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_03: It can't be that many.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_04: Probably not that many.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's our prefect of the department is the main authority who decides the police presence and overall public order plan for a protest or riot in France.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: The interior minister sets national policy, allocates mobile forces, and coordinates large-scale responses.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: But operational decisions on the ground are primarily the prefects.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Prefet, which is essentially the local council.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's what I would have thought.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_04: And as we all know, the city now is divided into two.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_04: And the city in Lyon, you've got the Greens who control the city centre, Greens slash LFE who control the city centre, so hard left essentially.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_04: And then you've got the the the rest of the city of Lyon, Greater Lyon, which is controlled by the Conservatives.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_04: And they don't get on.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_04: But here we're talking about the city centre, not the rest.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_04: So it would have been them who would have uh decided what the police response would have been.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_04: Which is probably why it was wholly inadequate because they're the guys who don't like the police.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_04: They're the guys who support defunding the police.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Did your exercise in educating your son work?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Did his uh opinion about police change because of journey home?
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_04: No, because we didn't we didn't get close enough to the action to see what was actually going on with the police in terms of I didn't want to take him that close because that would have been dangerous.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_04: I wanted to keep him somewhere reasonably safe.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_04: Because I mean, if I'm listening to this podcast, I'm thinking, hey, this dad's a bit irresponsible taking his kid down there.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_04: Well, a little bit, but I wanted to make sure that he was kept reasonably safe, so we didn't go anywhere near where he would have been in danger.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_04: I had my yellow vest on, so I looked like a protester.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: And you were the infiltrator.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_04: And uh, you know, I made sure we stayed well away from um going too close to any looting or you know, antagonizing anyone who might have responded to us.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_04: So his opinion hasn't uh hasn't changed.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_04: He's still trying to figure stuff out in his own mind, I think.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_04: It's all too complicated for 14-year-olds to honestly figure it out.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's too complicated for us, no?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's for sure.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: But he got a good view on what a world without police would look like.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_04: That's definitely true.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_04: And how well he felt it, how frightening it is to be in a in a land that's lawless where people are looking at you and going, If I if I steal your belongings, no one's gonna do nothing.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_04: No one's gonna do anything.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_04: And now is it and it's opportunistic because now is the time to do it.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_04: It's not tomorrow when things are back to normal if I don't do it now.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_04: Plus, there's a heightened sense of you know, people got adrenaline running through their bodies and they're running around shouting and not behaving like they normally behave.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah, he would have seen all of that.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_04: And uh, we were quite close to his friend's house, and he was very concerned for his friend because his friend lives in the right next to Bedcoat.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_04: Oh wow, and uh he was saying, How do how can you live here when this is going on around?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_04: You know, so he was kind of thinking, if I lived here with my friend, you know, where my friend lives, I I couldn't even I can't go downstairs.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_04: Can't go outside, can't go outside.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_04: The world has become too dangerous.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_04: So you've um I guess that's how things worked.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_04: But can I just mention one thing which I I think is very interesting that I've seen on social media since Saturday last week, which is we've all seen that.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_04: I think you know the the pictures of this this young woman in Paris with the headband on who's trying to negotiate, supposedly left wing, trying to negotiate with the looters.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_04: Now, I've seen so much rubbish said in English about this particular episode that I just want to say set the record straight on one thing because I've I've watched it.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's a little bit difficult to understand what they're saying because it's a bit muffled and they're a bit far away from the microphone when they're talking.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_04: But everything that I've seen so many things about this, and she's become like a representation of a meme now.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, she is.