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Streets on fire after controversial raising of retirement age

<p>French Emmanuel Macron has ignited a furious spark in the people of France with controversial new pension reforms - those that would see the country’s pension age raised from 62 to 64. </p> <p>The changes were reportedly pushed through their parliament without a proper voting process - it has been said that Macron employed “special constitutional powers” to see it through. </p> <p>Protesters flocked to the streets in response, with over 250 different protests organised nationwide, in a move that has been praised by union leaders. </p> <p>However, while hundreds of thousands of participants experienced peaceful marches through some of the country’s largest cities, tensions were high in Bordeaux, and the town hall felt the full brunt of it when it was set alight. </p> <p>While it is not known who was responsible for the fire, it was quickly extinguished. </p> <p>In Paris, where the majority took part in peaceful demonstrations, violence did rear its head, with a number of clashes between protestors and police officers breaking out - shop windows were broken, street furniture demolished, and fast food establishments attacked. </p> <p>It has also been reported that while police were the target of various projectiles, they made use of tear gas to push back those responsible for any rioting behaviour. And at Place de l’Opera, the location at which demonstrators concluded their march, the tear gas was back, covering a portion of the area in a haze of fumes.  </p> <p>The official demonstration in Paris - which had drawn people from all over the French social spectrum - was not the only one to take a violent turn, with the cities of Nantes, Rennes, Lorient, and Lyon facing similar fates. </p> <p>The protests, coupled with strikes and industrial action across the country, disrupted transport and prompted the cancellation of flights, with airport authorities claiming roll-on effects from the chaos. Protestors also succeeded in blocking off Terminal 1 of France’s largest international airport, the Charles de Gaulle airport. </p> <p>As to why the French had taken this approach to fighting the reforms, one demonstrator in Nantes summed it up by declaring “the street has a legitimacy in France. </p> <p>“If Mr Macron can't remember this historic reality, I don't know what he is doing here.”</p> <p>And as another told <em>Reuters</em>, "I oppose this reform and I really oppose the fact that democracy no longer means anything. We're not being represented, and so we're fed up."</p> <p>"It is by protesting that we will be able to make ourselves heard because all the other ways ... have not allowed us to withdraw this reform," another explained to <em>AFP</em>.</p> <p>The women on the streets were furious, seeing Macron’s move as one that targeted them in particular, especially those that had been forced to step away from their careers to dedicate their time to raising their children. </p> <p>As one social worker told <em>The Guardian</em>, “everyone is angry. Everyone thinks this law is unfair, but it particularly penalises women who are expected to produce future generations of the nation, and then find they are punished for doing so.”</p> <p>“They want to raise it to 64 today. Will it be 66, 67, 68 tomorrow?” a teacher implored. “They tell us life expectancy is longer but are we to work until we collapse and are carted off to the crematorium?”</p> <p><em>Images: Getty</em></p>

Retirement Life

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Shanty towns and eviction riots: the radical history of Australia’s property market

