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Comment by Nemrod67 | Hacker News Reader

As you can see from other replies: - the French people did not care that they had to sign a paper to get out to walk - that we closed libraries and forbade people from buying clothes in supermarkets - that Macron has been in charge of the country's finances for over a decade with horrid results (+600B€ in debt) - that Macron did everything he said he would not, and said a lot of things that would be treason in a reasonable civilization

We are the rooster that sings with it's feet deep in shite. It's gonna get ugly when it hits the fan.

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"the French people did not care that they had to sign a paper to get out to walk"

1- Don't you think this is quite political? Like what is your benefit from saying this out of context? If signing this paper and being stricter helped the hospitals not being saturated and saved x thousands lives do you still think it was a bad thing? (I'm not even saying that's the case I'm just saying you don't seem to take that possibility into account at all)

2- From my observations French people -constently- complain about this. So I wouldn't say they didn't care about it. You're doing it right now.

> Don't you think this is quite political?

We’re discussing politics.

> Like what is your benefit from saying this out of context?

What does that even mean? Are you insinuating they’re being paid to say that? How do we know you’re not paid to counter them?

> If signing this paper and being stricter helped the hospitals not being saturated and saved x thousands lives do you still think it was a bad thing?

The problem is you and no one else could prove now or then that giving up my human rights would save lives. Because its all pointless lip service to take power away from the people under the guise of “protection”. Just like with encryption, personal weapons, and everything else that governments don’t want us to have.

> I'm just saying you don't seem to take that possibility into account at all

And I’m saying you haven’t taken into account that you’re an Authoritarian apologist.

>> If signing this paper and being stricter helped the hospitals not being saturated and saved x thousands lives do you still think it was a bad thing?

If banning encryption and helping police stop terrorism saved x thousand lives do you blah blah blah blah

Do programmers hang out here? The aversion to reasoning from first principle is palpable.

> If signing this paper and being stricter helped the hospitals not being saturated and saved x thousands lives do you still think it was a bad thing?

If patriot act helped US intelligence agencies prevent the next 9/11, do you still think it was a bad thing?

It certainly is political in some ways. Some people think that government shouldn't have such authority to lock people down in their homes for months on end, to spend public money on buying overpriced masks and preventive treatment that doesn't work, shouldn't pay the media to spread misinformation and definitely shouldn't have access into our lives like we're in some dystopian novel from the last century. But hey, maybe that's not most people anyway...

France's Debt-to-GDP[0] went up about 17 points during the first year of covid, compared to Canada's 20 points. In the following years it's gone down about 3 points, which is about the same for Canada. I don't really know who else to compare France to, since Germany, UK, and USA all have their own weird complications and Italy was hit early by covid in a way that most countries were not.

No matter who was in charge of France there was going to be a giant spike in debt during at the very least covid, and now dealing with this Ukraine mess.

[0] I greatly prefer net Debt-to-GDP, which is a closer approximation to a country's actual balance sheet, as a measure, but it isn't frequently reported and most people tend not to care.

Hold your horses... First of all not all french citizens think or act the same way, and as for the rest Macron is not the first president (and certainly not the last) to screw up.

I'm convinced that whatever president they elect, they'll complain just as much.

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