美欧网友讨论法国黄背心及西方媒体集体失语的背后原因 [美国媒体]

When I randomly saw this video on my youtube feed, I was surprised. And I had to know more about it.
It is hard to Believe Protests are go an on in Paris and many other parts of France for 4 weeks and Nobody hearing about it outside of people who is living this. Eiffel tower closed for a bit, You can see State of Champs Elysee in many videos like this.

问：无意间在YouTube上看到这则推送的视频后，我大吃一惊。（视频标题是：“黄背心”抗议活动将巴黎变成战场）我想我必须要进一步了解这一事态。
很难相信这次席卷巴黎和法国许多其他地区的抗议活动已经持续了4周，但除了生活在当地的人之外，竟然没人听说过这事。埃菲尔铁塔甚至都曾一度关闭，而你在许多其它视频里能看到，香榭丽舍大街也出现了类似的状况。

Only debate I can find is from RT and it is just not even 2 days old. And There are very few news coverage in English. RT debaters are comparing this with Trump and Brexit which seemed funny to me But Brexit was also pretty funny until Results started to come.
Does anybody know what is go an on in detail of these protest?

我唯一能找到的相关辩论来自《今日俄罗斯》（RT），而它甚至也是最近两天才发布的。英语新闻的相关报道则少之又少。《今日俄罗斯》的辩论者正把法国的这一事件和特朗普以及英国脱欧（Brexit）进行比较，这对我来说倒挺有趣——但英国脱欧在各种后果开始浮出水面之前，似乎也挺有趣。
有谁知道这些抗议活动的详细情况吗？



-------------------Reddit评论--------------------------------

-------------------1-------------------

[–]UpsetLobster
I'll give my perspective, as a French guy doing a PhD in sociology, with the biases and also the capacity to generalise that comes with this perspective.

作为一个正在攻读社会学博士学位的法国人，一个不可避免存在自己的偏见，却也具备足够的能力对事态进行一番概括总结的人，在此给出我的观点：

France has been implementing neo Liberal economic policies for decades now that have progressively undermined in tandem with globalisation the Middle class that was created from the 50s to the early 90s.
It used to be that part of the reason for this middle classes existence were strong public services that kept costs down in terms of energy, transport and communications, and enabled a measure of redistribution from urban centres to rural areas, by providing cheap services and mass employment.

几十年来，法国一直在实施新自由主义经济政策，这些政策和后来的全球化一起，逐渐削弱了在上世纪50年代至90年代初形成的法国中产阶级。
过去的中产阶级得以存在的部分原因，是法国强大的公共服务。这些服务降低了民众在能源、交通和通信方面的生活成本。而廉价服务和随之而来的大量就业，也促成了财富从城市中心向农村地区辐射的成功再分配。

The last 30 years has seen successive governments cutting taxes for big companies and capital, privatising services and such. This loss of revenue was compensated by cutting costs in rural areas like closing schools, hospitals, train lines and all that made life there livable on the cheap. This has been an issue for a while, and most regions in France are loosing population in favour of very few economic centers. Small rural areas and even major cities like toulouse are loosing population to the capital and the Rh?ne region, while old industrial heartlands are progressively deserted and agricultural regions survive with difficulty.

但过去30年来，政府却一再削减大公司、大资本的税率，并将公共服务私有化等等。由此造成的财政收入损失，政府却是通过削减在农村地区的支出来弥补：如关闭乡村学校、医院、铁路等等使当地低成本生活成为可能的所有东西。这个问题已经存在很长一段时间，它导致人员向法国极少数的几个经济中心集中，而绝大多数地区的人口却在不断减少。不仅仅是在农村，甚至是像图卢兹（Toulouse）这样的大城市，人口也在不断向首都以及隆河地区（Rh?ne region）转移，而从前的工业中心地带则逐渐凋零，农业地区也只能勉强维生。

Meanwhile, INSEE (public office of statistics in France) have show that living standards for the bottom 70% of earners have frozen since the last nineties, and class mobility which increased for every generation since wwII has been decreasing for the first time in the 2002 study. President Hollande cancelled the 2012 study out of fear it could engender too much contestation.

同时，根据INSEE（法国国家统计局）的数据，自上世纪九十年代以来，社会中下层70%的民众生活水平没有任何提高；而2002年的一项研究显示，自二战后曾经每一代人都有增长的阶级流动性，也首次出现了下降。由于担心引发太多争论，奥朗德总统于2012年取消了这项研究。

This constitutes the backdrop of the whole issue. Now for the trigger.

以上是构成整个事态的背景。现在来看看这次抗议的导火索：

The last lifeline for poor rural folk was their ability to find work far from home by being able to afford transportation. Having a car, and being able to afford fuel, is equivalent to being able to continue living for most rural people and the urban poor that have been relegated to far from city centres by gentrification and increasingly unaffordable housing.
So when président announces that older vehicles (the only ones poor people can afford) will be taxed more to encourage people to buy newer vehicles, that these vehicles will loose the right to be driven on polluted days, and that the fuel they use (diesel) will be taxed a lot more, you directly attack the lively hood of millions of people across the country.