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_04: She's become a meme, a representation of the kind of you know, the bobo left in France.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_04: That that kind of uh left-wing apologist who's who's had their comeuppance is essentially how she's been represented.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_04: The only thing I would like to say is that I've listened to the the video as far as I could I uh I've listened to a few times to try and understand what they were saying to each other.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_04: And um, at no point does she say stuff like, I voted for you guys to come into the country and all that.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_04: I d I don't know where all this crap comes from when you see it on on social media.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_04: I've seen so many things on social media now that saying like she said this and then she said that, and then it's well deserved and all that.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_04: What I heard her say was simply this is not the cause, this is not the reason we're protesting.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_04: That's what she said when they were trying to loot her shop.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_04: And she has a a look of incredulity on her on her face when they're coming in, as if to say, why on earth are they coming into my shop?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_04: I've done nothing wrong, I'm their friend, you know, what's the problem here?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_04: So she she does seem to be a little bit bunny caught in the headlamps, but at no point did she say, I voted for this or I voted for that.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_04: You can't decipher from that video whether she's conservative or left-wing or what.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_04: You can assume from the way she's dressed and the way she speaks and the kind of shop she runs that maybe she is.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_04: But these are just assumptions.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's a bit unfair on this girl to do that.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_03: I saw that on Fox News in the US.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, what did they say?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_03: And that was exactly it.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like she was saying, uh, I'm with you, I voted for defund the police.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: What are you doing?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_03: And then they they come in.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the only thing that's real of that video is the terror on her face, you know, on the human level.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: Whether whatever she is, doesn't matter.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: She is legitimately scared.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I think she should be, you know, she should have been.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_03: I think there were eight guys dressed, eight, ten guys dressed in black, and they were coming in that store.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I'm surprised it didn't hurt her because I thought at some point it might hurt her.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_03: But maybe the camera helped.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, maybe.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_04: And there was another guy who was the one who pulled her away and said, Look, okay.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_04: And he said to her, look, there's no point trying to reason with these guys because the the the that's not gonna work.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_04: Logic is not gonna work here.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, you you see the thing about the Fox News, there must be if there's a pre-video, a bit like a prequel, you know, like in Star Wars, that I haven't seen, where she says I voted to defund the police, then I don't know what they're talking about.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the right in the US jumped right all over the uh immigration aspect of it.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: Of course.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: And this is the uh this is the natural cause.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean that happened.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Trump himself, sorry to interrupt, but Trump himself came out and said I mean that happened seven minutes into the protest.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: So you can't believe the left, you can't believe the right.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's everyb everybody's grabbing it for their narrative.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I just wanted to pop pop pop the balloon on that particular one because it just I just think it's a bit unfair to absolutely to characterize this woman as something when she hasn't actually said it, as far as I could see.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_04: Unless, of course, there is a prequel video, which I have not seen.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: And at the bottom line, she's a victim of this whole thing.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's sad to see.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, certainly, I mean, one result um clearly has been that this has cost a lot of money to to manage, this is gonna cost a lot of money to clean up, um, and there are more protests uh expected, although um, again, declared or undeclared.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they've tried to put a ban on them.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's gonna be interesting to see whether or not.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um park that park that door.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And do we know where they're going?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they go right past the advertise for right past.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they uh back to Belcourt.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: Jamais and a word I'm not gonna even attempt, but 2 p.m.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: it looks like it's finishing up.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: But 9 30.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_04: 9 30 at night?
