7 February 2019 — WSWS
The French National Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Monday to approve President Emmanuel Macron’s “anti-riot” law, undermining the right to protest and further expanding police powers.
Category: France
The Yellow Vests, the Crisis of the Welfare State and Socialism By Michèle BRAND
26 January 2019 — Counterpunch
Far from dying down after the holidays, France’s yellow vest movement is continuing to blaze throughout the country. Every Saturday for eleven weeks, protesters have been disrupting or blocking roads, traffic circles and freeway toll plazas, gathering in the squares of villages, taking to the streets of towns, marching in massive numbers through city boulevards, and confronting violent police repression. Ten people have died in the protests, mainly due to accidents at road blocks, and over 2000 have been injured by the police, around 100 seriously. 17 people have lost an eye due to rubber bullets, according to an independent association and an investigative journalist, while the interior minister recently said there were 4. Thousands have been arrested.
More defiance define Gilets Jaunes “Acte 10” (Videos)
21 January 2019 — Greanville Post
Collated and with commentary by Patrice Greanville
PREFACE The video below is an eloquent document about the clashes of Gilets Jaunes with the police. The anger of the demonstrators is obvious, there’s pent-up frustration with a regime they perceive as deaf and dumb to their interests or the institutions of genuine democracy (sound familiar?). The video —a collage of various clashes and possibly different dates—focuses on a great deal of violence, but Gilets Jaunes “acts” (as they call them) are mostly peaceful. Do not—despite these images—yield to the notion the Gilets are a bunch of irresponsible “casseurs” (guys just out to break senselessly everything in sight). Their cause is just. But notice as well that these are people who are not easily intimidated. There’s something to be learned from the French here, in how they tell the ruling cliques that they won’t be taken for granted. Except for the top video, all the rest reflect events occurring between January 19 and 20.
Yellow Vests, Class Struggle and Spontaneous Revolution by Gaither Stewart
18 January 2019 — Greanville Post
In What Is To Be Done of 1902 Lenin opposed revolutionary spontaneity because it “strips away the disciplined nature of the Marxists idea of revolution, leaving it arbitrary and ineffective.” True to himself, Lenin then returned to opposition to spontaneous revolution after WWI during the German Revolution of 1918-19 when in a spontaneous uprising against the post-WWI system Rosa Luxemburg and the Spartacist League failed in an attempt to overturn German capitalism.
The Yellow Vests Movement in France
15 January 2019 — PM Press
Richard Greeman Reports from Montpellier to the Future Historians group. For more information visit www.futurehistorians.org
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French worker sentenced to six months’ jail over Facebook call for demonstrations By Will Morrow
16 January 2019 — WSWS
In a series of actions this past week, the government of French President Emmanuel Macron has intensified police-state repression aimed at crushing “yellow vest” protests against social inequality.
Re-Colonisation By Thierry Meyssan
14 January 2019 — Voltaire Network
For Thierry Meyssan, one of the consequences of the successive ends of the bipolar and unipolar world is the re-establishment of colonial projects. One after the other, the French, Turkish and English have publicly declared the return of their colonial ambitions. We still need to know what form they will adopt in the 21st century.
France’s mass “yellow vest” protests continue to grow in 2019 By Alex Lantier
14 January 2019 — WSWS
Demonstrations by French “yellow vest” protesters on Saturday, January 12, grew again, amid rising opposition among broad layers of the population to President Emmanuel Macron. Interior Ministry sources claimed 84,000 people demonstrated in the ninth straight weekend of mass protests against Macron, compared to 50,000 the week before—figures that, as even the official press noted, seemed to be substantial underestimates.
Gilets Jaunes in 2019: French Democracy Dead or Alive? By Diana Johnstone
12 January 2019 — Global Research
Or perhaps one should say, buried or revived? Because for the mass of ordinary people, far from the political, financial, media centers of power in Paris, democracy is already moribund, and their movement is an effort to save it. Ever since Margaret Thatcher decreed that “there is no alternative”, Western economic policy is made by technocrats for the benefit of financial markets, claiming that such benefits will trickle down to the populace. The trickle has largely dried up, and people are tired of having their needs and wishes totally ignored by an elite who “know best”.
Gilets Jaunes SITREP 11 January 2019
11 January 2019 — The Saker
Do not expect the French medias, all owned by the French 1%, to be objective when speaking about the Yellow Vests. We shall then look at the Sputnik News France to get a fair vision of the phenomenon. Here is a translation made by Le Saker Francophone after the 8th act, hold on January 5th.
