ALEX LANTIER—Saturday’s massive crackdown was a searing lesson in the character of bourgeois democracy: as soon as there is any expression of genuine popular opposition, the guns come out. After riot police backed with military armored vehicles and water cannon kettled and assaulted peaceful protesters starting early in the day, violent clashes erupted in all France’s largest cities. A record 1,385 people were arrested.
FRANCE
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The French government hurled hysterical accusations against protesters descending on Paris, accusing them of preparing to “slaughter” (massacre) the “forces of order.” Police viciously attacked and repressed demonstrations in major cities, arresting almost triple the number of protesters as on the previous Saturday, December 1. Throughout the country, police arrested 1,723 people, a level that French Minister of the Interior Christophe Castaner characterized as “exceptional.”
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MOON-ALABAMA: Les Déplorables Demand The Fall Of The Regime
14 minutes readMOA—Like the 1968 May protests that started in Paris this new movement will have echoes in other countries.
While mostly peaceful protest were held in all parts of France the situation in Paris caught the most attention. On Saturday the protesters stormed the Arc de Triomphe. They rearranged the interior, damaged a statue of Marianne, and redecorated the outside.
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Yellow Vests Rise Against Neo-Liberal ‘King’ Macron
30 minutes readDIANA JOHNSTONE—As everybody knows, what set off the protest movement was yet another rise in gasoline taxes. But it was immediately clear that much more was involved. The gasoline tax was the last straw in a long series of measures favoring the rich at the expense of the majority of the population. That is why the movement achieved almost instant popularity and support.
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Are the Gilets Jaunes Today’s Sans-Culottes?
22 minutes readGILBER MERCIER—Among the Gilets Jaunes, many understand intuitively that the current democratic process is dead, and therefore the only option is the occupation of streets and roads. History usually moves at a snail’s pace, but sometimes a series of events abruptly push societies to a breakdown, to the fascinating and somewhat beautiful and chaotic quantum leap that is a revolution.