“The split between countryside and city...”

February 19, 2019 9:07 AM

“I’ll take the example of the Rond-point des vaches, since it’s here in Rouen. The folks occupying it have spontaneously formed themselves into two teams or shifts. A daytime team arrives around 6 a.m. and stay all day. They don’t block traffic per se, but they only allow a slow trickle through at a time, like three or four cars a minute. This filtering effect ends up being fairly disruptive. At the same time, people eat, talk, and spend time together. Probably 40 percent of this shift is retired folks. They have this kind of time to spend and decide to throw themselves into the struggle. Normally, these are people who don’t talk to one another, who live their separate existences. Through the roundabouts, these people have discovered that they share the same miseries, have the same trouble paying bills, and share a similar hatred of elected officials.” The Counter-Insurrection Is Failing - As the largest uprising in France since 1968 continues to gain momentum, participants in Paris and Rouen speak to Adrian Wohlleben about the unfolding dynamic. (Commune)
posted by The Whelk (31 comments total)

I know the last thread had a bunch of people insisting that, no, no, these aren't reactionaries at all, they're good and proper leftists that we can trust...

But the leaders of the movement responded that they only want two things: his resignation and the citizen’s referendum.

I'm no fan of neoliberalism, but this guy did win a fair and democratic election, didn't he?

Part of the distrust about the RIC is due to the fact of its having previously been championed by Étienne Chouard, a spokesperson of the far right. ...

There is also the Swiss case. There, the RIC has been placed in the service of racist and xenophobic agendas. ...

These seem like fair reasons for distrust to me? The excuse for why "it can't happen here" seems dismissive rather than convincing. Especially given that he admits there have been many attempts at fascist infiltration and at least one successful figurehead who openly embraces anti-semitism, this Soral guy. Perhaps they can fight off fascist cells that attempt to co-opt Gilets-jaunes directly, but how can he be so confident that they can thwart attempts by fascists to use the RIC to push their own agenda, as they did successfully with the Brexit referendum.

From the start, this whole thing has smelled a lot like a red-brown alliance to me, or at least like a movement that could potentially end up in one, and this interview is not doing much to change that impression.

Of course, the police are certainly not helping me develop any sympathy for the Macron government itself. It's just that I don't see this going anywhere good if the movement succeeds and Macron is toppled.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:54 AM on February 19, 2019 [14 favorites]

We have to deal with these Yellow Vest shitheads in Canada. Scum of the earth.
posted by JamesBay at 10:12 AM on February 19, 2019 [6 favorites]

I really appreciate these other perspectives on the Yellow Vests. It's nice to get English articles from street level instead of endless horseshoe pontification about how populism = fascism.

A friend?/comrade?/acquaintance? recently wrote this piece about her experiences with the Gilet Jaunes, which is far less involved that this one but nonetheless interesting to see the movement through the eyes of a visiting Trot.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 10:55 AM on February 19, 2019 [4 favorites]

i'm still trying to figure out why they're called yellow vests when they're wearing green

i'm also wondering what the end game is - being able to recall elected officials and replace them in new elections isn't a cure-all, at least not in american politics

it seems like it's the sort of movement that could be co-opted by people with their own agenda, because it's so vague
posted by pyramid termite at 10:56 AM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

THis is a good writeup that meshes with what I‘ve heard from french friends (who live in the countryside). Thanks for posting
posted by The Toad at 11:10 AM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

I wear a yellow vest when I commute on my bike. I'm seriously dreading yellow vest protests in the US because the reek of a red-brown troll infested physical movement is not something I want ot carry on my person.
posted by ocschwar at 11:26 AM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

Around here (North Carolina), yellow vests are worn primarily by highway workers and people begging on the medians at traffic intersections and off-ramps. I suspect there's going to be some opposition to appropriating it as an identity for street protests.
posted by ardgedee at 11:42 AM on February 19, 2019

Besides the racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, violent rhetoric of the Freikorps wannabes in the Canadian version of this movement, on what planet is it acceptable to shut down roads and limit freedom of movement? A protest march? Sure. A parade, no problem. But these sorts of tactics by dimwitted, vicious octogenarians with **literally** nothing better to do with their time should be universally derided and dismissed. And the "both-sidesism" bullshit should be tossed, turfed, ejected, vomited and spat out by anyone with any core values of decency.

