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The most remarkable facts of the yellow vest movement in France
lundi 21 juillet 2025, par
The most remarkable facts of the yellow vest movement in France
veryone wondered what the soviets would be like in the revolutions to come. We had seen what the Paris Commune of 1871 had been, we had seen the soviets of Russia, Finland, Ukraine, Germany, Poland, and many other European countries, but some did not believe that, in the future, the proletarians would once again invent a form of organization and action of the Soviet type. The Yellow Vests demonstrated the opposite. The committees, the assemblies, the pickets of the Yellow Vests, yes, they are indeed soviets ! Indeed, they are not only a form of spontaneous mass self-organization based on localities and organizing the most deprived, the exploited, and the oppressed, they are also a form of organization that directly challenges state power and claims to replace it with its own power. The Yellow Vests’ perspective is not to obtain things from the government, nor a change of government, nor a change in the form of the State, but its overthrow and replacement by the power of the people.
The Yellow Vest movement is unprecedented in France, if not internationally, because its real base is made up of exploited and oppressed people who organize themselves, decide everything for themselves, and above all decide not to negotiate with the authorities, not to make any pact with any institution, neither state, nor political parties, nor bureaucratic apparatuses of unions, a movement that rejects all false negotiation, all false representation.
This movement, launched by itself without any help from parties or unions, or even against them, is unlike any other social movement in France and has had an influence throughout the world, even being emulated in some countries. And first of all because it is the most recent and massive experience of self-organization in Western Europe. There have been multiple forms of self-organization in this movement (general assemblies, roundabout pickets, committees, elected delegates, regional assemblies, national rallies, newspapers, etc.)
Its opponents have described the Yellow Vest movement as a grouping without a common base or goals, but this is false. The common base was to unite all those who were struggling to make ends meet ; the common goal was to have no connection with those in power and even to want to bring down capitalist power !
The Yellow Vests were the first self-organized mass movement to shout :
Down with inflation on gasoline, bread, shoes !
Down with poverty !
Down with social inequality !
Down with the state serving billionaires !
Down with public taxes that do not serve the public interest ! Down with
the destruction of public services !
Down with the reduction of wages, pensions, unemployment benefits and social assistance !
Down with the society of the 1% of the rich who impose themselves on the poor !
Down with the media, the administrations, the forces of repression and the power of the capitalists !
"We have nothing, we want everything !
We decide nothing, we want to decide everything !" - that is the common goal of the Yellow Vests !
The social depth of the mass movement is revealed in its slogans, its leaflets, its posters, the words of its participants in assemblies, committees and pickets :
"It is the hungry who leads the demonstration and the gathering."
"We don’t want to waste our lives... earning the rich people’s money."
"The only thing to do with the billionaire state is to overthrow it."
"When you don’t have enough to put in children’s mouths and in their schoolbags, you have plenty to put in the mouths of the rich."
"The only power we respect is that of the working people."
"It was because we saw the truth about their power that it began to blind us."
"It’s because we’re hungry and fed up that they’re afraid."
"The only thing they won’t have stolen is our revolution."
"Politicians in the pay of billionaires are out of the question."
"Even the bile of the wealthy has turned yellow."
The locations of the Yellow Vests’ direct actions speak for themselves : they don’t burn down a poor neighborhood shopping center, nor a school, nor a daycare center, nor a suburban store, nor local cars. They attack wealthy neighborhoods, department stores, luxury restaurants (like those of Sarkozy and Chirac, like Fouquet’s), storm the Champs Elysées, Avenue de la Grande Armée, Rue de la Paix, target ministries, the Elysée Palace, the National Assembly, and the Senate, attack all institutions of power, media outlets sold to trusts, and MEDEF buildings. In fact, they constantly meet on the Champs Elysées, despite a government ban and violent repression. This choice of the Champs Elysées is not a coincidence but a choice. The Yellow Vests constantly meet there. No left-wing or union organization, no pseudo-far-left organization has ever demonstrated there. None of these organizations have ever demonstrated in wealthy neighborhoods like the 8th and 16th arrondissements of Paris. And the wealthy are downright scared.
Le Monde writes : “Yellow Vests” : the day the wealthy neighborhoods were afraid
In Bordeaux too, it is the "wealthy city" that is bearing the brunt of the demonstrations.
Le Parisien writes : We heard Yellow Vests say "the rich are going to burn."
Télérama writes : The Yellow Vests have left the legitimate space of demonstrations
Télérama writes : "We’ve already seen demonstrations degenerate, but not in these neighborhoods," laments Ruth Elkrief. We’d rather see them degenerate in Villiers-le-Bel or Clichy-sous-Bois. "They affect neighborhoods and symbols that must be addressed so that the situation can calm down and order can be restored." On LCI, Arlette Chabot is also concerned about the neighborhoods and symbols affected. "One image you’ll see is the Chanel boutique on Rue Cambon, which was ransacked. The Chanel boutique is the embodiment of France, of luxury." It’s the cement of the nation.