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_04: AM.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, so it starts at 9 30.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_04: Until what time?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_04: 2 p.m.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_04: you say.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, okay.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_04: Because you want to stop it before it gets dark as well.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_04: And my son tells me that on the social media stuff there's a bunch of guys who are gonna come down and destroy the fucking place again.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_04: So we're gonna see that again tomorrow.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's a professional class of agitator.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we saw it in the US.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's there's I mean, I know people try to argue it, but there's a professional writing class and they look for their opportunities.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, what better opportunity than uh you know, protests for approving children's schools?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_03: You know it's gonna be a great turnout, it's a worthy cause, and to hop on that.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_04: How do how do they are they funded these people?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: I think so.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_04: These professional agitators.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I guess they must be.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_04: But here here in France we got up a very strong left-wing, hard-left, I'll call it, group who are associated with the political group uh LFI, which is led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who's one of the you know, mainstay runners for the presidential election for next year.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_04: So it's very well known that in France we have a bunch of we have many people who belong to that sect who do like to cause trouble, and there's a hardcore element of them, which in France we call the black bloc, the black bloc, who are the ones who come down and create problems.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_04: And during the yellow vest protest last time, those were the guys, the hardcore guys who like to do the fighting inside those guys, inside those um uh you know, those groups of people, and they're at it again.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_04: So when you looked at, you know, for example, in Limoges, the um the Marie that burnt down, right?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_04: The Hotel de Ville that burnt down.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_04: They they caught the guy who did it, right?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_04: Or some or allegedly they caught someone who didn't know.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_04: They've caught someone who allegedly did it.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_04: And when you look at his profile, he's exactly that.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_04: He is um hard left, belonging to the LFE.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_04: His father was also done for a couple of things in terms of protests.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_04: He's already been, he's got a he's already got a track record with the police of having done stuff on um you know left-wing causes.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_04: So it kind of he he fits a profile.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_04: And there's a bunch of these guys.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_04: And when we were, even when we were at the protests in Canton du Hong, we saw some of them.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_04: Not many, but a few of them come and try and cause trouble.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_04: So these these are people that I will never understand, but they l they exist in our society.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_04: I've met a few of them and they they they're just they're they're anti-establishment typically kids of uh middle class kids and uh maybe even their parents.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_04: And they have a view of of France that they just they hate the colonial past, uh which you can maybe understand or not, but they hate that.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_04: They're ashamed of it.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_04: They think France shouldn't exist as a result, or certainly not as it exists today.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_04: They're angry.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_04: They seem to be completely anti-establishment because the establishment is run for elites in France.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_04: I think you can maybe agree with to some degree.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_04: And they don't like the way the political side of things works, which again you could probably sympathize with some of that in France, because it it is incredibly elitist the the way the political system works.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_04: So they probably have some form of understandable grievances generally speaking.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_04: But they're also anti-capitalist, which I could never agree with.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_04: And that's when they come and try and destroy shops and businesses and you know, try and disrupt everything that that that you know creates the the economic lifeblood of the country.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_04: So they're they're at they're at it on that on that side of things, and I can never agree with that.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_04: And people like me can never agree with that, you know, just normal conservative people who want to go about their daily lives and go to work every day and work and feed the kids.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_04: So a lot, but we do have a hardcore element of these guys who are maybe prone to rise, yeah, and to and it's funny because France.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, would tell me what you guys think, because France is a country where if you you know, we all live in France, we've been living here for several years.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_04: France is a country full of docile people, it's in my opinion.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_04: Most of the people I come across, and here I'm talking about the men, most of the men I come across are reasonably docile, they're reasonably timid, they're quite shy, they I never see fighting in the streets.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: They are very I've seen slaps in the front in the street, I've never seen that before anywhere else.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: But men's apparently you're allowed, yeah.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're allowed to slap, but you're not allowed to punch.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I could yeah.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_00: That was quite interesting a few years ago to see a guy get out and he was angry with the driver who was driving too close to him, and he slapped him.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he just slapped him.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_04: Well you've seen it.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was the end of it, but it was uh yeah, I open-handed slap.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: But we've seen look, this is not um, you know, we're talking about France, and I think it's very important at this particular point in time that uh, you know, we try and give an accurate account.