Take a stand against fascism and totalitarianism.
posted by JamesBay at 11:42 AM on February 19, 2019 [3 favorites]

Besides the racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, violent rhetoric of the Freikorps wannabes in the Canadian version of this movement, on what planet is it acceptable to shut down roads and limit freedom of movement?

That is an oft used tactic by all sorts of movements, historically speaking.

Occupy Wall Street did a lot of this.
Both Iraq wars sparked protests using this tactic.
Several civil rights protests, among them the march on Selma did this.

The Maidan protests in Kiev did this.
And yes, French protesters do this all the time. As do umpteen varieties of brown shirts.
posted by ocschwar at 11:47 AM on February 19, 2019 [13 favorites]

i'm still trying to figure out why they're called yellow vests when they're wearing green

Is this going to be 2019's version of the blue dress / white dress thing?

"Chartreuse yellow", which is RGB hex #DFFF00, as opposed to "chartreuse green", #7FFF00, is basically the color of most modern high-viz clothing. Wikipedia says the term dates to 1912, so you can't even blame web programmers for it. (SADIST green, on the other hand...)

As an outsider to French politics I don't think I know enough of the actual political territory to have an informed opinion on the gilets jaunes, but I think if I was French, I'd be, uh, somewhat off-put by the focus on "destituent politics", which is noted by the Editor as "depos[ing] the existing order without substituting a new one in its place." That seems like a rather poor idea to me. But since my reasons for thinking so are largely based on things that happened in France, I suppose I'll defer to the French.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:56 AM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

I really appreciate these other perspectives on the Yellow Vests. It's nice to get English articles from street level instead of endless horseshoe pontification about how populism = fascism.

I don’t know what it’s like in France, but here in the UK the yellow vest has been the exclusive domain of fascist pro-Brexit groups. They know a handy populist band wagon to jump on when they see one.
posted by pharm at 12:10 PM on February 19, 2019 [7 favorites]

This is what Anna Soubry, a prominent pro-EU MP, was putting up with January.
posted by Urtylug at 12:12 PM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

I mean I thought it was widely known that most of the copycat Yellow Vest movements elsewhere are pretty darn fashy, but that doesn't mean that the French ones are the same by default.

I tend to think it's a reflection of the fact that in most places outside of France, the left are timid, afraid of confrontation and heavily laced with liberalism and so the only people willing to go Yellow Vesting are not great, whereas the French have more of a tradition of protest.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 12:18 PM on February 19, 2019 [4 favorites]

Les gilets jaunes, étouffés par la gangrène antisémite
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:22 PM on February 19, 2019 [7 favorites]

Regarding the gilet itself, I believe it's compulsory in France to carry one in your vehicle.
posted by GeorgeBickham at 2:33 PM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

i dont think the principal concern should be whether this movement, or ones like it, are gonna be coopted by full-on fascists. probably they wont. the better question is whether they are effective at making their governments more responsive to the people in total, or only for a preferred set.

for example, in the US, there are a lot of so-called "independents" with what could be characterized as populist leanings. people who voted for trump and believe in increasing the social safety net, but only for "good" people like themselves. this isnt quite a fascist viewpoint, but it is premised on proto-fascist assumptions like that the government (or all liberal democracy) is irredeemably corrupt and must be swept aside, and that something, anything, brand new will surely be better because how could it possibly get worse.

this is a much bigger problem than the literal brownshirts, who can be "chased off" as discussed in the interview.
posted by wibari at 4:22 PM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

Not sure if I agree with "governments are not responsive to the wishes of the people, therefore we need a different, more popular model to initiate change".

Anyway, the white supremacist proto-Fascist Yellow Vests who have hijacked the media narrative in Canada (and Facebook land as well) for at least the last week were outnumbered by reporters on Parliament Hill today.

So that's definitely a win for being "effective at making their governments more responsive to a preferred set" rather than "the people in total", for sure.

Dangerous people who have successfully introduced white supremacist talking points into the mainstream media.

