By Glenn Greenwald / Rumble Following the recent protests against police in France, the French government has taken steps to implement increasingly repressive measures in the forms of mass surveillance and the rhetoric endorsement of online censorship.
It did not get France to descend into authoritarianism.
When your policies are so unpopular that it comes to that level of rioting, you have two options:
You dissolve the National Assembly and organise new elections. If your party loses, you step down from the presidency.
You increase the budget of the police and the military, create additional surveillance laws, criminalise actions you feel are a danger to your ability to hold power, you ban environmentalist groups.
A democratic government would go for the first option. Macron has always been authoritarian.
It did not get France to descend into authoritarianism.
When your policies are so unpopular that it comes to that level of rioting, you have two options:
You dissolve the National Assembly and organise new elections. If your party loses, you step down from the presidency.
You increase the budget of the police and the military, create additional surveillance laws, criminalise actions you feel are a danger to your ability to hold power, you ban environmentalist groups.
A democratic government would go for the first option. Macron has always been authoritarian.