Hundreds of protesters thronged the streets of Paris to protest against France's policies against Russia while calling for a review of the nation's NATO membership just days after similar protests took place in neighboring Belgium over the rising cost of living.
“Crowds of protesters took to the streets of the French capital on Saturday to protest France’s policies towards Russia and the nation’s NATO membership. The large-scale rally was organized by the right-wing Les Patriotes (The Patriots) party, led by Florian Philippot, the former deputy head of Marine Le Pen’s National Rally.
Philippot has been organizing protests dubbed ‘the resistance’ since autumn, demanding that France leave NATO and the EU, as well as criticizing President Emmanuel Macron’s economic and foreign policies.
The protests, in which Philippot himself took part, were triggered in particular by the high energy prices that have forced small businesses across France into closure, he explained to Ruptly video news agency. ‘We must stop the anti-Russia sanctions, because that does not serve peace there but brings misery here’, he said.
Photos and videos published by the politician on social media showed a large crowd marching through the streets of central Paris. French officials have not commented on the rally and provided no official figures as to the number of demonstrators. The French media mostly ignored the event as well. According to the website of Les Patriotes, similar rallies were held in September and October.
The protest also occurs as neighboring Belgium saw a massive demonstration joined by over 16,000 people in Brussels earlier this week. Thousands took to the streets in the Belgian capital on Friday to demand a freeze on spiking energy prices, and better pay, amid high inflation in Belgium and the EU.
Gas and electricity prices have skyrocketed in Europe as the economic strain caused by Covid-19 was further aggravated by the fallout of EU sanctions on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine. Russian energy supplies to the bloc were then further reduced amid the EU’s attempts to rid itself of Moscow’s energy imports altogether”. -RT
Not only has Russia articulated a claim of preemptive collective self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, but the threat posed by NATO expansion and Ukraine’s eight-year bombardment of the Donets Basin was sufficient enough to provide the Russians with the perceived moral high ground throughout Europe and on the world stage.
Russia has been doing an adequate job of maintaining proper proportionality of action throughout its campaign. Hampered by its own constraint designed to limit civilian casualties, the Kremlin is doing everything necessary to avoid increasing sympathy for the Ukrainian side while still keeping with the objectives of its special military operation.
With NATO losing on a moral level, and now that the U.S.-backed proxy army in Ukraine is losing to the Russian-backed Novorossiyan proxies on the material level as well, the European countries in NATO know by now that engaging in direct conflict with Russia would all but ensure their subsequent occupation.