France: We are all yellow vests …and this is just the start

The following article was first published as the editorial of workplace bulletins distributed by members of L’Etincelle (The Spark) faction in France.

December 10^th, 2018

We are all yellow vests …and this is just the start!

So, did Macron show his love to the people in his Sunday night speech? He started with a long, threatening introduction: he will “give the most rigorous instructions so law and order are restored… by any means necessary.” In other words, repression again. Then after a few emotional statements, he announced the big measure that is supposed to calm us down: 100 euro increase in minimum wage, but “without costing a single euro to employers.” Really? So we’ll have to pay ourselves through our taxes? Then, he announced there will be no tax on overtime hours. But what the yellow vests really want is a 300 euro increase for all wages, without overtime! Finally, there will be a “year-end bonus” for the small wages, that’s no more than charity… but only “for the employers who can afford it.” And finally, he won’t bring back the tax on wealth. So, the rich and the bosses feel better now.

In summary: this is far from enough to calm down the anger on the roundabouts and roadblocks. And in substance, the president of the rich does it again: peanuts and smoke and mirrors on one side, and war against our children on the other, with tear gas, custodies, kneeling and hands behind the head. On the one hand the government shows false repent and panic, on the other hand they keep a provocative state of war against the demonstrators: last Saturday, 89,000 thousand police officers were deployed, with armoured vehicles and helicopters patrolling in the capital, transport stations and lines closures in large cities, hundreds of preventive arrests, immediate hearings, etc.

Government panic and manoeuvres

After weeks of open contempt, the government is desperately looking to extinguish the fire it has caused. To do so it has gathered all types of authority figures, large or small. From the bosses’ union to the union federations, from local elected officials to pop stars. This new party of order is supposed to make the yellow vests go back home. Not to mention the Marine Le Pen and Dupont-Aignan types, who, after being marginalised by the movement, are attempting to side-track it using the same old anti-immigrant lines, while at the same time refusing the demands of the working class.

As for Laurent Berger, Philippe Martinez and other union leaders, they failed to show solidarity and cut themselves from the movement by accepting to play the losing game of consultation with the government. Fortunately, they are also somewhat marginalised by their own rank and file, who are joining the yellow vests in increasing numbers.

We won’t let go

Hundreds of thousands of workers, of different status and circumstances, have all been wearing the same yellow vests at blockades, and every Saturday on the Champs-Elysees in Paris and in other large cities. So, no way we’ll give up now that the government is on the defensive.

Starting with a fight against the carbon tax increase (removed last week), the movement expanded into hundreds of demands. Contrary to government propaganda, these are not a multitude of unrelated demands. Quite the opposite, in their diversity they express the same anger against the high cost of living, social injustice and the government of the rich. The yellow vests want to live decently, not survive, so they won’t just go home for peanuts.

All together

This determination of the yellow vests has encouraged other groups of people to join the fight: last week, thousands of university and high school students started to block their schools and demonstrate in the streets, in support of the yellow vests and to protests against reforms in national education. It’s our turn, in the factories, to join the movement, so that 50 years after May 1968, we score the first great victory for our social class.