Populism is garbage politics for garbage people.
posted by JamesBay at 4:38 PM on February 19, 2019 [3 favorites]

The Counter-Insurrection Is Failing

Not really. One thing I just realized by looking at the List of major demonstrations in France is how small the Gilets Jaunes (GJ) movement actually is: typical demonstrations in France are at least 300-500,000 people and big ones (like those in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010) are over 1 million people. The GJ demonstrations started nicely (about 300,000 people mid-November) but they now attract less than 50,000 people weekly. It's noisy for sure, but it's not exactly big, let alone representative. The latest poll for the 2019 European Parliament elections is quite promising for Macron's party (24%) and a non-starter for hypothetical GJ candidates (3.5%). It doesn't help that the GJ movement seems to attract - beyond Jacqueline-who-can't-make-ends-meet -, a mixed bag of complete idiots, conspiracy theorists, opponents to speed limits (because car accidents are great), and the usual ultra-right and ultra-left sociopathic, violent assholes, like the guy interviewed in the FPP, who really seems to enjoy the riots he participates in, because breaking stuff and hurting people is so fucking fun. And antisemitic nuts, of course, what do you expect from a movement that has elevated the True Scotsman fallacy into an ideology? When bad stuff happens, like > 10 dead people, or antisemitic/racist incidents, it's never the fault of the "true GJs".

By the way, it's not that the movement doesn't have legitimate roots, notably in rural areas that suffer from the disappearance of activities and services (post office, doctors, etc.) that have been transferred to periurban and urban areas where most the jobs are now. Some of the questions raised - wealth redistribution, governement accountability, the declining status of the non-urban middle class, the relative weakness of representative organisations - are also real and important, which explains the moral support enjoyed until recently by the GJs beyond their (mostly) rural base.

But the only way to address such problems is to actually go into politics to get elected and change things, and that's not happening: the few GJs who have tried to steer the movement toward more constructive actions are violently sidelined. Last Sunday, Ingrid Levavasseur a former GJ leader whose only "crime" was to try to participate in the EU election, had to be exfiltrated from the Paris demonstration after she was verbally and physically attacked by a group of fellow GJs shouting "dirty whore" and accusing her of "sucking Macron's dick" (remember: the same nice folks are calling for more democracy). So, no, the counter-insurrection is not failing and not even needed: the GJ movement is eating itself, out of sheer meanness and stupidity, and those who suffer the most from its actions are people and businesses in rural areas (foot: meet bullet), who deserve better. Who would have thought that politics was so complicated? (bonus: for those who read French, an interesting take on the GJ movement by sociologist Bruno Latour)
posted by elgilito at 4:52 PM on February 19, 2019 [9 favorites]

All that certainly explains why the unions have been staying far, far away, eligilito. That fact, which popped in the interviews of "suspicious external observers turned full-fledged converts" posted in the FPP and later in this thread, would further seem to counter-act the "they're not reactionaries, this is just the French tradition of protest in action". The French tradition of protest is normally union-led, is it not?

The demographics of the movement and the attitude -- again attested in the interview linked in the FPP -- that cities can be freely trashed because nobody who matters (read: white) actually lives there or anything are what make me think this is fundamentally a reactionary movement rather than the vanguard of a new socialist awakening or whatever.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:00 PM on February 19, 2019 [3 favorites]

the only way to address such problems is to actually go into politics to get elected and change things

Can anyone enlighten me as to whether France's electoral system is accessible to the 99%?
posted by ragtag at 6:20 PM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

that cities can be freely trashed because nobody who matters (read: white) actually lives there

Are they trashing the immigrant/minority areas? Rural France is presumably pretty white, but if I'm not mistaken it's (certain) suburban areas that are synonymous with "those people."

The way this interview depicts it, the movement may be a vehicle for the frustrations of both demographics, but hasn't really shown this far that there's a way to unite them constructively - seeing as the only person noted to have succeeded has done so at the expense of The Jews.
posted by atoxyl at 7:37 PM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

Something like this doesn't seem exactly like a "red-brown alliance" to me at this stage - more a phenomenon of somewhat unfocused anger that both the Right and the Left would like to co-opt. So I don't know that it's wrong for people on the Left to perceive it as an opportunity. At the same time, people like the interviewee seldom seem like they really have any idea how one would go about making it break their way.
posted by atoxyl at 7:44 PM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

If I had to use my admittedly limited knowledge of French politic and history, it would seem to have settled into this very broad discomfort and hostility toward the current government/system combined with the nationalistic pride the French have in their history of dissent and unrest with a reluctance toward leftward efforts and a drumming out of more far-right elements. It just seems like people are mad at the state of things with no idea of how to go forward-


-which is pretty relatable about the NATO Bloc

We all want not this.
posted by The Whelk at 8:21 PM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

Something like this doesn't seem exactly like a "red-brown alliance" to me at this stage - more a phenomenon of somewhat unfocused anger that both the Right and the Left would like to co-opt.