In short, nothing to do with union walks or reformist rallies of the left... Let’s say it again, these people have never considered demonstrating on the Champs Elysées or in the surrounding area. And it horrifies them, they say they are scandalized. Well, come on ! It’s so much better to demonstrate in less bourgeois neighborhoods !
Yes, the Yellow Vests do not respect the rich because they have condemned them to not know what to eat at the end of the month !
Yes, they have trashed the beautiful stores on the Champs Elysées, the luxury clothing brands Lacoste and Hugo Boss, the luxury jewelry stores Bulgari and Swarovski, the leather goods brand Longchamp, the shoe store Foot Locker, the Disney store, the PSG store, a phone store, a Belgian chololatier, a luxury optical store, etc… and the famous Fouquets or even a bank located on Boulevard Roosevelt, near the Champs Elysées…
Symbols of power are also flouted, including symbolic monuments of power like the Arc de Triomphe and its war memorial known as the "Unknown Soldier," which symbolizes the bloody slaughter of the 1914 war, before which the presidents of the capitalist republic regularly bow. Or the monument to Marshal Juin. They are treated no better than the luxury stores on the Champs-Élysées.
The worst nightmares of the propertied classes regarding the exploited and oppressed are coming true once again. The hatred of the left-wing parties and the unions stems from the fact that the Yellow Vests expose the reformists’ utter inability to even consider genuine direct class action. It explains why the left, the CGT, and the CFDT have resorted to justifying the police breaking legs and arms, gouging out eyes, smashing heads, and even killing people...
The little Hollandes claimed that the working people are "toothless," the little Sarkozys and Macrons claimed that it was enough to tell them to "work more to earn more" and they would be silenced. But the social revolution surprised them with its scope, its depth, and its radicalism. They had all affirmed that this was no longer the era of social revolutions because they saw unions and left-wing parties praising "entrepreneurs" and giving them all the public money they wanted in the name of "whatever it takes," while tightening the screws ever more heavily on workers and the poor.
Unpredictability of real revolutions : all those who said we are not aware of our strength were lying or lying to themselves and they were surprised.
They themselves had ended up believing what they claimed : that proletarian class consciousness no longer existed in France and they were panicked to discover that France could once again become the country of social and political revolution as in 1789, 1793 and 1871 to the point of giving revolutionary ideas to the world, from Africa to Japan !
Another truth that these people had ended up hiding : the proletariat, provided it knows its strength, can bring along a significant portion of the petty bourgeoisie by standing at its head. And the Yellow Vests harshly reminded big capital and all reformists of this truth.
Who are the Yellow Vests, hypocritically ask the government, journalists, politicians, and trade unionists. Bosses, liberal professionals, petty bourgeois, they said ! Ultra-left or far-right, adventurers, professional rioters, hotheads ?!!! Ridiculous attempts to discredit the Yellow Vests : pitiful means in the face of a mass movement !!!!
The main slogan of the Yellow Vests, "We’ve had enough of poverty !", tells us : these are the people who are starting to no longer bear having to live in destitution...
It is already an insurrection of the miserable, the oppressed, the exploited !
It is the social revolution that is “on the march” !!!
Thus, the Yellow Vests are generally in agreement on one point : poverty must be definitively eradicated, prohibited, eliminated, and all its causes and beneficiaries must be eradicated, and everyone’s right to have the material means to live decently must be imposed. But they are demanding this precisely at a time when capitalist society, having reached its limits, is planning to massively increase the poverty of the greatest number and would be incapable of doing otherwise ! It is not only this or that government, this or that political party that would need to radicalize anti-social attacks, it is the entire propertied class ! Therefore, the rebels are not only attacking a head of state, his government, his policies, but the entire propertied class, the entire system, and they become aware of this during the course of events, if they continue because the authorities do not have the means to stop them.
And, by refusing to negotiate with a power, by threatening it, by openly stating that they want to bring it down, the Yellow Vests have forced the power to pay ten billion while the left-wing parties and the unions that led the pension movement (unnecessarily like many other strikes) have gained from this struggle... zero euros and zero cents, only advantages for the union apparatuses...
No political or union leader of the reformist left has ever worn the yellow vest. And when they pretended not to be enemies of the movement, it was even worse. There was only yellow vests in the demonstrations and rallies, but, as the falsely friendly organizations, in fact the worst enemies, claimed to participate, red, orange, and blue were found. And all the Martinez or Laguillers claimed that they were not in yellow ! However, they made people believe in a rapprochement between the yellow vests and the unions to better make the yellow vest flag pale !
