Please consider France to Probe Possible Russian Influence on Yellow Vest Riots.
France opened a probe into possible Russian interference behind the country’s Yellow Vest protests, after reports that social-media accounts linked to Moscow have increasingly targeted the movement.
According to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, about 600 Twitter accounts known to promote Kremlin views have begun focusing on France, boosting their use of the hashtag giletsjaunes, the French name for the Yellow Vest movement. French security services are looking at the situation, Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday in a radio interview with RTL.
“An investigation is now underway,” Le Drian said. “I will not make comments before the investigation has brought conclusions.”
The Twitter accounts monitored by the alliance usually feature U.S. or British news. But the French protests “have been at or near the top” of their activity for at least a week, according to Bret Schafer, the alliance’s Washington-based social media analyst. “That’s a pretty strong indication that there is interest in amplifying the conflict” for audiences outside France.
Damn. Maybe it’s me. Or ZeroHedge. Or the Washington Post. Or anyone else writing about events in France. Even Trump!
As noted yesterday, 4th Weekend of French Riots, Trump Blames Climate Change, Others Blame Facebook.
Then again, perhaps media interest is up due to four weeks of rioting in Paris. Could that possibly be it?
Nah.
It’s Russia. Let’s start the investigation there. If that fails, try Facebook.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Everything is Putin’s and Trump’s fault because neither one is Fascist Globalist scum. They may be scum, but not Fascist Globalist scum. They are shoes thrown into the gears of “change.”
I am starting to think that Macron is a KGB agent, there is no other explanation since nobody could really be that tone deaf, elitist and arrogant in real life.
Maybe Russia also trained tens of thousands of other KGB agents in French and sent them to France to pose as angry farmers, cleaners, truckers, delivery men, taxi drivers, people living in the countryside with no public transportation and other poor people since everybody knows all French people are in real life chic like Macron and wear designer suits worth thousands of Euros and live in the center of Paris.
I think it’s fair to ask Mish, what ties do you have to Russian markets, businesses, or individuals? Because you certainly seem to have an axe to grind defending Russian foul play, and it’s weird.
Problem for Trump is that he is a sucker for compliments that is why he is surrounded by incompetent people who are good at ass-kissing in Whitehouse and gets almost none of his campaign promises especially regarding immigration through.
Most serious charge for that ex-lawyer was from some Taxi Medallion financing scam in NYC and that is why he will say anything to stay out of jail just like he said anything to Trump previously to kiss his ass.
RC, who are you being a useful tool for?
And there you have it folks, a full blown example of TDS. Poor Ronny probably got it from reading the fake, twisted WaPo stories.
Ron C., I recommend cutting back to two joints a day. It might help with some of the paranoia symptoms.
I have a few problems of my own I’d like to pin them on Russia as well. Lol. I actually worked with a few Russians for awhile. Learned to like vodka and playing chess in the winter months. Old Boris and Igor. Boris never understood when I asked him where Natasha was lol.
Wheres the Tricolo?
EU flag on the French riot vehicles used against French citizens in France. Macron, what are you doing? Where is your head?
https://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/eu armored.jpg
The impact of what is happening will go beyond French borders in very hard to predict ways. Macron and his team will try to make this an EU problem by making others less competitive – levelling the playing field.
Levelling taxes etc.
I know it’s a strange thing to say but it’s a mindset not to try to strive to rise to the most efficient but rather handicap others. Somehow I think that will be an unintended result.
Ireland – watch your tax rates. Don’t grow too fast or you will be under the hammer to drive inward investment towards the more important (to the EU) French.
It makes total sense. Merkel has been talking to Putin about running the Nord Stream pipe line into Europe. Merkel’s pool boy, Macron is the secret fall boy. Anybody that shuns Trump’s advancement of LNG imports to the EU is Russia’s tool, no matter the economics of the situation.
Merkel already allowed NordStream 1 to be built and it is pumping gas right now. Now they are building NordStream 2 next to it and since Merkel incompetently made the decision to close all Germany’s nuclear reactors by 2024 after Fukushima disaster and to please German voters who were panicked Germany will be dependent on Russian gas so there might be Nordstream 3 in the future.
Merkel should be removed from chancellorship by AKK and
she should reverse Merkel’s decision and keep the German nuclear plants in operation.
As a coincidence Macron also decided that France will close all it’s nuclear reactors by 2035 despite France getting over 50% of it’s electricity from Nuclear…
AKK is not some mini-Merkel because she wants to deport every criminal Syrian back to Syria and made all asylum seekers who claimed to be underage take age tests when she was running Saarland (spelling?) state government.
So the idea is the Russians sell petro to the French and so want that diesel tax to go away. Want subsidies, even. OK. That makes sense.
I think they mean they want to destabilise an EU member. Let’s not forget France is the centre of the universe, at least as far as the French are concerned.
Why destabilize France? What sense does it make to destabilize a customer?
…. Looks up from his 20 year old newspaper … Hrummph. It’s video games! Video games, I tell you, are ruining our youth.
You couldn’t make this up. Seriously.
Always looking outwards for the source of problems with next to zero self analysis.
Will it be used by the State to further try to clamp down on people networking in order to control social narratives? Probably, yes. Macron, the Great Liberal Leader could go down in history if he goes that route & not for good reasons.
These are weird times & the next great economic crunch hasn’t even hit yet. When it does I wonder who the finger will point at. 3 guesses.
Try investigating those stupid high taxes. That would make me consider rioting. My God most politicians are stupid.
Most? Try nearly all. The decent ones will be smear campaigned or worse, murdered. So basically there are none, in the long run.
Ted, whatever they do someone will be unhappy enough to move or riot. The cuts needed to lower taxes will be substantial.
The ECB/EU might throw them a line and increase the allowed deficit limit but that won’t fix the problem and the Germans will frown to say the least.
Growth is a partial fix but the world is rolling over, developed world demographics poor too. It’s a problem we will all face and some adult conversations are needed. I don’t see anything but higher taxes heading our way – UK, EU.
If we were to re-orientate to greater self reliance and a “help your neighbour” sort of model whilst shrinking the state there might be some chance. It won’t happen unless we look over the edge of an abyss with the result being profound governmental and societal change.
Our collective value systems are screwed. Lack of social cohesion is the result. It’s not the fault of the Russians but our own Liberal leaders wanting to avoid unpleasant truths and not defending belief systems that have stood us in good stead for many generations. My 2c.