Yes, that's fair. When I invoked the term, I meant it more to describe where I see this going than where it started or even currently stands. I base that prediction on the attitudes of many leftist supporters like the Commune interviewee who seem to be so giddy that things are getting smashed and the neolibs are getting pwned that they're unaware or uncaring that this kind of populist movement can be far more easily be co-opted and steered by the right than the left.

The repeated assertions that the GJs are fundamentally "apolitical" also makes me think that pwning the neolibs (in general, as opposed to Macron specifically) is way less important to the GJs than to their leftist fanboys. Which is to say that they may be content with a different center-right (or right-right) politician who simply promises to revert the gas tax or something.

That being said, I'll definitely grant that my understanding of French demographics has some holes in it, so I may be reading too much or the wrong things into the urban vs. rural aspect of this.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:24 PM on February 19, 2019 [1 favorite]

I mean, there's a not nonvocal part of rural french politics that is a Green-Brown Alliance- traditional farming and traditional hunting and traditional politics and they usually bend toward social democratic or outright socialist schemes if it helps preserve the village way of life.

France is complicated.
posted by The Whelk at 8:32 PM on February 19, 2019 [2 favorites]

That's fair. As far as the prospect of a red-brown alliance, I think it's an implicit premise for a lot of people on the Left that there's a fundamental legitimacy to populist anger - if only everyone could be convinced to be angry at the real villains! - and also a sense of inevitability, a sense that the current order of things is doomed one way or another. For someone who sees things that way it would be a terrible mistake to write off a movement like this altogether - as good as ceding the possibility of victory to the Right.

I suppose I am inclined to see things that way, to an extent, but at the same time I also get a strong sense of academic lefties who try to latch on to these things being out of their depth. To be fair I'm not quite sure what Wohlleben's background is - he just gives me a bit of that vibe.
posted by atoxyl at 8:44 PM on February 19, 2019 [3 favorites]

Can anyone enlighten me as to whether France's electoral system is accessible to the 99%?
In France, election expenses are capped, and part of the expenses are paid upfront by the State. Up to 50% extra expenses are reimbursed after the election for parties that reach 5% of the votes. For instance, in the latest presidential race, far-left candidate Philippe Poutou spent 767 723 € and was reimbursed 766 543 €. Even Macron's campaign ended up costing him and his supporters less than 10 M€. Of course, money still matters, but elections remain accessible to people who want to be heard and can convince enough people to support them. Another former GJ figurehead, Jacline Mouraud, has actually created her own party and is planning to run in local elections (she's getting death threats).
posted by elgilito at 2:03 AM on February 20, 2019 [4 favorites]

I think it's an implicit premise for a lot of people on the Left that there's a fundamental legitimacy to populist anger - if only everyone could be convinced to be angry at the real villains! - and also a sense of inevitability, a sense that the current order of things is doomed one way or another. For someone who sees things that way it would be a terrible mistake to write off a movement like this altogether - as good as ceding the possibility of victory to the Right.

Yes?
posted by AnhydrousLove at 3:03 AM on February 20, 2019

Switzerland, the wealthiest country of Europe, is a pacified nightmare, with a very low level of struggle. People stay more or less the same, playing out their little loops, and hardly engage with others, never meeting new people, never occupying things and confronting the brutality of the police, never creating new situations where it would become possible to change themselves and connect to ideas that might challenge them.

This is what depravity looks like.
posted by atrazine at 3:10 AM on February 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

Maybe I should clarify. I don't know what it would be like if I'd been born in a time before we understood climate change. Fortunately, it's irrelevant.

Mass change is upon us. It is unavoidable. A crisis of capitalism has arisen that cannot be quelled. Within my lifetime, we will see unprecedented levels of refugee crisis and economic collapse. The response to this will not be polite. Tone-policing will do nothing the alleviate it.

The only solution will depend upon mass protest and radical action. The challenge is not that of stirring up resentment in a content populace. The challenge is ensuring that we do not end up with fascists instead of communists. One or the other is coming, because liberal democracy will fold like wet paper in the face of the forces rising now.
Socialism or barbarism.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 3:19 AM on February 20, 2019 [2 favorites]

Switzerland, the wealthiest country of Europe, is a pacified nightmare

All I can say is that I wish I had this guy's nightmares.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:52 AM on February 20, 2019 [4 favorites]