The most remarkable fact is the influence that the Yellow Vest movement still exerts on people’s minds despite the great efforts of governments, the media, parties, and unions to erase its influence. More than four years later, it still marks the social situation in France and serves as a reference for its friends and enemies alike. It even continues to exist and manifest itself almost everywhere, even if with much less force than in its beginnings. It remains a permanent threat to the ruling classes, who must calculate with it and, in particular, must give greater credit to the unions to counter it. It has indeed demonstrated a considerably greater effectiveness than all union movements, even when the latter were more widely followed. Indeed, the propertied classes are more afraid of self-organized movements that are not controllable or easily deceived, and they fear having no one to negotiate with, as was the case with the Yellow Vests. The latest total failure of the trade union and pension policy movement, supported by all unions and left-wing parties, further underlines the relative success of the Yellow Vests.
The numerous attempts to crush him through bloody repression (the worst state violence against unarmed protesters in decades) and massive slander have been all the more remarkable. The failure of attempts to recover and discredit him, particularly with accusations of fascism, conspiracy, and anti-Semitism, has been all the more remarkable.
In its early days, when it was most widespread, it reached all regions of France, even the most remote corners, and took root everywhere at the grassroots, among the most deprived, in the proletariat and in the poorest sections of the population, uniting the working people.
It would certainly have spread throughout the companies without the barrage of fire from the unions who, to protect themselves, campaigned by calling it an alliance with the petty bourgeoisie, with those disappointed by Macronism, an alliance with fascism and anti-Semitism, a conspiracy theorist and other nonsense.
Those who always suffered in silence, who almost never expressed themselves, even in social struggles, are organizing and deciding for themselves.
Among those who suffered in silence and spoke out, took to the roundabout, took to the streets, built their assemblies and committees, there are, and at the forefront, poor women. It is the most scorned and crushed women who raised their heads and spoke out and... led the movement.
Among the records of this movement, we note the number of action points, the number of assemblies, the number of committees, the number of demonstrators, the number of seriously injured... And also the number of people who support the movement, a large majority for several years !
Another unique feature of the movement is that the struggle, even though it has its strong points on Saturdays, is organized every day, throughout the country and not just in a few large cities. And no governing body dominates the struggle, gives it its objectives, its means of action, dictates its perspectives, its leaflets, its posters, its speeches.
Since November 17, 2018, not a single day has the mobilization of the yellow vests ceased : occupation of roundabouts, gatherings, blockades, occupations, demonstrations, meetings, distribution of leaflets, interventions on social networks, etc. It is also this fact, that the struggle is not segmented, neither in time, nor in terms of a single category, a single profession, a single sector, a single sign, but brings together all social revolts, which makes it, from now on and whatever comes next, a historic event in the class struggle in France, and even in the world.
Finally, the social anger of the exploited has found a way to organize itself permanently and in masses, to express itself, whereas until then it had been diverted, misdirected, disorganized by the reformist, political and union apparatuses.
Yes, it is indeed the insurrectional nature of the Yellow Vests that opposes the easygoing and short-lived nature of the movements initiated by the union apparatuses for years, by the inter-union organizations as well as by the CGT alone. Because the union days of inaction were the complete opposite of this movement : neither inter-professional, nor self-organized, nor uncontrollable, nor threatening to the power and the propertied classes, nor radical in their objectives and perspectives, nor explosive and extensive, nor dangerous in any way for our enemies.
The union apparatuses never wanted the struggle to be controlled by those who participate in it. They never wanted the entire country to be blocked, barricaded, or in revolt. They never wanted the entire propertied class, all the profiteers, to be called into question. They never wanted to globalize the social revolts, to unite them in a single movement and launch it against the propertied classes, against the exploiters, against the profiteers !!! They never accepted the spontaneity of the struggle and recognized the capacity of workers, outside of the union headquarters specialized in workers’ defeats, to decide for themselves, to organize for themselves, to lead social struggles for themselves.
And they have never allowed workers’ struggles, however important and sustained they may be, to be feared by the propertied classes, whereas the yellow vests are today feared by the propertied classes and even beyond the borders ! Because their example extends beyond the borders !!!
In the social content of the struggle, the Yellow Vests are far more radical than the reformist left ever was, including the left of the left, the unions, and the opportunist far left. These well-ordered people have never challenged taxes ! Nor have they challenged the banks !
Our opponents claim that the Yellow Vest movement has not fundamentally changed anything, with the government making us pay with one hand what it gives up with the other. They claim that this violence is pointless and even harmful. They continue to talk about reforms, even though we have clearly seen that this only leads to us being constantly strangled, to tightening our belts, to destroying public services, to destroying jobs and wages, etc.
For the first time in many years, the power of the billionaires has been forced to back down on many points, whereas it had never done so before, even in the face of movements that were massively supported but led by reformist apparatuses, notably those of the trade union apparatuses.