By Fabien Buzzanca – January 9th 2019 – Sputnik France
Germany, France Struggle With Resurgent Russia By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
31 December 2018 — Oriental Review – The Indian Punchline
A German-French joint statement on Friday regarding Ukraine condemned Russia and demanded the immediate release of the sailors detained following the so-called Kerch incident in November. Moscow hit back in equally strong language summarily rejecting the Franco-German demand.
France in Turmoil… Blame Russia!
14 December 2018 — Strategic Culture Foundation
Well, what d’you know, regular as clockwork, Russia is being blamed – again – for “sowing social division” in Western states. This time, it’s the ongoing nationwide public protests in France against economic austerity which some Western media outlets have claimed are being “amplified” by Russian influence.
Gilets Jaunes: Selected Stories 12 December 2018
12 December 2018 — Global Research
Gilets Jaunes: A Glimmer of Hope and Sanity
By Mark Taliano
The only glimmer of hope at the moment are the Gilets Jaunes[2] protests in France. Macron’s tax grab is all about serving imperial agendas at the expense not only of target countries, but also at the expense of a habitable planet, and a sustainable French economy as well. Read more…
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The Indiscreet Charm of the Gilets Jaunes By CJ Hopkins
11 December 2018 — Greanville Post – Consent Factory
So it appears the privatization of France isn’t going quite as smoothly as planned. As I assume you are aware, for over a month now, the gilets jaunes (or “yellow vests”), a multiplicitous, leaderless, extremely pissed off, confederation of working class persons, have been conducting a series of lively protests in cities and towns throughout the country to express their displeasure with Emmanuel Macron and his efforts to transform their society into an American-style neo-feudal dystopia. Highways have been blocked, toll booths commandeered, luxury automobiles set on fire, and shopping on the Champs-Élysées disrupted. What began as a suburban tax revolt has morphed into a bona fide working class uprising.
The Macron Implosion – Will it Spread to Other EU Members? By Peter Koenig
11 December 2018 — New Eastern Outlook
The Yellow Vest Movement – weekend 8 and 9 December – Round 4. Some say, they are the worst riots in France since the student-driven mini-Revolution of May 1968. Over the four weekends, hundreds of thousands were in the streets, middle class people, from students to workers to outright employees and housewives. The police force increases by every new Round – and so do the demonstrators. Today – more than 8,000 police, a considerable increase from last weekend’s 5,000-plus. Tens of thousands Yellow Vests demonstrated; police reported more than 1,600 arrests.
Egypt bans yellow vest sales as French protesters reject Macron’s concessions By Alex Lantier
11 December 2018 — WSWS
The bloody Egyptian dictatorship of General Abdel Fattah al Sisi is banning the sale of yellow vests, as protests spread internationally in sympathy with the movement against French President Emmanuel Macron. This came as “yellow vest” protesters in France rejected Macron’s offer of concessions in an attempt to placate the growing movement.
Who does Emmanuel Macron owe? By Thierry Meyssan
11 December 2018 — Voltaire Net
President Macron is often presented as a Rothschild Boy. This is true, but secondary. Thierry Meyssan demonstrates that he owes his electoral campaign mostly to Henry Kravis, the boss of one of the world’s largest financial companies, and to NATO – a considerable debt which weighs heavily today on the solution to the Yellow Vests crisis.
Which way forward for France’s “yellow vest” protests? By Alex Lantier
10 December 2018 — WSWS
With the fourth Saturday of “yellow vest” protests against President Emmanuel Macron, a mass movement is clearly emerging among workers against the capitalist system. Macron’s withdrawal of the regressive fuel tax hike that initially triggered the protest resolved nothing. Among the “yellow vests,” demands for social equality, large wage increases, Macron’s ouster, eliminating the privileges of the super rich, an end to militarism, and for general strikes and a revolution are coming to the fore.
Are the Gilets Jaunes Today’s Sans-Culottes? By Gilbert Mercier
9 December 2018 — News Junkie Post
“Pour le peuple, il y a toujours la misère!” Anonymous Gilet Jaune
From the Island of La Reunion to the Napoleonic symbol that is the Arc de Triomphe, through big and small towns, as well as the usually bucolic countryside in France, there is something special in the air: the smell of fires on barricades, the smoke of tear gas, the anger built upon decades of inequality, injustice and despair for most. 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.
France’s “yellow vest” protesters brave repression and mass arrests By Alex Lantier and Kumaran Ira
9 December 2018 — WSWS
For the fourth consecutive Saturday, “yellow vest” ( gilet jaunes ) protestors demonstrated yesterday across France against the rightwing government of Emmanuel Macron. They did so in defiance of ominous threats of state violence and a massive mobilization of security forces.
The New Dark Age 