France | Void Network

Becoming Alive, Autonomous, and Explosive- The Invisible Committee

crystalzero72 — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 09:45:12 +0000

The following interview was published on the French website Frustration on October 16, 2026 and first published in English at Ill Will site

Whether it’s a coincidence or a sign of the times, it is in the midst of a youth revolt and on the eve of a possible “return of the Yellow Vests” that the Invisible Committee is releasing its new book, Survival Manual, on October 16.

For twenty years now, through its many textual interventions (The Coming Insurrection, To Our Friends, Now…), it has both inspired, and produced the critical balance sheets of, successive waves of revolt and the situations that followed. With its “survival manual,” the group offers a stringent, unflinching, self-critical perspective — one free of flattery, yet also capable of being generous and honest.

Many of the questions the book raises are also, at times, our own, just as they are, ultimately, those of many people frustrated by defeat and a feeling of powerlessness: How should we make sense of repeated defeats, even despite the persistence of conflictual forms of action? What conclusions are we to draw from this? How are we to “survive” the present moment? How do our enemies continue to prosper? How can we confront capital with seriousness and strategy and truly reinvigorate revolutionary ethics and perspectives? In line with their explicit critique of the public sphere, their public statements remain rare. However, two contributors to the Invisible Committee’s Survival Manual answered our questions about the book, while offering their own analysis of the current moment.

Survival Manual argues that the Yellow Vests carried out a form of insurrection long awaited by autonomists, yet they did so without them: a movement born out of the encounter between singular, previously-isolated experiences, rather than from any preexisting forms of organization. Are there any similarities with the current youth revolt, or is this just yet another left-wing mobilization destined to be channeled, co-opted, or even sabotaged by unions and political parties?

What is shaking the country right now is not a social movement, it is a vital movement. The world of the “adults” in charge is hurtling headlong toward a wall — it’s even accelerating. It doesn’t care about anything; it wants to keep enjoying itself until the very last drop of oil. Claiming to be “responsible,” “reasonable,” and the custodians of “authority” is the height of their ferocious infantilism. A society of geriatrics can only be youth-obsessed, if not actually young. It wants all the trappings of youth, but detests its vitality. High school students have no reason to feel solidarity with such a civilization of suicidal people. They’ve seen their parents and teachers submit to all the humiliating aberrations of COVID management, then spout vague justifications to lock them down and subject them to the same treatment in turn. So much so that, when they speak up, it’s as if we were hearing the parents of their own parents. “Just because you accept being treated like worthless dogs, getting paid peanuts, unable to afford a full month of groceries doesn’t mean everyone else has to suffer because you didn’t have the guts to speak up — I’m sorry,” a student explodes. The reverse is also true. That infamous Nazi, Henry Ford, used to say, “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” If students knew what — with very few exceptions, and all the more precious for it — their teachers say about them in the teachers’ lounge, there’d be few high schools left standing in France. Governing a world with no promise other than that of its own collapse is shaping up to be more complicated than expected. It’s not clear that parental geolocation will suffice.

In an administered society, what we call “youth” is simply the free element, those who are not yet bound by a career, a boss, a loan, or a social circle, and who can therefore afford to say aloud what the rest see but prefer to keep quiet about. We generationalize the revolt in order to prevent it from generalizing. The current revolt of “young people” is primarily over our common condition. What is the point of pursuing a career in a world where temperatures reach 45°C — and therefore of pursuing an education in it? How dare this society treat its untenable contradictions as a “psychological problem,” like it’s our responsibility, and thus call on us to be “resilient” in the face of our “eco-anxiety”? How long will we tolerate the sifting process occurring at every level of the population — and thus systems like Parcoursup and MonMaster? Does life consist in caring for oneself as “human capital” — and thus as an aggregate of skills? When will we stop working toward our own replacement by AI — a fate already promised to teachers by the ministry’s startups? And above all, how can we bring about a revolution in a world entirely designed to prevent us from doing so? All these questions—and a few others — were our starting point in writing Survival Manual. For two years, we sought to answer them, to draw up a strategic balance sheet of the failure of the movements in which we had participated, and to clear the ground for the beginning of a new revolutionary process. We knew this task was necessary, but no one was talking about revolution anymore. We wondered if we were even writing for anyone at all. Now we know who we wrote for. We didn’t do all this for nothing.

