Comment by vladvasiliu

Meh. As someone who's in the opposite situation (familiar with France and not with the UK), I get the feeling that what you're saying applies here, too.

It's funny you should talk about farmers. Yes, politicians say they'll move mountains for them. Yet, in practice, farmers are still barely making ends meet. And we also have the EU on top, which is run by bureaucrats even more removed from the actual "bas peuple". Just look at the whole situation with the Mercosur treaty.

Politicians keep yapping about how ICE cars are the devil and should be banned. After all, you can take a bike or ride the metro, right? It's not like anybody lives outside Paris or its close "satellites". It's very easy when you don't even have an idea how much a ticket costs, since you're carted around by police escort on the people's dime.

We've also had a push for "decentralization", with all kinds of hilariously bad results.

I don't know about Portsmouth nor Blackpool, but I ride around France a fair bit, and outside the biggest cities, many small towns have empty, run-down centers, with mayors fighting to get stores and whatnot back. But people simply move out for lack of jobs.