Monday 25 November 2013

Bonnets rouges for the Revolution

A French mood of mutiny that has rippled through Brittany and infected teachers, farmers and shopkeepers, skipped species on Sunday when horses took to the streets of Paris to complain about tax rises.
Thousands of disgruntled horse and pony riders rode through the French capital to complain about tax increases they say will put many of them out of business and send 80,000 animals to the abattoir.
The "cavaliers" blocked roads from the symbolic Paris squares, Place d'Italie, Place de la Bastille and Place de la Nation, in protest at government plans to almost treble VAT on equestrian centres.
It was the latest manifestation of the growing revolt over PresidentFrançois Hollande's tax reforms, many of them aimed at reducing the country's public deficit to meet European Union demands.
Tens of thousands of protesters wearing revolutionary-era "bonnets rouges" have clashed with police, promising to make the region Hollande's "cemetery".

The caps are reminiscent of a 17th-century revolt against Louis XIV's stamp tax in Brittany and became one of the official emblems of the 1789 revolution.
Val says  I can think of nothing worse than being a politician in the Corridors of Power, which ever party was in power would struggle with the present deficit. Back to the corridors of pooh which I am still cleaning up in the fields and I know which job I would prefer. The sun is shining, the sky is blue and I cannot wait to get back out after lunch.