The first thing the Yellow Vests and the current high school revolt have in common is that they come from sectors most removed from militant socialization, with its codes, its endless ruminations, its gloom, and its scowling radicalism. These are revolts that still know how to say “I.” Honestly, until last week, we hadn’t felt such joy in being out on the streets — joking, dancing, singing, tagging, and rioting — since the Yellow Vests. Another common trait is the way they challenge the humiliation that serves as the norm for social integration, which forms the very foundation of French culture. In other words, they defy judgment. Problems with toilets aren’t just “shit” problems, but a clear sign of contempt. They must therefore stop. “Gen Z, because we’ll be the last generation to be treated like shit,” a sign read last Tuesday. Needs are no laughing matter — whether it’s the need for sleep, cash, respect, meaning, or love. Everything in French culture seeks to make us ashamed of our needs, to the point that “meeting one’s needs” is synonymous with “shitting.” High school students, like the Yellow Vests, brazenly defy this taboo. Needs, in their materiality, in their singularity, are ungovernable: as soon as they’re brought up, governments no longer know what pretext to use to change the subject. A third common trait between these two uprisings is their refusal of governmental double binds, a refusal to let those in power drive us mad with paradoxical injunctions; it is, therefore, the same way of taking them at their word. “You told us to come holler at you; well, here we are, Macron: we’re down on the Champs-Élysées, we’ll be at the Élysée Palace soon!” “You drone on year round about how we need to work, pass our exams, and sacrifice ourselves for our ‘future’ — so, give us the conditions to do so, you sons of bitches!” All of a sudden, the powers that be are rendered naked, and begin to stutter. Then they show their true colors and blurt it all out. They treat a blockaded high school as “urban violence” and explain, on public radio, that there are too many high school students, that many of them don’t belong in high school, and that, anyway, even if they pursue an education, it will never be enough for them to compete with AI in the job market. Now everything becomes clear.

The activists’ guilty conscience over having “missed out on the Yellow Vests” — a movement they took three weeks to join after initially labeling it “fascist” — is so strong that they have since been constantly trying to “recreate the Yellow Vests” at every opportunity. And in fact, as Survival Manual points out, this purely proletarian, anti-union, anti-political, and anti-representative insurrection took place without them. This did not prevent the Yellow Vests, after their first clashes with the CRS, from adopting the “black bloc” as a technique — a technique for rioting that had its origins in the German autonomist movement of the 1980s, but was not popularized in France until much later, in 2016. They adopted the technique, not the identity. But it was less through this particular feature, striking though it was, that the Yellow Vests acted autonomously than through their constant refusal of any representative, any spokesperson, any outside organization, or any form of institutional mediation. “Power for no one!” was the rallying cry of German autonomists in 1981. The Yellow Vests embodied that “autonomy beyond the autonomists” of which the Metropolitan Indians had dreamed in 1977. If the Yellow Vests wounded the pride of the autonomists, they were a nightmare for the trade unions: workers rising up, taking to the streets and speaking out directly, without going through their designated, salaried representatives. We need only recall Laurent Berger’s speeches in 2023, at the beginning of the movement against pension reform. All he talked about was his contempt for the Yellow Vests. Indeed, taking revenge on them was the sole motivation of the union leadership in that movement — not winning the fight through a series of stop-start protest days in the face of government provocations, but simply getting back in the saddle after such an affront. It was, in other words, a restoration movement. For all sorts of reasons, the current high school and student movement is less well equipped to defend itself against union and political maneuvering. Last Tuesday, a march on Matignon — the prime minister’s residence — from City Hall, a march decided upon by thousands of high school and university students, was quietly sabotaged by the trade union organizations and transformed into a march that ended with protesters being kettled in Place Vauban, without anyone making a scandal of it. Trade unions, the media, left-wing organizations — false friends are far more dangerous than genuine enemies. If they manage to fuck us over, it is precisely because, for a time, they pretended to be on our side. As for the Mélenchon supporters, with their strategy of bringing everything that moves under their hegemonic control and their PANG! tactic (“Nobody to Our Left!”), they are merely cynically preparing the biggest political hangover since Mitterrand. They feed on other people’s hopes as ticks feed on blood. Is this an excuse not to join the high school students? Certainly not. “Joining the high school students” means less following them and lending them support than extending their refusals and the forms of becoming that their gestures make possible: refusing to let ourselves be crushed. Refusing to become victims of the system. Becoming alive, autonomous, explosive. We are confident: in any case, there is no electoral solution to this civilizational impasse.