对于贫穷的农村人口来说，能负担得起通勤成本，从而能在远离家乡的地方找到工作，已经是他们生存的底线了。拥有一辆汽车，能负担得起燃油费，对大多数农村人口和城市贫民而言，就等于能继续维持生计——这部分城市人口也因无力负担的房价而日益远离城市中心。
因此，当总统宣布，为鼓励人们购买新车将对老旧车辆（穷人唯一负担得起的车辆）加税，空气污染严重的日子还要禁止老车上路，而且它们使用的燃油（柴油）也要加税时，他等于是要斩断这个国家数以百万民众的生计。

These measures, taken in the name of global warming, are seen as widely hypocritical by the poeple. Big SUVs are not taxed more, are allowed to drive on polluted days. Macron himself oversaw a reform of the public train company ensuring its increasing privatisation, allowing for more expensive tickets and overseeing the creation of a cheaper bus service to double the now unaffordable train tickets. The trains were electric and fast, the buses pollute and are slow. You get the picture.

这些以“防止全球暖化”为名采取的措施，在人民普遍看来是极其虚伪的。首先是不对大型SUV车加税，也允许它们在污染严重的日子上路；而由马克龙亲自督导的一项旨在推动公共火车公司私有化的改革，也在导致火车票涨价——为此他还正在督促公共汽车降票价，以平衡让已经贵得难以负担的火车票价翻倍的计划——但火车用电而且快速、公交车又慢又烧油。你明白了吧。

So all these people who used to trust the media and condemn workers striking because their jobs were going to Eastern Europe or China, or people protesting privatisation, are now blocking motorways and rioting in Paris. This is scary, because it offers a rallying cry against neo liberalism and the new oligarchie class that has shapen so much of international politics since the 80s. In my opinion this is why you don't hear a lot about it in international media.

所以，那些曾经信任媒体、谴责工人（因工作岗位不断流向东欧或者中国而）罢工的人，或者反对私有化的人，如今都站了出来，他们堵塞了高速公路、在巴黎制造混乱。这看起来很吓人，因为它号召人们反对新自由主义和新寡头阶级——自上世纪80年代以来，新寡头阶级在很大程度上重塑并掌控了国际政治。在我看来，这恰恰是为什么你在国际媒体上很少看到报道这一事件的原因。

I think that it is fuelled by exactly the same rise in inequalities and lack of social mobility that generated the rise of trump, and euroscepticism. It offers a certain hope to create a political movement that would create class consciousness to oppose the global rise of inequality and the dangers inherent to this with the erosion of state power and the incapacity to face the threat of climate change.

我认为，正是由于持续加剧的分配不公和日益缺乏流动性的社会，才导致了特朗普的当选和欧洲怀疑主义（Euroscepticism，一种对欧洲一体化保持警惕的思潮）的兴起。它为发起一场政治运动带来了希望，这场运动将催生阶级意识，反对全球不平等的加剧，以及暗藏于这种不平等中的其它危险——诸如国家权力、各国应对气候变化威胁能力的削弱。



-------------------2-------------------

[–]Lordxorn
This post is extremely biased, as you warned, an nowhere do you explain the entire picture. IE the unchecked influx of low skilled labor from the middle east perhaps? The utter failure of a push towards socialists measures? Interesting how you are trying to shift blame from these facts, and try to blame the wealthy?

正如你自己警告的那样，你所写的极度偏颇，离真正阐释整个事件也差之千里。为什么不谈谈来自中东低技能劳动力的无节制涌入？推进社会主义式措施的彻底失败又为何不提？有趣的是，你却试图把焦点从这些事实上转移开，去指责富人？

[–]DreamCatcher24
immigrants took jobs. Is this backed up that immigrants are bringing down wages? This is a talking point used a lot but in the USA at the very least, it is demonstrably false.

移民挤占工作机会，移民拉底工资水平，这些是有根据的吗？这是一个经常能听到的观点，但至少在美国，它显然是错的。

[–]Lordxorn
It is simple economics that illegal immigration depresses wages.
The implications for the construction market have been huge! The blue collar jobs have disappeared because contractors can pay the illegal laborers cash under the table lower than minimum wage. This hurts ALL Americans!
In conclusion, your statement is utterly wrong, they do bring down wages. Look up Caeser Chavez and Diane Feinstein and you will understand why the unions were vehemently anti-illegal immigration. It is ironic that this has only gotten major news media coverage in the US since Trump came to office. Obama was deporting illegals at a great rate, and cracking down on illegal alien criminals. That is one of the few things he did in his Presidency that congratulate him on other than giving the go-ahead to take down Bin Laden.

非法移民会拉低工资水平，这是个简单的经济学问题。
他们对建筑市场的影响尤为巨大！蓝领工人的工作已经基本消失了，因为承包商可以以远低于法定最低工资的水平向非法劳工支付现金。这伤害了所有美国人！
总之，你的说法完全错了，他们（在美国也）确实拉底了工资水平。搜一搜凯撒·查韦斯（Caeser Chavez）和黛安·芬斯坦（Diane Feinstein），你就会明白为什么工会要强烈反对非法移民。讽刺的是，直到特朗普上任后，美国主流媒体才开始大肆报道这些事情。而奥巴马在驱逐非法移民、打击外国人犯罪方面其实相当强硬，这或许是他在总统任期内所做的少数值得称道的事情之一——除了下令击毙本·拉登以为。