<p>Skyrocketing property prices and an impossible rental market have seen growing numbers of Australians struggling to find a place to live.</p> <p>Recent images of families pitching tents or living out of cars evoke some of the more enduring scenes from the Great Depression. Australia was among the hardest hit countries when global wool and wheat prices plummeted in 1929.</p> <p>By 1931, many were feeling the effects of long-term unemployment, including widespread evictions from their homes. The evidence was soon seen and felt as shanty towns – known as dole camps – mushroomed in and around urban centres across the country.</p> <p>How we responded to that housing crisis, and how we talk about those events today, show how our attitudes about poverty, homelessness and welfare are entwined with questions of national identity.</p> <p><strong>Shanty towns and eviction riots</strong></p> <p>Sydney’s Domain, Melbourne’s Dudley Flats and the banks of the River Torrens in Adelaide were just a few places where communities of people experiencing homelessness <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1106767" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sprung up</a> in the early 1930s.</p> <p>Some <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1106767" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lived in tents</a>, others in makeshift shelters of iron, sacking, wood and other scavenged materials. Wooden crates, newspapers and flour and wheat sacks were put to numerous inventive domestic uses, such as for furniture and blankets. Camps were rife with lice, fevers and dysentery, all treated with home remedies.</p> <figure class="align-center zoomable"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469663/original/file-20220620-23-cm58ov.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469663/original/file-20220620-23-cm58ov.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469663/original/file-20220620-23-cm58ov.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=837&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469663/original/file-20220620-23-cm58ov.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=837&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469663/original/file-20220620-23-cm58ov.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=837&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469663/original/file-20220620-23-cm58ov.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1052&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469663/original/file-20220620-23-cm58ov.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1052&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469663/original/file-20220620-23-cm58ov.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=1052&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" alt="" /></a><figcaption><em><span class="caption">Some people lived in tents in the Domain during the Depression of the 1930s.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=MAIN&amp;search_scope=Everything&amp;tab=default_tab&amp;lang=en_US&amp;context=L&amp;isFrbr=true&amp;docid=SLV_VOYAGER1713846" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Knights, Bert/State Library of Victoria</a></span></em></figcaption></figure> <p>But many Australians fought eviction from their homes in a widespread series of protests and interventions known as the <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/lock-out-the-landlords-australian-anti-eviction-resistance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">anti-eviction movement</a>.</p> <p>As writer Iain McIntyre outlines in his work <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/lock-out-the-landlords-australian-anti-eviction-resistance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Lock Out The Landlords: Australian Anti-Eviction Resistance 1929-1936</a>, these protests were an initiative of members of the Unemployed Workers Movement – a kind of trade union of the jobless.</p> <p>As <a href="https://rahu.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Sydneys-Anti-Eviction-Movement_-Community-or-Conspiracy_.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">explained</a> by writers Nadia Wheatley and Drew Cottle,</p> <blockquote> <p>With the dole being given in the form of goods or coupons rather than as cash, it was impossible for many unemployed workers to pay rent. In working class suburbs, it was common to see bailiffs dumping furniture onto the footpath, pushing women and children onto the street. Even more common was the sight of strings of boarded up terrace houses, which nobody could afford to rent. If anything demonstrated the idiocy as well as the injustice of the capitalist system it was the fact that in many situations the landlords did not even gain anything from evicting people.</p> </blockquote> <p>The Unemployed Workers Movement <a href="https://rahu.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Sydneys-Anti-Eviction-Movement_-Community-or-Conspiracy_.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">goal</a> was to</p> <blockquote> <p>Organise vigilance committees in neighbourhoods to patrol working class districts and resist by mass action the eviction of unemployed workers from their houses, or attempts on behalf of bailiffs to remove furniture, or gas men to shut off the gas supply.</p> </blockquote> <p>Methods of resistance were varied in practice. Often threats were <a href="https://rahu.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Sydneys-Anti-Eviction-Movement_-Community-or-Conspiracy_.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sufficient</a> to keep a landlord from evicting a family.</p> <p>If not, a common <a href="https://rahu.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Sydneys-Anti-Eviction-Movement_-Community-or-Conspiracy_.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tactic</a> was for a large group of activists and neighbours to gather outside the house on eviction day and physically prevent the eviction. Sometimes this led to street fights with <a href="https://commonslibrary.org/lock-out-the-landlords-australian-anti-eviction-resistance/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">police</a>. Protestors sometimes <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/1106767" target="_blank" rel="noopener">returned</a> in the wake of a successful eviction to raid and vandalise the property.</p> <p>Protestors went under armed siege in houses barricaded with sandbags and barbed wire. This culminated in a <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/ANZLawHisteJl/2007/2.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">series</a> of bloody battles with police in Sydney’s suburbs in mid-1931, and numerous arrests.</p> <p><strong>It’s not just what happened – it’s how we talk about it</strong></p> <p>Narratives both reflect and shape our world. Written history is interesting not just for the things that happened in the past, but for how we tell them.</p> <p>Just as the catastrophic effects of the 1929 crash were entwined with the escalating struggle between extreme left and right political ideologies, historians and writers have since taken various and even opposing viewpoints when it comes to interpreting the events of Australia’s Depression years and ascribing meaning to them.</p> <p>Was it a time of quiet stoicism that brought out the best in us as “battlers” and fostered a spirit of mateship that underpins who we are as a nation?</p> <p>Or did we push our fellow Australians onto the streets and into tin shacks and make people feel ashamed for needing help? As Wendy Lowenstein wrote in her landmark work of Depression oral history, <a href="https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/69032" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Weevils in the Flour</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Common was the conviction that the most important thing was to own your own house, to keep out of debt, to be sober, industrious, and to mind your own business. One woman says, ‘My husband was out of work for five years during the Depression and no one ever knew […] Not even my own parents.’</p> </blockquote> <p>This part of our history remains contested and narratives from this period - about “lifters and leaners” or the Australian “dream” of home ownership, for example – persist today.</p> <p>As Australia’s present housing crisis deepens, it’s worth highlighting we have been through housing crises before. Public discussion about housing and its relationship to poverty remain – as was the case in the Depression era – emotionally and politically charged.</p> <p>Our Depression-era shanty towns and eviction protests, as well as the way we remember them, are a reminder that what people say and do about the housing crisis today is not just about facts and figures. Above all, it reflects what we value and who we think we are.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185129/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/helen-dinmore-1000747" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Helen Dinmore</a>, Research Fellow, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-south-australia-1180" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of South Australia</a></em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/shanty-towns-and-eviction-riots-the-radical-history-of-australias-property-market-185129" target="_blank" rel="noopener">original article</a>.</em></p> <p><em>Image: <a href="https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-160054430/view" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NLA/Trove</a></em></p>