Important sections of Survival Manual are devoted to “governance through trauma.” This includes, in particular, a scathing critique of the strategic stupidity of the organizers of the Sainte-Soline mobilization, whose actions resulted in deliberate “traumatization.” To “begin again” would therefore mean drawing the appropriate lessons and breaking out of traumatic repetition. Here again, we are faced with police repression that is as predictable as it is massive. Are we once again throwing ourselves into a trap?

When you send 7,000 high school students into police custody over the course of three weeks and charge at them on horseback or with grenades with their pins pulled, this is obviously no longer a matter of “maintaining public order” or a problem of “unit deployment.” It is a strategy. “The aim of the operation was to frighten students and their parents in order to put an end to the rebellion as quickly as possible,” a police commissioner explains matter-of-factly. What this ordinary admission illustrates is the extent to which governments have, in recent years, become accustomed to manipulating trauma — whether its source is a catastrophe, a terrorist attack, a war, or their own police force. In the latter case, the Survival Manual speaks of “strategic traumatization.” The repression of the high school student movement unfortunately confirms this thesis. In France, the Yellow Vest uprising marked a turning point in this new configuration. During the week of December 8, 2018, the government and the media never stopped stoking the threat of people being killed. It was then that they threw the “Malik Oussekine doctrine” overboard. The strategy of “maiming one to deter a hundred” had already been tested in the context of the ZADs (Zones à défendre, or “Zones to Defend”), whether at Sivens, at Bure, or during the eviction of Notre-Dame-des-Landes. Taking advantage of the non-urban terrain, the police and gendarmerie rained down offensive grenades that exploded indiscriminately. This is apparently what happened in Lens. As for the tactic of ramming protesters with vehicles, it has long been tested in the banlieues. What is its purpose, from the standpoint of crowd management? None. The point is to traumatize. The shock and terror are amplified by videos — one way, among others, of turning the protesters’ own tools against them. Their videos become the means through which trauma spreads and, consequently, through which deterrence is achieved. To blame the fascisization of the police serves only to obscure how profoundly democratic this mode of governance actually is.