But the main thing is that, for the first time, it wasn’t just a few politicians in power who were afraid, it was the propertied classes themselves ! And this is no coincidence : the Yellow Vests are attacking the very root of poverty, exploitation, and oppression, the billionaires, the bankers, the financiers, the bosses of trusts, the senior civil servants, all the forces that defend the power of the billionaires. They don’t respect the rules of this State, openly serving a tiny minority of owners of big capital, while the reformists have never stopped respecting them all !
The Yellow Vests refused to ask for permission to gather, to demonstrate, to blockade, to meet, to organize, and even the most violent repression, the likes of which this country has never experienced, they did not back down on this point. They do not accept the state power of the capitalists as a mediator, nor as a negotiator, nor as a democratic power to be respected, and this radically breaks with all the mendacious speeches of reformist leaders for too many years.
Of course, this movement cannot transform capitalist tigers into sheep, nor state forces of repression into democratic forces, but it does expose the real nature of the power of the propertied classes, and that is already a considerable step forward. The movement cannot reform the capitalist dictatorship that hides behind false democracy, but it exposes it every day.
The capitalist state claims to consult the population but arrests, beats, and seriously injures those who actually express themselves. A blogger who called for a protest in front of an oil company was sentenced to six months in prison for a simple crime of opinion. A large number of people considered by the authorities to be leaders of the Yellow Vests are registered, even arrested, without any act being held against them other than the crime of organizing !!!
In fact, what the propertied classes cannot bear is not that the Yellow Vests are demonstrating or even that there are rioters (there were even some in union demonstrations or environmentalist associations), it is above all that the exploited are organizing and offering an alternative to the so-called democracy of capital, the true democracy of work, the one that was initially organized in the groups occupying roundabouts throughout the country and which are now organizing permanently. This is the main, truly revolutionary act of the Yellow Vests !
We thus note that the government prohibits gatherings of yellow vests at roundabouts, even when these are not blocking anything, or preventing vehicle traffic. What the government is trying to prevent is the most deprived from organizing. It is banning the meetings on the pretext that it is the organization of illegal demonstrations and an insurrection against the power in place, which they call "democratic power" under the pretext that it was elected within the framework of the laws imposed by the big bourgeoisie !
"It’s the power of the street, or rather of the roundabouts, against democracy," exclaimed Macron, who claims to have invented a new consultative democracy with his "great debate." But, in this famous debate, we will be able to debate everything, he says, but we will know in advance that nothing fundamental will change and, in particular, he assures that he will not make the rich pay, that he will continue his "reforms," that is to say, the destruction of public services, social rights, the labor code, etc.
Yes, the class clash, between exploiters and exploited, is the reality of the yellow vest movement, and this clash is made inevitable and unavoidable by the fact that capitalist domination, including in one of the rich countries that dominates the planet, which intervenes everywhere through its armed forces, is threatened with collapse as soon as the next financial crash.
If a rich country like France is also a country where the poor are poor, like in France, to the point that people who have a job, a pension or unemployment benefits, if single women do not know how to make ends meet, if such a country becomes the place of permanent class confrontations, if the proletarians organize themselves there en masse, it is indeed because the capitalist world is being called into question in its very foundations.
What is at issue is not only Macron, nor only the policies of previous governments, nor only liberalism, nor anti-social reforms alone : the yellow vests are directly attacking the division between rich and poor and the links between state power and the rich, they want not only to demand on the economic level but also on the political level, something that the union apparatuses had always refused, claiming that it was the elections within the bourgeois legal framework that were the only political intervention, the unions being careful, they said, to get involved !
Well, yes, the proletarians have a say in all areas : economic, social, and political. They can discuss and decide everything ! They can organize themselves to debate all these issues and give themselves the means to put their ideas into practice. They don’t have to abide by the rules laid down by the wealthy. The current state is not theirs, the government is not theirs, the police and the army are not theirs, the banks are not theirs, and all of this is clearly demonstrated in current events !
So, they have no reason to comply with the will, orders, instructions, or rules of these people !
They have every reason to establish their own decisions, their own rules, their own means of defense, their own laws, their own organizations.
In short, we are not only witnessing a social revolt but an insurrection, a real power of the exploited developing in the face of the power of the exploiters !!!
And, if the exploited do not allow themselves to be diverted by professional reformists and opportunists (including left-wing trade union or left-of-the-left, and even supposedly far-left, organizations), the future belongs to the exploited !
It is not only the exploited and oppressed of France, it is a whole part of humanity that is marked by the Yellow Vest movement in France and for which there will be a before and an after, this movement representing a decisive date, a major change in the course of history. It is not so easy to say exactly what has changed, even if it is obvious, for those who are for as well as against the Yellow Vests, that nothing will be the same again. It is obvious for those who fight alongside the movement as for those who oppose it. It is obvious even for those who fight in countries very different from France. The immediately international character of the diffusion of the Yellow Vests’ particularities is moreover one of the characteristics that shows that the Yellow Vests have taken up the torch of movements like the Paris Commune or the Soviets of Russia, movements which also had an influence worldwide from the outset.
