SERGE HALIMI—There is no predicting the future of a movement so culturally alien to most people who read or write for Le Monde diplomatique. Its political prospects are uncertain and its eclectic character contributes to its appeal but threatens its cohesion and power. It is easier to make agreements between workers and the middle class over rejecting a fuel tax or abolishing the wealth tax than over changing the minimum wage, since small business owners and independent traders fear their costs will go up. Yet, there is a potential unifying bond, since many demands result from transformations of capitalism: inequality, wages, tax, the decline of public services, punitive environmental measures, offshoring, over-representation of middle-class graduates in public institutions and the media.
FRANCE
-
-
The author of the video below argues that, overwhelmingly, the Gilets are NOT violent, and that much of the violence is done by the police, cases of blatant provocation, false flags, etc. Their instinctive strategy seems to be to paralyse the nation, and —says the videographer—this may work.
-
While Macron and the rest of his corrupt crew were hoping the Gilets Jaunes would begin to vanish from the scene, this weekend showed that the movement is still very much alive.
-
MAX PARRY—While the media’s conspicuous blackout of coverage is partly to blame, the deafening silence from across the Atlantic in the United States is really because of the lack of class consciousness on its political left. With the exception of Occupy Wall Street, the American left has been so preoccupied with an endless race to the bottom in the two party ‘culture wars’ that it is unable to comprehend an upheaval undivided by the contaminants of identity politics. A political opposition that isn’t fractured on social issues is simply unimaginable. Not to say the masses in France are exempt from the internal contradictions of the working class, but the fetishization of lifestyle politics in the U.S. has truly become its weakness. We will have to wait and see whether the yellow vests transform into a global movement or arrive in America, but for now the seeming lack of solidarity stateside equates to a complicity with Macron’s agenda
-
The movement started, as usual, with financial claims but soon turned to political claims, demanding more political decision-making power to be given to the population through the use of extensive referendums. Another characteristic of this movement is that it is genuinely popular, not partisan, and refuses to have any political party officially join it, showing its full distrust in all the traditional political apparatus. It does not want leaders and just allows some “porte paroles” to speak in its name.