Italy populist leaders back France ‘yellow vest’ protests
ROME: The two leaders of Italy’s ruling populist coalition Monday spectacularly threw their support behind the “yellow vest” protesters roiling neighboring France.
“Yellow vests, do not weaken!” Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio, who heads the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), wrote on his party’s blog, echoed by his counterpart from the far-right League, Matteo Salvini.
“I support honest citizens protesting against a president who governs against his people,” Salvini said in a statement, while “firmly” condemning recent protest violence.
Di Maio’s M5S has vaunted direct democracy since it began in 2009 and he on Monday offered French protesters the use of their so-called Rousseau system to improve organization and “draw up an electoral program.” www.dailystar.com.lb/News/World/2019/Jan-07/473442-italy-populist-leaders-back-france-yellow-vest-protests.ashx
Italy and Poland in talks on anti-EU league
Poland and Italy’s right-wing rulers are to cement their “special relations” at a meeting in Warsaw, in what could make a new anti-EU league a major force in the next European Parliament (EP).
The meeting, between Polish ruling party chief, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and Italian interior minister and deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, in the Polish capital on Wednesday (9 January) is to discuss Poland’s membership in Salvini’s new EP group, according to Italian daily La Repubblica.
“It’s a meeting at the highest level. If [party] president Kaczynski meets another politician, it’s a sign of a certain special relationship, which is how we are treating it,” Polish foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz told Polish radio station RMF on Saturday.
“We have to discuss matters related to the European Parliament,” he added.
Jacek Sasin, an MP from Kaczynski’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, said it was “uncertain” whether the meeting would “deliver a certain objective, an agreement”.
But Salvini and Kaczynski would “exchange ideas … on how the European Union should function”, he said.
“There are definitely different points of view between us and Mr Matteo Salvini … but that doesn’t mean we don’t have some ideas in common on how the [European] project should be modified,” he added. euobserver.com/elections/143833
More than half of young people in Ireland ‘would join a mass uprising against the government’
A mass uprising against the Irish government would be joined by more than half of young people in the country, a survey has indicated.
Fifty four per cent of 18 – 34-year-olds said they would take part in a “large scale uprising against the generation in power if it happened in the next days or months”.
The survey polled nearly 20,000 people in Ireland as part of the European Broadcasting Union’s Generation What? research.
It showed that 36 per cent viewed politicians as corrupt, while 40 per cent said they were partly corrupt. Forty five per cent said they didn’t trust politics “at all”. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/over-half-of-young-people-in-ireland-would-join-a-mass-uprising-against-the-government-a7703141.html
‘President against his people’: Salvini openly backs Yellow Vest protesters, lashing out at Macron
In an extraordinary public EU feud, Italy’s Matteo Salvini and his coalition partner have thrown their support behind France’s Yellow Vest movement, while Salvini also accused President Emmanuel Macron of being against his people.
“I support honest citizens who protest against a governing president [who is] against his people,” said the Italian deputy prime minister. www.rt.com/news/448247-salvini-backs-yellow-vests-macron/
French PM says new, tougher laws on unauthorized protests coming in wake of Yellow Vest clashes
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has said that the government will crack down on unauthorized protests and toughen punishment for rioting in the wake of anti-government Yellow Vest demonstrations which began in November.
The new measures will significantly toughen punishment for people who participate in riots, Philippe said, while adding that it was still “necessary to preserve the freedom” to demonstrate in France. Those who want to protest peacefully should not be punished, he said.
The announcement comes as part of new “public order” measures unveiled by the government after the Yellow Vest protests resulted in violence against police officers and government buildings.
Philippe’s office said in a statement on Monday that the government would take “a very firm stance” against the “continued unacceptable violence across the country.” usahint.com/world/french-pm-says-new-tougher-laws-on-unauthorized-protests-coming-in-wake-of-yellow-vest-clashes-162023/
Happening: Members of the French yellow vest movement is calling all people who support the cause to withdraw ALL THEIR MONEY from the banks