Nothing in the recent or ancient past of class struggles in France seemed to prepare the most deprived to lead such a movement, with its own characteristics that are unlike any other. No struggle of the working class in France, just as no social movement, be it of the unemployed, retirees, the homeless, or other social or political movements, trade union or associative, of the past prepared for the Yellow Vests, did not anticipate in any way such a movement. And this is true not only for the method of struggle, for the form of organization, for the attitude towards power as for the economic, social and political objectives that it defended and defends without separating them from each other.
In fact, everything is different from the classic struggles waged by reformist apparatuses, and first of all the fact that the poorest affirm that they are no longer silent in politics, that they do not rely on institutions to dictate policy and are not content with purely economic demands, that they do not intervene to demand one measure or reject another but to decide for themselves the entire future of society.
But the Yellow Vests do not only differ on this or that point, by this or that method, by this or that form of organization, and diverge fundamentally, in goals, with the reformist, union, political, social and associative apparatuses, do not only refuse to put themselves under their direction, they have provoked a violent reaction from them, a reaction whose radicalism can astonish all those who do not realize to what extent the very existence of the Yellow Vests unmasks the double game of the reformists, breaks with their deceptions and betrayals. The reformists never reject the State of the propertied classes, they are content to criticize this or that policy without fundamentally questioning the system. The reformists in no way represent a class organization of the most exploited and oppressed, unlike the Yellow Vests. Reformists never endorse the self-organization of the exploited, including during struggles and to lead them, and of course, to lead the whole of society and give it prospects for the future. Reformists all consider capitalism as an insurmountable horizon and act accordingly. The Yellow Vests proclaimed that a society in which a significant fraction does not have the means to survive has no future and that it will not be allowed to function as such while the propertied classes increasingly line their pockets.
By asserting that the poor no longer accept, no longer give in, and above all, no longer remain silent, but decide for themselves, the Yellow Vests have triggered a revolution of consciences and struggles, a massive social revolution. Killers of all stripes, open or hidden adversaries, have quibbled over whether this was truly a revolution, but the reality is stronger than all this empty chatter. The simple violent reaction of the propertied classes, notably the bloody repression by the forces of repression aided by the justice system and the media, endorsed by the reformist apparatus, speaks volumes about their terror in the face of this movement than all the speeches.
The government has launched a broad accusation of fascism and anti-Semitism to isolate the Yellow Vests’ struggle ! But the real anti-Semites are those who push the poorest to believe that their enemies are the Jews, who organize anti-Yellow Vest demonstrations under the banner of the fight against anti-Semitism. Well, those who do this are first and foremost the state power and its political, union, associative, and media defenders who designate the Yellow Vests as enemies of the Jews ! They have no problem acting in this way behind a head of state who has just officially rehabilitated Pétain, who did so publicly and grandiosely on the occasion of the anniversary of the end of the First World War, completely obscuring Pétain’s leading role in anti-Semitism and fascism in France during the Second World War !
The accusation of anti-Semitism is only the latest avatar of the insults and slanders of the government and its supporters towards a mass movement which is neither anti-Semitic nor fascist, any more than it has ever been anti-ecological, anti-democratic or fascist !
No, the reality that disturbs the power of the billionaires and even disturbs it madly is that the Yellow Vests are a self-organized mass movement, therefore uncontrollable, which is a class movement of the proletarians, whether they are employees, retirees, unemployed, precarious workers, poor workers, part-time workers, workers forced to sell themselves as Uberized and overexploited self-entrepreneurs (without fixed salary, without pension, without employer contributions, without the slightest job insurance, etc.) and also all those who live, with difficulty, only from their work, in certain professions of the petty bourgeoisie hit by the policies of destruction of public services (ambulance drivers for example). Yes, those who have united in this way in the Yellow Vests are proletarians, including new proletarians ! And they found themselves on a true class basis, that of the class of those who have nothing, who struggle to make ends meet, to make ends meet. And the program that emerged from this struggle testifies to this. It has nothing to do with the exacerbated nationalism of fascism, with racism, with the program of Le Pen or the far right, nothing to do with hatred of migrants, Jews, Arabs, Muslims !
It is difficult to emphasize enough the importance of the violent hostility not only of the propertied classes, not only of the State at their service, not only of all the official and unofficial institutions, open or hidden, of the propertied classes, up to the media, passing by the forces of police and military repression, but also of all the institutionalized structures of society, including those which claimed to be on the side of the workers or of the popular circles, which enthroned themselves as interlocutors, negotiators, lawyers, defenders of the workers. It is not only hostility that should be spoken of but violent hatred, expressed by means of virulent slander, shameless lies and also by the complete silence that these apparatuses maintained in the companies for long months in their prose towards the workers, dissuading the working class of the big companies from simply going to see what these first mobilizations of the Yellow Vests were really about.