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Strong police presence deters threatened COVID lockdown protest

<p>Police officers set up an exclusion zone around the city from 9 am to 3 pm with thousands of police officers on the streets of the CBD area, including three Public Order &amp; Riot Squad teams.</p> <p>Taxi and rideshare companies were banned from entering the area and faced $500,000 fines if they took passengers into the CBD.</p> <p>Cars were stopped by police at key check points entering the CBD area and people were asked where they were going. As a result, there were very few citizens in the CBD area and there was no repeat of last Saturday’s protest where thousands marched in protest in the city centre.</p> <p>The police still made eight arrests and more than 250 Penalty Infringement Notices were issued, the majority for breaching stay-at-home directions.</p> <p><img style="width: 500px; height: 281.1696658097687px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7842776/police-um-2.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/dbf3612c4aa34891a36dcde11bb1edf9" /></p> <p><em>Image: Pamela Connellan</em></p> <p>Taxi and rideshare companies faced fines of up to $500,000 dollars if they took passengers into the CBD. Seven taxi and rideshare services received a prohibition notice banning them from taking passengers to the CBD over the six-hour period.</p> <p>A notice in the Uber app said the orders prohibited transit through the large area, as well as any pick-ups and drop-offs.</p> <p>“This is likely to cause significant disruption and we advise you to consider alternatives for any essential travel to and from these areas during this period,” the notice read.</p> <p>The show of force coincided with news a man in his 60s died that same evening from COVID at his southwestern Sydney home, taking the death toll from the state’s current outbreak to 14.</p> <p><em>Images: Pamela Connellan</em></p>

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Trump supporter killed during US Capitol rioting identified

<p>Just before Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt was shot dead at the US Capitol after breaking in, she took to Twitter to share her reasons for doing so.</p> <p>“Nothing will stop us … they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours … dark to light!” wrote the 35-year-old.</p> <p>While she predicted a storm correctly, she probably didn't expect to pay the ultimate price in the end, as she fought to keep Donald Trump in office as President.</p> <p>She was killed after breaking into the Capitol Building during the electoral college vote to confirm Joe Biden's win, and her death has caused outrage throughout America.</p> <p>DC Police Chief Robert Contee revealed she had been shot by US Capitol Police.</p> <p>Footage of the graphic shooting began circulating on the internet.</p> <p>She was later removed from the building on a stretcher and died in hospital later in the day, according to officials.</p> <p>Ms Babbitt was identified to KUSI-TV by husband Aaron, who said she was extremely dedicated to Trump and was a veteran of 14 years.</p> <p>Ms Babbitt's mother-in-law Robin Babbitt spoke to the New York Post about the family loss.</p> <p>“I’m numb. I’m devastated. Nobody from DC notified my son and we found out on TV,” Robin Babbitt said, adding her son’s wife was “a Trump supporter”.</p> <p>Ms Babbitt's death prompted angry reactions from the American public.</p> <p>“When Black people are shot dead by police, there is a postmortem character assassination.</p> <p>When a white woman is killed by police storming the Capital, there is character redemption,” wrote Harvard professor CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Cornell William Brooks on Twitter.</p> <p>“Every news story refers to #AshliBabbitt not as an #insurrectionist, but a veteran.”</p> <p>Twitter uses said they had "zero sympathy" for a "terrorist" killed while taking part in "insurrection".</p> <p>“Play stupid games win stupid prizes,” one wrote, while another posted: “How’d it work out for you? Was it worth it?”</p>

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Hong Kong riots: Teenage protester shot with live round as violence escalates

<p>A Hong Kong police officer shot a teenage protester at close range as authorities and pro-democracy activists came head-to-head in a fierce clash on Tuesday.</p> <p>Previously, officers have been known to fire warning shots in the air on multiple occasions during months of conflict in Hong Kong, but this was the first time a protester is known to have been shot.</p> <p>The officer in question fired the single pistol shot as protesters surrounded him with the bullet hitting an 18-year-old on the left side of his shoulder said police spokeswoman Yolanda Yu.</p> <p>Police Commissioner Stephen Lo said the bullet hit the 18-year-old on the left side of his chest and defended the officer’s actions as “reasonable and lawful”.</p> <p>Authority at Hong Kong’s hospital said the young boy was one of two people in critical condition after riots continued around the city, with a total of 51 people injured.</p> <p>The violence challenging Chinese rule came just as the Communist Party celebrated its 70th year in power.</p> <p>According to Ms Yu, the victim was shot after repeatedly ignoring police despite their warnings.</p> <p>“The police officers’ lives were under serious threat,” she said. “To save his own life and his colleagues’ lives, he fired a live shot at the assailant.”</p> <p>The movement has quickly turned into an anti-China campaign as activists demand for direct elections for the city’s leaders and police accountability.</p>

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