It’s a sick joke. The great NATO government and the United States who launch wars across the globe, invade and occupy foreign nations and spend trillions to kill millions in the name of bringing freedom and democracy have—as we have greatly detailed in The Trends Journal—stolen it from its people.

Need more proof? 

Three protesters in France who gave their President Emmanuel Macron the middle face prison terms and fines for flipping him off during a recent trip to Selestat, a French town near the border with Germany. 

The French Constitution pretends to recognize freedom of speech, it also explicitly allows legislation that would limit it, according to the Law Library of Congress. The three reportedly pleaded guilty to contempt of a person holding public authority, which is a vaguely defined law in the country critics say is intended to crush opposition. 

The two men and a woman without criminal records would face up to a year in prison and a 15,000 euro fine. A fourth individual was arrested but has yet to be officially charged because of a lack of evidence.

Macron has been touring the country to try to build support for his controversial pension reform. (See “MACRON FACES NEW PROTESTS AFTER FORCING THROUGH PENSION REFORMS” 21 Mar 2023 and “FRANCE ABSORBS ANOTHER PUNISHING WEEK OF PROTESTS OVER MACRON’S PUSH TO RAISE RETIREMENT AGE” 14 Mar 2023.) 

The pension reform, which raises the retirement age from 62 to 64, passed but the country suffered weeks of punishing protests that have continued. Fitch, the credit ratings agency, downgraded France’s debt worthiness from “AA” to “AA-,” over political pressures around the pension reforms that will “complicate fiscal consolidation,” France 24 reported.

Free-Dumb

More recently, in March, a French woman in northern France got in trouble with the law for calling Macron “filth” in a Facebook post. She faces a fine of 12,000 euros and the trial is set for June. 

The woman, who is in her 50s, was arrested and held in custody for questioning by the state’s local administrative office after the post. The AFP noted that the post appeared on Facebook just before Macron was set to defend his pension reform plans in a TV interview. 

“This piece of filth is going to address you at 1pm … it’s always on television that we see this filth,” she allegedly posted.

The woman, who has been identified only by her first name in reports, said she could not believe it when French police arrived at her door.

“I asked them if it was a joke, I had never been arrested,” she told La Voix du Nord, a regional newspaper. “I am not public enemy number one. They want to make an example of me.”

In another instance, a protester in Saint Martin was charged with contempt after allegedly writing “Macron ordure” (Macron trash) on a wall in Arques. 

Amnesty International noted that France is hardly the bastion of Free Speech that it thinks it is. Two men were convicted of contempt in 2019 after burning an effigy of Marcon during a protest.

The report noted that thousands of people are convicted every year for “contempt of public officials,” which the organization stated is “vaguely defined” as a criminal offense “that law enforcement and judicial authorities have applied in massive numbers to silence peaceful dissent.”

TRENDPOST: We have long noted that the leaders of so-called Democratic countries that are the first to criticize “despotic” countries like Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, and Iran for cracking down on their populace, should start looking in the mirror. 

We noted that last October, when France was facing protests over the soaring costs of living, Iranian leadership called out Paris for its brutal crackdown on protesters. 

“We are closely monitoring the popular protests and widespread strikes in France, which are based on the peaceful demands of the citizens of the country,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said. “We condemn the use of force and violence for returning the strikers to work with no regard for their demands as well as the violent confrontation of the French police with the protesters.”

French authorities have continued to crack down on protesters and have been confiscating pots and pans from rally goers who have tried to drown out Macron’s recent speeches. These pots have been identified by police in the Alsace region as “portable sound devices.”

TRENDPOST: As we have been long reporting, censorship has become the way of life in a country near you:

● “U.S.A. FREEDOM ACT = SPY ON YOU” (19 May 2020)

● “FIGHT FOR FREEDOM: GO TO JAIL” (28 Apr 2020) 

● “SWEEPING DEMOCRACY UNDER THE RUG” (5 Jan 2021)

● “HEIL WILHELM: NO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM, MORE MANDATES, SCREW THE CONSTITUTION” (7 Dec 2021)

● “SPOTLIGHT: COVID VAX WARS. NO VAX NO FREEDOM” (21 Dec 2021)

● “GLOBAL FREEDOMS FALL TO RECORD LOWS AMID COVID-19 WAR” (22 Feb 2022)

● “OBAMA CHAMPIONS FOR CENSORSHIP. FULLY JABBED AND GOT COVID, HE KEEPS SELLING THE VAX” (26 Apr 2022)

● “BIDEN PUSHES FOR MORE CENSORSHIP” (20 Sep 2022)

● “GOVERNMENT-SANCTIONED CENSORSHIP: EX-TWITTER EXECUTIVES TRY TO BULLSHIT THEIR WAY OUT OF CULPABILITY” (14 Feb 2023)

● “NETHERLANDS VIOLATES DEMOCRATIC NORMS AS GOV’T SENDS MILITARY TO STOP FARMER PROTESTS” (14 Mar 2023)

● “CALIFORNIA OFFICIALS USED CELL PHONE DATA, GEOFENCE SURVEILLANCE TO SPY ON CHURCH ASSEMBLIES DURING COVID-19 LOCKDOWN” (14 Mar 2023)