These apparatuses, called the "left" of the trade unions or politics, or the left of the left, or the far left, consciously spread shameless lies, pure slander, treating the Yellow Vests as a movement of bosses, entrepreneurs, embittered petty bourgeois, disappointed Macronists, fascists, racists, vandals, and so on, thus propagating the lies of a government that these organizations claimed to fight. They were all the more violent because this movement forced them to reveal themselves, to show their true nature, to clearly position themselves on the side of power. And above all, the movement showed that the exploited, not only could perfectly well do without putting them at the head of the struggles, could do without their methods of struggle and gained considerably in efficiency, to make themselves feared by their enemies in the ruling classes, but also could do without them to organize themselves, to discuss their perspectives and to decide their own direction. And also that they could do without negotiating with the power, letting so-called representatives negotiate on their behalf with the power, deceiving them of course or being deceived since the possessing classes now negotiate with LBDs, tear gas, batons, weapons of war which are not non-lethal but have slightly reduced lethality !
Faced with all these adversaries, in fact against all the organized forces of society, absolutely all of them, including hypocritical allies such as the "insubordinate" leaders or certain politicians opposed to Macron of all political stripes, the Yellow Vests have not lowered the level of their struggle, have not watered down their wine, have not agreed to give in by negotiating, nor to appoint false spokespeople, nor to participate in the false national debate, nor to request authorizations to demonstrate, to meet or gather, to seek false conciliations, false agreements, on this or that point of detail, to blunt the character of fundamental questioning of society. These opponents range from the far right to the left of the left and even the extreme left, supposedly Trotskyist or anti-capitalist, anarchist, anarcho-syndicalist, movementist, rebellious, Stalinist, environmentalist, ecologist, activist, humanist, anti-racist and others.
Even the organizations that claimed, weeks or months after the beginning of the movement, after having noted that it would not be temporary and was unavoidable, to want to "converge" with it, that is to say, to make it converge with the union apparatuses and the "left" political apparatuses, have remained fundamentally hostile to everything that the Yellow Vest movement represents in terms of historical novelty, in everything that makes it a radical change in the course of the global class struggle, in everything that makes it an enormous breath of fresh air for all struggles in the world, demonstrating not only that, even in an imperialist country that dominates and militarily crushes the world, the propertied classes can be challenged directly and publicly and be incapable of crushing the movement, even by employing police violence worthy of dictatorships in poor countries. The Yellow Vests held firm, in the face of tear gas fired at close range in the face, in the face of violent charges with batons, in the face of shots from LBDs, in the face of accusations of being dictators, of being barbarians, of being rioters, of being anti-Semites, of being fascists and so on...
The ability of the Yellow Vests to continue their struggle in the face of such widespread hostility from all social and political structures in society, absolutely all of them, already makes it the most significant event in the struggles of recent decades, a benchmark for all the exploited who want to organize themselves and challenge the foundations of the power of the one percent of profiteers and exploiters.
The true peculiarities of the Yellow Vest movement were not ignored by the participants, nor by the friends, nor by the false friends, nor by the direct and implacable enemies. Everyone noticed that a much larger number of people mobilized by the reformists does not frighten the ruling classes, while a smaller number of Yellow Vests pushes back a power that has not backed down in the face of any trade union mobilization since the 2007-2008 crisis. Even the trade unionists understood perfectly well that they did not frighten the bosses and the government and that the Yellow Vests succeeded.
And that’s not all : the Yellow Vests have managed to profoundly change the working class, the fraction that participated in the movement, and even those who are not in favor of it. And first of all, they achieved this by challenging the entire social and political order, something the reformists never did. They broke with actions based on partial and purely economic demands. They established the most deprived as a true political force, which, despite the hostility of the media, asserts itself in the public square, making its wishes known and not just pleas. By rejecting all negotiation with all institutions, elected or unelected, by rejecting the false bourgeois democracy that suggests, in particular, that the elected president has every right to pursue whatever policy he pleases, by rejecting even any debate with the authorities, the Yellow Vests have imposed a democracy of those who struggle and debate, but among themselves. Never have the participants in a struggle discussed so much among themselves. Never have they debated all their decisions so widely and freely. Never have they decided all their actions, all their banners, all their placards, and all their leaflets themselves. In the Yellow Vest movement, no self-proclaimed leadership has made decisions behind their backs ; only the participants in the roundabout committees or assemblies have decision-making power, and no representative can negotiate or debate with anyone on their behalf.
