© REUTERS / Thomas Peter
German recruits take an oath
German military is plagued by various blunders these days, and there is one more - it emerged that only half of potential recruits are suitable for service, Bild revealed. Others are reportedly unfit or have no German passport.
Bad news about the imperfect state of the Bundeswehr are coming regularly, but this one seems to be even worse, according to Bild am Sonntag
tabloid. Citing internal army papers, outlet writes that only half
of the 760,000-strong pool of potential recruits is eligible to serve.
The rest of young candidates have no German citizenship, fail to meet minimum fitness standards or reject the idea of military service at all. Meanwhile, the army themselves refused to acknowledge the problem, telling Bild: "We are on the right path."
The reality, however, looks murky as
around 25,000 army jobs are up for grabs due to the lack of available personnel. In addition, every fifth civilian position in the Bundeswehr remains vacant.
Comment: The size of the Yellow Vest rallies has perhaps 'shrunk' since 'Acte III' on December 1st, but numbers have since gone way up again. Yellow Vest protests with an equivalent number as the above single counter-protest in Paris were held in multiple towns and small cities across France on Saturday.
These 'red scarves' are also chanting simple things like 'democracy', and a number of them of waving EU flags. So they may say they're sympathetic with the Yellow Vests and simply want violence to end, but it's likely that pro-status quo feelings motivate many or most of them.
They are, to use the French word, the bourgeoisie, middle class Parisians who do quite well from globalization, thank you very much, and for whom Macron is their worthy president. If they were genuinely concerned with the violence, they would have figured out by now, like most, that the media is lying about its primary cause: police-instigated violence against initially-peaceful Yellow Vests.
UPDATE 16:00 CET
One of the protest signs reads 'Finance is my friend', an apparent indication of their support for the banks:
In this on-the-scene video report, an RT France reporter puts the crowd size at about 1,500, about one seventh of the French media's figure. While interviewing a 'foulard rouge' wearing an EU flag, he is accosted by another man telling him he is a 'collaborator of Putin'...