Suppose they wanted to give a whale of a welcome party and nobody could come?

That’s kind of what happened to King Charles. It was all going to be a rather BFD, as our POTATUS would say. President Macron had invited the new king of England to come for an official state visit and was going to pull out all the French stops.

King Charles will travel to France on March 26-29 for his first state visit as Britain’s monarch, the French presidency said on Friday, in a further sign of warming relations between Paris and London after years of bad blood over Brexit.

The visit, which will feature a state dinner for Charles and Queen Consort Camilla at the Palace of Versailles, is a diplomatic coup for President Emmanuel Macron, who has sought to reset Franco-British relations after a series of disputes.

It was supposed to be a “reset,” like Hillary’s button with the Russians.

Oddly enough, it’s been about as effective, too.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s office says a state visit by Britain’s King Charles III has been postponed amid mass strikes and protests in France, AP reports https://t.co/NpyVB5AIQL

— 🟥ONLINE BUSINESS COACH, WEBSITES + MARKETING 👉DM (@Waconzy) March 24, 2023

The plans were to have the chi-chi state dinner at Versailles with all the bells, whistles and trappings of ostentatious excess, then tour the French countryside. But opposition to Macron’s pension reforms got in the way.

Massive protests across France against President Emmanuel Macron’s national pension reforms have delayed the first state visit by Britain’s new monarch, King Charles III. Charles had been set to visit Bordeaux on Tuesday next week as part of a four-day visit to France, but that city was one of many across France hit by massive unrest on Thursday, with the entrance to its city hall being set alight during a demonstration.

Bordeaux, where Charles was set to wander on Tuesday, was…fiery but peaceful last night. Probably best the monarch missed that party.

🔴🇫🇷 France saw its most serious unrest on Thursday night over the controversial pension reform.

✊ In Bordeaux, which Britain's King Charles III is set to visit on Tuesday, the Town Hall was set on fire as protests turned violent across France 👇 pic.twitter.com/6EvHU0lT6w

— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) March 24, 2023

The French are so peeved about the pension issue that Macron was going to have problems working out the details even if the streets weren’t lit up at night. Nobody but nobody was going to help him with the party planning. He’d wind up clearing Versailles’ tables after dinner on his own.

…The decision to delay the four-day visit shows how unions and millions of protesters are flexing their muscles in the two-month standoff with Mr. Macron over his contentious overhaul of France’s pension system.

Unionized carpet rollers were refusing to literally roll out the red carpet for the monarch. Other workers threatened to blockade a tram he was planning to ride into the center of Bordeaux. And the king was due to arrive in a French capital overflowing with trash following a walkout by sanitation workers.

…Some striking French workers said they had nothing much against King Charles but were just angry at the government.

“It’s a provocation,” said Mathieu Obry, a bus driver in Bordeaux and local union leader. “I have nothing against Charles. But if we have to look like revolutionary cranks to be heard, so be it,” he added.

Unionized members of the Mobilier National, a government agency in charge of furnishing official buildings, said that they would refuse to roll out the red carpet at events for the monarch as part of a wider protest against pension overhaul. In a statement they made no complaint about the royal visit in itself.

As far as being tone-deaf, Macron was acting like any good Leftist who’d just stomped the common folk. When the common folk are the French and you’ve just dictated 2 more years of W-O-R-K before retirement? SACRE BLEU! They’re gonna let you have it with both baguettes.

…Mr. Macron, meanwhile, is being hounded by union leaders and lawmakers who accuse him of acting like a monarch himself. Last week the French leader exercised special constitutional powers to bypass parliament to raise the retirement age to 64 from 62 by 2030.

The optics of playing host to an actual king were proving difficult for the French leader. The trip was due to begin Sunday, with Mr. Macron hosting a dinner for the British monarch and the queen consort at the Palace of Versailles, home of the French kings before the revolution.

“This is crazy. People are in the streets, and he invites a king to Versailles. He’s completely out of touch,” said Perrine Dorin, a 53-year-old arts teacher, who took part in Thursday protests that drew more than a million people.

Speaking of tone-deaf…

Macron while asking for sacrifices from the French people realizes he is wearing a € 80,000 watch and like a magician makes it disappear under the table. Unworthy. pic.twitter.com/zRiQWFAR1M

— RadioGenova (@RadioGenova) March 24, 2023

Yeah. That helped.

There are also cracks showing in the ranks as far as the police and firemen go.

Some police stepped down in Paris and joined the people pic.twitter.com/ACGMA6pBZW

— karma (@karma44921039) March 23, 2023

That could prove to be really problematic when you have crowds of up to a million people, with anarchists setting fire in blocked alleys.

Millions of people on the streets in Paris. They want Dictator Emmanuel Macron to resign. 🇫🇷

This will be happening worldwide when people understand what evil the WEF is. 🔥🔥🔥pic.twitter.com/oH8Q4JW5T6

— Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) March 24, 2023

The national day of action the unions have called for on Tuesday will be the 10th since the pension protests started, and each one has eclipsed the previous in participation and scope. Thursday’s was the largest yet and basically brought the country to its knees.

…Thursday’s demonstrations were the first nationwide mobilization organized by unions since Mr. Macron’s contentious maneuver, and it opened the floodgates of public frustration. Teachers, train drivers, nurses, oil-refinery staff and other workers went on strike and joined protests around the country. The Eiffel Tower and the Palace of Versailles remained closed. Trains and public transportation were severely curtailed, and many schools across the country were forced to shut down. Hundreds of domestic and international flights were canceled.

In Paris alone about 119,000 people marched in the streets, according to the Interior Ministry, making it one of the capital’s largest protests in recent years. More than five hours after the beginning of the demonstration, thousands of protesters still hadn’t reached Place de l’Opéra, where the 2.5-mile march was expected to end.

The only problem with the entire outrage is the fact that, while his method may be suspect or extrajudicial from a French legal standpoint?

Macron is right.

Their pension system cannot sustain itself. Somebody has to pay for it, or work longer to help pay for themselves. I tried mightily in one post to do a simplified explanation of how it functions, but it was dang near impossible. All I knew after researching a bunch was that it was unsustainable.

Light all the fires they want – and they are fond of those – but that’s the one smoldering fire that’s going to get them.