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there is all sorts of nonsense, obviously, flying around social media.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: You've got the gripes with this lady in in Paris.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Fox News is gonna jump on a lot of what it needs to jump on for its audience.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And and I hope that we can you know come together.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: We will go down and cover it as best we can, and we'll look to see what pieces of content that we can you know put together.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it's worth noting that uh this is happening across Europe.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think the sentiment is shared by populations um in the UK.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've seen marches in Italy, we've seen problems in Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Albania, Greece.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the list goes on.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: We've got elections coming up in April in France.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh at the moment, Le Pen is the front runner, um, but it looks like a match largely between the what the French would say is the far right versus the far left.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've got the midterms in America, and you know, again, we saw this wave in America that ushered in Trump, Trump's uh Trump 2.0, and um we're waiting to see the you know what the results of the midterms, all data and information that I can find, it doesn't look great um for him given uh given the fact that he just simply hasn't delivered on on camp campaign promises.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not I'm not the American in the room, Billy.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: What are your predictions of of the of the midterms?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because this obviously has a massive effect across the world and uh in Europe.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I think it's gonna be uh pretty definite Democrat House and Senate after November.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_03: I mean everything's leaning that way.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of the uh the candidates that are running against the Democrats seem to be uninspiring.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um so I I would say come January it'll be House and Senate, Democratic uh majority.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_03: And that effectively creates a lame duck presidency, or how do you how do you sort of see I mean if the script is the same as uh Trump point 1.0 would be impeachment trials, Department of Justice, uh you know, that type of government slowing down for sure.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ross Powell One of the things that's very, very clear in all of these protests is we're not seeing a lot of French flags.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_04: No.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_04: When I was down there, I didn't see a single one.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_04: I saw Algerian flags, I saw Palestinian flags, Moroccan flag.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: How long do we have before we have these two sides meeting in the middle and again with the police?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: What what can be done to calm that?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, like we said, you know, identification of the groups, the uh estimated size of the groups.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, we I've been in many protests where you know one street has separated a pro and a con demonstration.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_03: They just yell at each other, and you have to protect both sides, you know, as a police officer.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: So that type of thing, if it's controlled and there's enough presence, I don't think would be a problem.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_03: But agitators would love love to see that if there was a counter pro left and right, that would be ripe for a uh ignition.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been involved with a situation where the military were called in to help?
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, National Guard.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh well, not so much demonstrations.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously 9-11 National Guard was everywhere.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh New York is unique just because we have 35,000 police officers.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: So we almost possessed the same amount of a smaller city that would need National Guard.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_03: But Rodney King riots in the 90s, National Guard was deployed to Los Angeles, as well as active duty units, which is different.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, there is a precedent for National Guard to come in.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: You see that happening in France, Jean-Louis.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_04: I what I do hear is that there's sort of countryside militia that seems to be preparing for counter-protests, protection of the city, protection of France.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_04: So you're talking about the French flags, and I mean I've I've just heard it on the radio, I've seen it on uh Facebook that people are talking about it.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_04: Um because if you go to the countryside in France, they're very different from the city dwellers.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_04: Uh there's a lot of shooting that goes on, there's a lot of guns in the countryside here in France, and there's uh there's a lot of countryside.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_04: And um people who live in the countryside don't have the same problems and issues that people have in the in the cities.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_04: There's also not the same demographic makeup, it's a very different situation.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_04: So I have heard, I mean, I don't know to what extent this will actually happen, but I can't.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_04: It's difficult for me to imagine enough of a bunch of people from the countryside, let's say hundreds or even thousands of people, come down to the cities with their guns or with uh some form of arms and actually, you know, do a pitched battle with protesters.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_04: I just I just don't see it.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_04: That would be civil war, but there's there seems to be slight murmurings of it, or certainly people have existed.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's now entering the discussion though, isn't it?
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: People are talking more about civil war.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I was talking to Billy just before you arrived.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um Billy, you seem to to think that we're sort of a way off of that, but are we really?
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts?
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, si Civil War, I think we're still quite a ways off civil war, no?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean we haven't seen we we haven't seen it in our lifetime.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_04: Civil war, no, well not not in Europe.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: Have we?