And the Yellow Vests are not satisfied with the democracy of struggle : they want it to express their democratic will on all of society. As Marat would have said, the working people don’t just need bread, they need freedom. The Yellow Vests are particularly opposed to the false democracy of the propertied classes which imposes everything on the poor and nothing on the rich, which gives all rights to the tiny minority, less than one percent, of capital owners, and no rights to the most deprived, not even the right not to starve, the right not to freeze to death, the right not to lack housing, health, education, etc. The Yellow Vests have been accused of wanting to impose the dictatorship of the poor but that hasn’t stopped them : yes, they demand that the most deprived have enough to live on and not just survive ; Yes, they demand that no one suffers from hunger, that there is enough to feed a family, that pensioners are not squeezed, that poor employees are not destitute, that women raising a child alone have the means to do so, that social benefits are not reduced to nothing, that public services are not cut to better distribute crazy sums to trusts and banks, etc. And they link all these questions together, something that the reformists have always been careful not to do.
By doing so, the Yellow Vests have revealed many things that were carefully hidden by society and its organizations, not only by the enemies of workers and the poor, but also by their false friends. First of all, the violent class character of the State against the poor, against workers, against the exploited, and in favor of the exploited has been clearly exposed by this movement and this has not only consisted of revealing the sole character of the president in the service of the propertied classes, but the entire government, all institutions, all means of repression, all means of information, all justice, prefectures, town halls, regions, elected officials, administration, etc. The movement has revealed the rottenness of this system which distributes public money to private interests of a small number of rich people while refusing pennies to those who cannot make ends meet.
But, above all, the Yellow Vests have revealed the character of the radical opposition between the interests of the rich and those of all those who live only from their work, but when the Yellow Vests themselves do not use the term "class struggle" or "class interests" to describe it. They have revealed the real balance of power between exploiters and exploited, between the working people and the State, a balance of power that was absolutely not shown by the struggles organized or knowingly disorganized by the union apparatuses. Even union movements that were very well followed by the workers did not in any way show that the workers possessed the means to make themselves feared. Quite the contrary, even a union tidal wave in the streets, as for pensions in 2010, meant above all that the workers were allowing themselves to be deceived and led astray. Even a very well-attended strike, like the last railway workers’ strike, with union unity, far from strengthening the Rail workers, only proved that they were still deceived by the reformist apparatus and therefore that the propertied classes had nothing to fear from that side. And this is not surprising since the unions maintained their dotted strike as hard as iron, their refusal of any junction with the other sectors on strike, teachers, hospitals, energy, postal workers, and even other public transport sectors, their refusal of any decision actually taken by the assemblies of the station strikers, their refusal of the junction with the unemployed, with the retired, with the undocumented, with the homeless, with the self-employed, yet unemployed trying to survive by exploiting themselves or submitting to various Ubers, with the petty bourgeoisie caught by the throat, with single women in poverty, with the workers of companies that are closing and laying off, etc. The unions were thus rejecting precisely everything that the Yellow Vests had put forward and that made them unique and strong. The workers who followed them had no chance, even if they were very numerous, of making their enemies fear them, let alone making them back down. Far from positively marking the entire class struggle, unlike the Yellow Vest movement, this type of union action could only break any progress in the organization and consciousness of workers. The unions, in fact, for a long time now involved in the negotiations to break up the public rail service in France, only pretended to want a tough fight against the privatizing government. As proof, some of the unions participating in the inter-union movement openly and publicly supported privatization and only asked for its adjustment !!! The rulers therefore knew in advance that the appearance of unity in the struggle of the union bureaucracies was nothing more than smoke and mirrors that only blinded the railway workers.
The comparison between the methods and results of the actions of the trade union apparatuses and those of the Yellow Vests shows in particular that numbers are not enough : hundreds of thousands who follow like sheep cowards, opportunists, calculators and schemers, petty bureaucrats and cowardly leaders are less powerful than a few hundred or thousands of determined and self-organized people.
The Yellow Vests, by their actions, by their assertions, by their objectives, by their very existence months later, despite the violent repression and slander, have attracted the attention of all, participants, friends and enemies, polarized the political and social situation in France and beyond. A good part of humanity has its eyes fixed on what the Yellow Vests are doing, on what the Yellow Vests want, on what the Yellow Vests are saying. The simple fact that this struggle, violently fought and repressed, denounced with no less violence, manages to maintain itself, does not renounce anything, does not retreat on any point, does not fall back on any demand, does not change its method, does not allow itself to be channeled, diverted, or stifled, is a global demonstration that touches the exploited and oppressed in many countries. The Yellow Vests serve as a reference in many countries for which "French democracy" had been presented as exemplary. The fact that a great struggle that continues and confronts the possessing classes is capable of self-organization, including in a dominant capitalist country, is noted by workers and the poor in every corner of the world and this changes the consciousness of the world’s proletarians and their confidence in their own abilities.