Image: Laurent Cipriani

Sainte-Soline, in March 2023? The trap was visible from everywhere, from every vantage point and every point of view. Anyone who had taken part in the wildcat demonstrations during the pension protests — with their decapitated effigies of Macron, their threats invoking Louis XVI hurled from Place de la Concorde, or the administrative court attacked in Nantes — knew that something was slipping beyond the deadly grip of union control. For those in power, it was urgent to crush at birth the generation that was emerging there. So they installed their gigantic trap for the militant mice on this conspicuous mound. Anyone standing in front of that hill of earth, surrounded by trucks forming a defensive wall, with the general of the opposing forces parading along the battlements of the keep, could immediately recognize the trap. Anyone who had heard Darmanin’s provocations in the preceding days, like the pre-fight taunts before a boxing match, could smell the ambush. A few days after our complete rout, the gendarmes were crowing in the newspapers about the success of their campaign of traumatization. That was the term they used. The movement was abruptly broken. The organizers’ political maneuvering and calculations are not enough to explain why such an obvious trap worked. Until we confront this kind of failure head-on, along with the whole web of reasons that led to it, we condemn ourselves to repeating it. We remain prisoners of the cycle of traumatic repetition. At the demonstration in Paris on October 6 last year, the small riot that erupted just before the march reached Place de la Nation was precisely an attempt to avoid falling victim to the police deployment waiting there to crush the usual end-of-demonstration skirmishes. Every revolt of any real consequence invents its own forms, which are also tactics. It is impossible to imagine everything that can exist beyond the idiotic union-led transhumance! On every occasion, the event never lies on the side of mere “demonstration.” Otherwise, we would not have heard LeCornu congratulating himself in the National Assembly on “these demonstrations [which] the government welcomes with great respect […] and with relief, because at last we have a legal, declared, democratic framework within which disagreements can be expressed.” At the beginning of this month, high school students showed that they could place their own school under siege, using fire and “delirium” to hold it. Nobody expected them there, least of all their wardens. On October 6 in Lyon, rather than endure confinement within the Trotskyist general assembly, the march spread into the surrounding streets and erected barricades there. There was probably more dancing around these improvised fires than on the benches of the Bourse du travail.

Every eruption finds its own repertoire, one that ultimately always runs counter to what aspiring leaders prescribe. All this bears witness to the persistence of the tactical intelligence that was so sorely lacking at Sainte-Soline. Fortunately, there is no general staff directing high school blockades across France, unlike what happened that day in Deux-Sèvres. The strategy of traumatization has, moreover, failed to produce the intended effect on the high school student movement. Quite the contrary: it has added yet another grievance to a movement that already had no shortage of them. And it has hardened the very determination it was supposed to weaken. Caramba, another failure!

There is a certain amount of anticipation surrounding October 17, which is supposed to mark the return of the Yellow Vests. In Survival Guide, the illusion that social media alone could generate a revolutionary dynamic is severely criticized, including through the example usually cited to support this idea (that of the Arab Spring). The failure of September 10, 2025 — considered a “militant speculative bubble” — illustrates this thesis. Are we still in this kind of bubble, or does this call, combined with the youth revolt, create a more open scenario?

A few weeks before the dissolution of the National Assembly in June 2024, Macron’s close advisors gathered at the Élysée Palace to watch the series “La Fièvre” together. The June 9 address announcing the dissolution would, in fact, refer to this same “fever.” The series was conceived by a former member of the Socialist Party (PS) aligned with Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s movement. In it, opponents, whether pro- or anti-government, compete using the power of communication to quell or stoke revolts across the country. Communications strategists from all sides scrutinize giant control panels, where they monitor tensions emerging in real time on social media. It is a fantasy of cybernetic power, that of the Control Room. Readers of the Polytechnique journal know that the Prime Minister’s office, in 2024 to be precise, tested software for a real-time mapping of risks of social fragmentation, a map derived from digital noise. What matters in this mappingare not the ideas circulating or who is spreading them (activists or Russian bots), but the deviations from the norm, how they coalesce, form abscesses, and how to puncture them. It should come as no surprise that governments are turning communication tools into tools of control. What should concern us, however, is that so many revolutionaries have ended up adopting a similar conception of revolt. After weaving a web of real or fake accounts and amassing followers, after crafting a highly viral call to action, all they would need to do is press a big arrow to launch the insurrection. This communicational conception of the uprising did not emerge just last year. Facebook and Twitter were already applying this narrative to the “Arab Spring.” But, as Survival Manual details, there was no Facebook Revolution. Just as May 1968 was not an “RTL Revolution” [Radio Télé Luxembourg], nor was Genoa in 2001 a “Wanadoo riot.” This is not to deny the role of communication channels in these events, and particularly in their rhythm. The multiplicity of narratives, the idea that anyone could show their world to everyone else, is literally an invention of the anti-globalization movement, born from the convergence of the first hackers and the Zapatista movement. We must admit that this idea has been turned against us, like many other weapons from the cycle of insurrections over the last quarter-century. We are only just beginning to take stock of our arsenal.

