Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

At the armistice event on 11 November, President Emmanuel Macron warned against the dangers of nationalism rising in Europe. In particular, he referred to the dangers of the far right. We need to be very conscious of the dangers posed by the far right and the sort of political forces that gave us the horrors of the first part of the 20th century. When he looks at the uprising and protests taking place in France with the so-called yellow jackets, does the Taoiseach agree that Emmanuel Macron has shown a complete inability to understand the lessons of the 1920s and 1930s by imposing an unjust, regressive austerity flat tax on struggling working people in France and couching it in progressive environmental terms? By imposing it on people suffering from poverty, precarious work and a series of austerity attacks, President Macron is making precisely the same mistake that was made in the aftermath of the First World War with the Treaty of Versailles, which imposed austerity on Germany with disastrous consequences. If we want to avoid the disasters of the 1920s 1930s and 1940s, we must not attack ordinary people with regressive and unjust taxes and austerity measures. In fact, we should stand with the protesting yellow jackets who are saying they are not responsible for the economic mess in France and they have not threatened the environmental future of the planet.

The very wealthy have done that. This is the irony of what is going on in France. At the same time he imposes these fuel tax increases, President Macron has cut the wealth tax in France. The wealthy are going to see a 6% increase in their income while working people and the poor in France are being hammered under the guise of a so-called environmental tax. President Macron has shown exactly the wrong way to avoid the disasters of the 1920s and 1930s. We should learn the lessons here too.

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