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_04: Well, apart from places like Bosnia and ninety five, but in terms of anything that's touched us in the Western Hemisphere, the countries that we've lived in, I haven't seen um I haven't seen any civil war, but I would uh I don't think we're close to it.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_04: But if these protests keep going on week after week with destruction week after week, I could see something beginning to happen.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well a stat that broke this morning, armourers, armours.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: So do you know armor?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: So arms suppliers.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: That was a very French review.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_04: I don't speak Italian.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: Arms suppliers report sales have multiplied my five to ten times in the past few days, with some items completely selling out.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: So in response to this, um people have gone online, they've gone to shops, and they're buying self-defense equipment.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_03: So is it hard to buy a gun in France?
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_04: Um you need a license to go and shoot.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: But you can't carry it on you.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_03: Can you keep it in your home?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: Or does that have to stay at like a range?
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_04: I I think you can keep it in your home, yeah.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_04: But I I don't know.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_04: I don't have a gun in in France, so I don't I don't really know.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_04: I I know that you need a license to go and shoot, but can you drive a car around with a gun legally?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_04: Or is it like the UK where it has to be locked away even in your car?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_04: Not sure.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: So one power shop owner described it as the biggest spike in a decade.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Others compared it unfavorably to the Yellow Vest period because people now feel any shop could be hit and the police did not protect them.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: A poll for BFM TV found around 60% of French people believe they must protect themselves and their property by their own means.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Intelligence notes have also observed that merchants are organizing their own defence ahead of Saturday.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, this is what they were talking about subsequent, you know, Monday, Tuesday, but it seems to have died down by now, I think.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_04: You know, even on Sunday I did a bike race, and even in this bike race of 40k in the countryside, it's uh off-road bike race, I saw 20 guns, 30 guns, people shoot people hunting in the countryside.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, there are a lot of people hunting in the countryside.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_04: You don't have to go very far to go and see people with shotguns in the countryside.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you occasionally hear every year someone gets shot by accident in France by one of these guys who's probably had too much to drink.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_04: Because it when you do see hunters out in the countryside, it tends to be older guys, yeah.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah, you see, I saw at least 20 20 to 30 guns over 40k whilst I was in the on my little my little race, and we were sharing the same pass with these guys, you know.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's scary.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_04: It is a bit frightening, and I I normally when I'm on my mountain bike and I go in the countryside, I do see these guys and uh I do uh make jokes a little bit and say, Please don't shoot me, tell your mates not to shoot me down the road.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_04: And they were like and they say to me, Well, stop making so much fucking noise then.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_04: But we'd be talking about those guys coming down to Lyon and other cities.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_03: And in my uh experience with the the hunting class in America, they're not coming to the city to save to save it from itself.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_03: Most people that I know that live outside of cities, like legit countryside, they'll let it burn.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_04: Is that right?
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_04: Because here in France it would be the entire opposite.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_03: They have no concern about what happens there.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, they're concerned, obviously, but they're not coming in to protect it.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_04: Because I think in France it's the opposite.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_04: Those guys would would raise arms and and and defend France.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_04: Because France is one.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_04: I think they whether it's the local city is Lyon, whether it's Saint-Étienne, where it's Paris, they see it as one.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_04: Well, maybe let's put Paris to one side.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_04: But the other cities, yeah.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe Paris and Marseille, you put it to one side, but the other cities, you know, because France is not like the UK where you have a concentration of a small number of very large cities.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_04: It's uh it's a it's a constellation of smaller sized cities.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_04: And um and and quite equally, you know, not equally, but quite spread out in the whole territory, which is twice the size of the UK with the same population.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_04: So but the people in the countryside, I think they would come to the city, even if city that maybe not even theirs to defend, because they're defending France.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they're also disgruntled, you know, fuel prices, um, restrictions that have been levered on them.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's it's not like they're they're sitting happy campers out in the out in the countryside.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_04: No, but they're not coming down with their guns to protest against the high diesel prices.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_04: We're talking about they could come down with their muxbury.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, I'm talking about that before.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_04: I'm talking about them coming to the cities to defend France France, yeah.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_04: And has been portrayed by Fox, Fox News.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_03: Sure, and that could be a different uh angle on it for sure.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, they're certainly not turning down the the um the rhetoric politically.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and um you know Le Pen has come out uh quite ardently against um you know Macron's um any attempts he's sort of made, you know, post-riots.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think I mean he's he's he's lame dark president now, but how do you think uh what is your opinion about how he's he's responded to these riots?