Deep down, ever since the Yellow Vests movement wore itself out with the repetition of Saturday marches, “Yellow Vests” has become a way of saying “insurrection” without actually saying the word. And in fact, insurrection is the only response commensurate with the suffocation, humiliation, impoverishment, and outright mockery that the government apparatus has in store for us. However, since December 8, 2018, this apparatus has tooled up to defend itself against a new surge of the Yellow Vests, after being caught off guard on November 24 and December 1 of that year. We therefore need a new element of surprise. The vitality of high school students can change the game and complicate the repressive equation for government forces, but an insurrection is not merely a series of demonstrations. Rather than speculating about this date, we prefer to draw strategic lessons from past defeats and build on what remained unaccomplished. In retrospect, the craziest thing about the Yellow Vests’ days of insurrection was that we marched past the headquarters of Lazard, the UIMM, and LVMH, or beneath the Publicis offices, without realizing that it was there — far more than at the Élysée — that the enemy lay in wait: capital. Things are clearer now. Capital’s arrogance has laid it bare. The addresses are circulating. Insurrection is the only way to escape the electoral trap looming on the horizon. Everyone senses that the moral and financial pressures to bring us to heel will only intensify in the coming months. Lockdown through gas prices is no more acceptable than previous lockdowns. Moreover, we cannot let the Macronist regime fade away without making it pay the price for its abuses. They demand vengeance. In any case, we will be in the streets on October 17.

The entire text is a nuanced analysis of contemporary forms of capitalist domination and how they have evolved over the past fifteen years or so. It shows how so-called “revolutionaries” have fallen into every trap set for them and are thereby reinforcing their dependence as well as their powerlessness. It critiques the analytical and strategic weaknesses of these circles. What, then, are the paths of resistance, the lines of flight and subversion, the right strategy for all those — and there are many — who, though likely caught up in their own contradictions, can no longer stand the world as it is, but who, isolated and cornered by the entire machinery of capital described here in such precise detail, can’t see where to begin?

When we step out of our shell and finally rise up, we still find in our paths a whole little activist world standing in our way, trying to intimidate us. It claims to have the right practices, the right rhetoric, the necessary organization, and a whole range of ready-made solutions. It even has a sound system and media contacts; can you believe it! What Survival Manual documents is that this entire little scene is rich only in its failures, and its determination to repeat them. If it had even the slightest solution, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We’re in France, a country where there’s always someone claiming to educate you. When it’s not the government, it’s the anti-government crowd. Activist circles are a cul-de-sac, not a point of departure. There’s no such thing as a bad starting point; the best one is undoubtedly right where we are, with those we love and the things we hold dear — provided we stop telling ourselves stories, stop playing along with social lies and their so-called “values,” and provided we stop being terrified, deep down. Terrified of being banished. This is what the Survival Manual calls the “process of singularization.” It has no end. This is what it means to truly live. No one wants to sacrifice themselves anymore. No “collective value” can command sacrifice anymore. Collective realities must be founded on something other than suffering. It is precisely to prevent this that the specter of war is now being held up before us. But the real war is between all these processes of singularization and the crumbling yet still-reigning order that intends to continue vampirizing every form of life on earth. At this point, all legalistic options have been swept aside — on the mega-reservoirs, the A69 highway, the Duplomb Law, labor law, and international law alike. “Burn it all down since everything’s already burning,” read a sign in the Paris march last Tuesday. “Fuck almost everything!” another one put it more subtly. The echoes currently reverberating between the French, Belgian, Spanish, and Albanian uprisings are no coincidence. A war is underway between us and capital, against the backdrop of the thousand forms of dependence through which it believes it holds us captive. The entire Survival Manual is an effort to update our understanding of the theater of operations. We cannot summarize it in a few sentences. Noting, shortly before his death, the fatal course the Soviet regime was taking, Lenin wrote: “Those communists who do not give in to illusions or discouragement, who retain the strength and flexibility to start over from scratch and tackle one of the most difficult tasks, are not lost (and most likely will not perish).” Amidst the apocalypse of capital, this advice remains solid.

