Demonstration

The demo in Angouleme was pretty big. Angouleme, you've never heard of it unless you're a history buff, is a fairly small city near Bordeaux in the South West of France. There were about five thousand of us, from 'all walks of life' all protesting against 'the way things are'. And why not? Demonstrating might not get instant results, but it is a warning to the government that says 'We still exist and we hate you.' After all, what has been the point of anything that the government has done, if you want to ask the naive but ever present question 'What's the point in demonstrating, in striking?' - all Sarkozy has done is take the people's money that they said wasn't there last Summer ("The funds are empty everyone sorry!") and given it all to the banks. After you write so many letters and emails that are ignored, what then? How long do you keep saying "What's the use in demonstrating/striking/acting?" If voting changes nothing, what's the use in that - what's the use in doing anything political at all....why don't you lie down and just accept the diminution of your living standards in quiet? That's the terminus of that line of talk. The passivity of the happy slave.
The demos today might not bring anything about in the short political term, but they are a marker. But today is turning out to be HUGE. And they do work - given impetus and stamina - look at the CPE climbdown in 2007 and....Iceland, and who knows where next.....

update - Wrong again. Guessing crowd numbers is really difficult. But I was way off. There were 30 000 people in the end, really big for a moderately sized city about the size of Bradford.