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: Bear in mind that he got on a plade to the Middle East, I think pretty much the day after.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_04: Well, he was at a Celine Dion concert, wasn't he, on Saturday afternoon?
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_03: That was bad optics.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_04: He's all about the bad optics, no political.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_04: He doesn't understand good optics.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, he's at a Celine Dion concert whilst Francis Burning.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_03: She is a national treasure, though.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_04: Brigitte?
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_03: No, Celine.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: Controversial, Billy.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: Controversial.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_04: Despite the fact that she's from Canada, you're right, she is a national.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know why.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_04: And our fourth member who isn't here today, he loves her as well.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_03: He's probably there.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_04: He probably was there.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_04: He wears jumpers with her name on it.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_03: I know, I know.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I know there's another brand called Celine, but when the two go together, it's oh, is it not the same brand?
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's totally different.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_04: I think it's a separate brand.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_04: So, you know, people say he's a lame duck present, but I'm not so sure that he is because he can do a lot of damage between now and then.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_04: And he's been, in my view, doing a lot of damage for the last few years anyway.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_04: So I don't know how lame he really is, but he's uh he's a the what what's been more lame duck is is the fact he's had uh what is it, six or seven uh different ministers of the interior and different Well, he wouldn't let this latest one resign, right?
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_04: Prime Ministers, I should say, sorry.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_04: So he's um you know the cabinet is just uh it's just a game of of merry-go-rand.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody wants a job now.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_04: So that that's the lame duck part where not a lot happened.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_04: And they you know they've they've uh you know they backtracked on the major things that they've tried to push through, which is in my view what would characterize them as lame duck because they haven't had the power to push them through.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_04: So for example, I was very much looking forward to in September kids not being able to, you know, kids under the age of 16 not being able to legally access social media.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_04: What happened to that?
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, pulled it back.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_04: Pathetic.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_04: Same with the reform of the Rutret.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_04: You know, they were gonna bring the age of the retirement age up by two years.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_04: What happened?
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_04: Gave up.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_04: So he's he's in my view, that was a was a good thing to do.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_04: Didn't do it in the end, didn't push through.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_04: That for me is what makes him lame duck.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_04: In fact, he has no power to push these things through or the wherewithal, or he would rather be at Celine Dion concert than push these things through.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_00: So much like your time keep keeping, it's um it appears the French are completely ungovernable.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well, my timekeeping is is a one of the French things about me.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_04: So don't know why you're moaning about it.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got the next French presidential elections uh scheduled for next year, 2027.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: The first round is Sunday, the 18th of April, and the second round, if needed, uh will be the 2nd of May.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got a bit of time between uh now and then um to we we've agreed, I believe, put it to continue to put um you know this this uh podcast together and covering local news.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we thank you for for listening.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we hope that um you know if you can send us your comments and and and feedback, we'll certainly we always like reading those.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, we'll continue to cover, I think hopefully week on week, you know, the latest developments of France and uh to our American listeners and visitors.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um firstly, thank you for visiting and and second of all, we hope you uh you find this um a place, a trusted place to come for you know all the the latest all things Leon and France.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um gentlemen, thank you very much for joining me today, uh, for joining us back in this new studio.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh to our sponsors, as ever, the Leon Rocking Club, uh continue to to rock away.
• 52:45
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• 53:07
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• 53:10
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• 53:12
  SPEAKER_04: But can I ask about the lifetime guarantee on our sponsor's bags?
• 53:15
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• 53:16
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• 53:18
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• 53:21
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• 53:22
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• 53:23
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, thank you very much for listening.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.