In France police in Paris killed up to three hundred unarmed protesters in 1961

From Everything you know about Europe is wrong by Ed West. Found vis Instapundit.

West is slaying British Left stereotypes of Europe with the sword of truth. In other words, he is taking the stereotypes and tropes of the British Left and comparing them to the actual measured realities of continental Europe today. There is usually a vast gulf. West's Gulf is somewhat in the context of the Brexit vote but is actually a pretty useful primer for the US as well.

The same mistaken stereotypes and tropes about Europe swirling among the British Left are rife in the American Left. One I mention with some frequency is the long mistaken belief among the American Left that Scandinavia is a socialist paradise. Having having lived in Sweden a number of years in my youth and worked there in my career, I have some actual knowledge of the country.

The issue is not that Scandinavia is not a paradise. One could argue that point but it is pretty indisputable that it is at the least a very pleasant place. Not because of their politics or their governmental policies but because of their cultures. Swedish culture, Danish culture, etc. - they are pretty good at reaching reasoned and effective decisions which work.

Sweden was indeed a socialist state for the plurality of the last century. But given the financial burden of the extensive regulations and high taxation that goes with state generosity, Sweden began a range of economic, trade, business, and social policy reforms in the early nineties. The reality is that Sweden has not been socialist for the better part of thirty years, a generation. Similarly with Denmark.

Europe has been hailed as a feminist Eden by the American Left and yet their abortion laws tend to be draconian, their national policies hugely pro-natal and female representation in competitive fields pretty miniscule.

All of which is covered in West's article. I do not know West as a reporter nor UnHerd as a news site so I read with a jaundiced eye. However, I did not catch any glaring errors or misstatement of fact. As an aside, I also note that the article is rich in links providing supporting research for the key assertions of fact, a practice which should be the norm for journalists and yet is largely absent in the most well-established media.

From the article:

The apocryphal newspaper headline — “fog in the channel, continent isolated” — famously said something about the British mindset. It’s hardly surprising that we are insular — we are literally an island after all — but this insularity is something that curiously crosses all barriers in British social and political life, whether of Left or Right, middle or working class, and on almost every issue.

This is true even for British liberals who, reeling since the night of 23 June, 2016, have made the continent a sort of spiritual home as they’ve become alienated from their countrymen.

Right-thinking Britons see their country as an embarrassment sliding towards populism, a sad contrast to the moral superpower that is Germany and France under centrist leader Emmanuel Macron. Yet the Continent of the Anglo liberal imagination is as unreal as the supposed nostalgic Britain of yesteryear loved by Leavers.

He then goes country by country dashing the dewey-eyed dreams of xenophilic left who imagine every country a paradise compared to their own national hell-hole.

On France:

A central theme of fascism is a love of violence against ideological opponents, and so a visitor from outer space with a vague understanding of our human political philosophy would probably conclude that there was only one fascist state in the EU — France, where the brutality of the police is on a scale that would be unfathomable in England.

Among the recent victims of the gleefully violent French police is a teenager who lost an eye in Strasbourg and an elderly woman in Marseilles who died from her injuries after being hit by a rubber bullet. Just this month prosecutors launched a probe after a video appeared to show a policeman firing point-blank at protestors with a riot control gun.

France is quite far down from Britain in the Freedom International rating, and treats minorities like Roma in a way that would do more than embarrass liberal Brits.

Right-wingers often complain that the horrific behaviour of the French police towards the gilets jaunes has received scant coverage in the BBC; certainly if Hungary or Poland treated their citizens like that, I’m pretty sure it would be on our news more. But then France has always been a politically violent country.

I first noticed this type of media amnesia perhaps twenty, possibly, thirty years ago. There had been some spike in Muslim emigre restlessness and nights and then weeks of reporting about the dozens and hundreds of cars being burnt by the protestors. It was indeed riveting film, seeing all those cars burning in the dark.

But in discussing with some French friends they alluded to the fact that this was just a difference in degree, not a difference in kind. Cars had been being burned for years, a couple or a dozen at a time. Yes, dozens and hundreds were now being burned but it was an escalation of an already present condition. And sure enough, after the immediate cause of the protests went away, so did the news reporting. But not the chronic condition of nightly burning of cars.

The same thing has happened with gilets jaunes. What has it been? A year? Eighteen months? Two years since the first massive protests? As far I can tell from foreign news reports and occasional conversations with friends in Europe, the protests never really went away. Smaller in scale for periods of time, but chronic and with frequent flare-ups. And yet you wouldn't know that relying on the American MSM.

I really liked this point made West.

The last mass murder of protesters in England occurred in 1819, when 18 people were killed by authorities in Manchester; in France police in Paris killed up to three hundred unarmed protesters in 1961.

It is a rhetorical device that I always enjoy, whether it goes with my assumptions or against them. A contrast in measured data or obvious facts which forces you to reexamine your own assumptions.

In this case, I am not well-versed enough in British Labor history to confirm that 18 was the last such incident. Didn't the General Strike in 1926 lead to riots and perhaps repression? A quick scan reveals that while it was a true and difficult test of democratic institutions, there were few deaths at all and I am not finding any accounts of deaths of workers by police.

So perhaps 18 people in 1819 was the last state execution of citizens on that scale.

What is the equivalent in the US? The Kent State shootings comes to mind in 1970 but the death toll was "four dead in Ohio" in Neil Young's memorial song. Nothing like 18.

I was thinking the Haymarket Massacrein 1886 might be a candidate but the death toll from the police was a single demonstrator.

Googling is not throwing up any instances of mass state violence against protesters. The closest I can come is the Waco Siege of 1993 which was horrific and unforgivable and for which I am unaware any of those responsible being held to account. 76 citizens were killed through government assault. But it seems categorically different. That was government trying to address a perceived public safety threat, not government killing citizen protestors.

Absent other examples, I will contingently accept West's point is true in Britain and the US both.

Overall, a provocative but accurate and interesting article that filters out much common cognitive pollution.