In this sense, the entire history of class struggles in the world, the fight between the exploiting class and the exploited class, owes something fundamental to the Yellow Vest movement. Because this struggle is a class struggle of the exploited, an autonomous struggle, independent of any institution linked to the power of the owners, parties, unions or associations, it marks global struggles, encourages all attempts by workers to organize themselves independently, to trust in their ability to confront the apparatus of the big bourgeoisie, without being deceived, without being used or manipulated by anyone.
Of course, there is not a single tendency, a single opinion, a single current, within the Yellow Vest movement but multiple ones that confront each other, but these confrontations do not take place through fixed apparatuses but between individuals engaged in the movement who discuss and evolve their points of view. Proletarian revolutionary Marxists of course have their place in these debates and have no need to hide their flag. The autonomy of the movement in no way prevents the defense of diverse points of view and their confrontation ; on the contrary, it is the condition for it. The autonomy and class character of the movement do not prevent the existence of opinions of all kinds, as is generally the case within companies. The working class does not have in mind the revolutionary capacity leading to power for the workers, and the activists who defend this perspective have a whole battle to wage within the struggle to make their ideas and proposals known. They have to fight within the struggle, as within companies, opposing political and social opinions and even political and social adversaries disguised as "friends of the movement." This is the case of those who attribute imaginary qualities to all the Mélenchons, Arthauds, Besancenots, or even to mortal enemies of the workers like Le Pen or the putschist and genocidal General Tauzin. Truly revolutionary activists know that the working class does not miraculously become aware of its historical role and that it can only do so by accumulating real experience during its struggle and on condition that the tiny minority of truly revolutionary activists, participants in this struggle, do not give up developing their perspective, despite all the attacks from the false friends and true enemies of the yellow vests, including those infiltrated within the struggle.
It is the real, spontaneous, self-organized, and independent movement of the proletarians that alone can enable the exploited to prepare to become a new ruling class, one that expels the old ruling classes and expropriates the propertied classes. The Yellow Vests are not there yet, but they have taken a big step forward and changed the consciousness of the proletarians of France and the world.
On behalf of all the exploited and oppressed of the world, a big thank you to the Yellow Vests of France !
Unions, the left and the false far left and… the Yellow Vests
The CGT claims that anti-Semitism is eating away at the Yellow Vests
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x72ni0n
The CGT claims that marching with the Yellow Vests means supporting the National Front.
The CGT claims that marching with the Yellow Vests is marching with the bosses and the fascists.
Philippe Martinez (CGT) : "The majority of yellow vests don’t know the unions" (or know them only too well...)
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x77j6yo
Philippe Martinez completely rejected the Yellow Vest movement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6Wio7Awqzk
The CFDT does not support the Yellow Vests
https://www.challenges.fr/france/la-cfdt-ne-soutient-pas-les-gilets-jaunes_625518
Unions do not want to be involved in the yellow vest movement
Unions are overwhelmed and disoriented by the Yellow Vests
https://www.challenges.fr/economie/social/les-syndicats-desarmes-face-aux-gilets-jaunes_627481
https://www.clesdusocial.com/gilets-jaunes-et-syndicats-pourquoi-ils-ne-peuvent-pas-s-entendre
Unions accuse Yellow Vests of violence and cover up police repression
The convergence of the yellow vests and company employees does not mean getting back behind the union bureaucracies !!!
https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5246
These political and trade union organizations that claim to be on the side of the workers and are against the Yellow Vests
https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve971
Yellow Vests and Unions, Two Parallel Worlds
The unions have suffered greatly from the yellow vest movement, which demonstrates their impotence and futility.
Unions unarmed in the face of the yellow vests
https://www.challenges.fr/economie/social/les-syndicats-desarmes-face-aux-gilets-jaunes_627481
The PCF is not embarrassed to have a friendly chat at the Fête de l’Huma with the architect of the violent repression of the Yellow Vests, former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.
"He’s an eye-gouger," denounces a Yellow Vest who came to the Fête de l’Huma to disrupt Fabien Roussel’s debate with the eye-gouger.
https://www.facebook.com/caalorslafamille/videos/316936864212314/?extid=NS-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C
https://fr.finance.yahoo.com/actualites/%C3%A0-f%C3%AAte-l-humanit%C3%A9-gilet-140229714.html
The connection between yellow vests and company employees
https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve976
The thousand and one ways to weaken the Yellow Vests while pretending to strengthen them
https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5508
Laguiller-Arthaud Workers’ Struggle : "This is why we are not yellow vests." !!!!
https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?breve968
Do Poutou and Besancenot support the Yellow Vests ?
https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5209
The Yellow Vests and the LO Fraction within the NPA
https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article5204
Read more :
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9roulement_du_mouvement_des_Gilets_jaunes
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouvement_des_Gilets_jaunes
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acte_III_du_mouvement_des_Gilets_jaunes
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouvement_des_Gilets_jaunes_dans_le_monde