Translated by Ill Will

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FRANCE 2026 — Generation Z Revolts

crystalzero72 — Sun, 04 Oct 2026 11:49:08 +0000

FRANCE: STUDENTS TAKE TO THE STREETS

GENERATION Z REFUSES THE PRESENT AND FUTURE IMPOSED UPON US

Since 21 September, a wave of student school occupations and demonstrations has been sweeping across France. What began at a lycée in Créteil, in the suburbs of Paris, has, in less than two weeks, grown into a mass mobilisation involving thousands of students.

Students are taking to the streets and clashing with the state’s police forces because they know firsthand what the dismantling of public education means: classrooms with more than 30 students, relentless and gruelling examinations, teacher shortages, absent teachers who are never replaced, inadequate and neglected facilities, exhausting timetables, and an everyday reality that makes education increasingly difficult to access.

At the heart of their demands are large-scale teacher recruitment, smaller classes, humane timetables, and schools provided with the resources and infrastructure they actually need.

On 29 September, the student mobilisation converged with a major nationwide public-sector strike and workers’ demonstrations. From that point onwards, the struggle took on a new dimension. Occupations and school blockades spread from the suburbs of Paris to cities across the country. More than 1,000 lycées have already been affected by the mobilisations, with more recent figures putting the number of schools drawn into the movement at over 1,200.

And as the mobilisation grows, so does the repression.

Arrests have now exceeded 5,000, the majority of those detained being teenagers, while dozens of people have been injured. Students, teachers and other demonstrators are among those arrested and injured. Police repression has become an everyday feature of the mobilisations.

At the same time, the government is attempting to frame the protests primarily as a matter of “public order”. But behind the clashes lies a deeper social reality: a generation watching its schools deteriorate and its future being destroyed. Generation Z is pushing back against a social order that breeds despair — a life of mechanical repetition, endless constraints and imposed obligations.

And this is inseparable from the broader political agenda being pursued. France’s 2027 budget provides for €43 billion in additional cuts, bringing the overall fiscal consolidation programme to €54 billion. At the same time, measures are being introduced that place a heavier burden on workers while restricting public expenditure. The assault on public education is part of a wider assault on social needs.

And when a state resorts to deploying police forces on a massive scale against the teenagers living under its jurisdiction, it exposes an economic and political system that has failed catastrophically.

That is why the students’ struggle is about more than schools.

It concerns every one of us, everywhere in the world.

The students occupying their schools are not waiting for anyone to explain why they should learn to accept degradation and exclusion. Every day, they see what it means to grow up in a society where their needs are constantly pushed aside.

And they are fighting back.

The spontaneous confrontation between young people and authority carries a profound social significance: when a generation feels that its present is being stolen and that it is being denied a future worth living, revolt becomes the only path towards a better life.

And this confrontation does not appear to be over.

Following their meeting with the Minister of Education, student organisations have denounced the absence of concrete commitments or measures addressing their demands and have called for the mobilisations and school occupations to continue in the coming days.

The next chapter, then, will be written in the streets and in the schools.

A message is emerging from France that reaches far beyond its borders: young people are no longer willing to accept a future built on austerity, precarity, degradation and repression as the “new normal”.

In recent years, Generation Z revolts have spread from Serbia, Bulgaria and Albania to Palestine, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Indonesia; from Peru to India, the Philippines and Bangladesh; and across Kenya, Sudan, Nigeria and Morocco.

The future is not the business of those who design it in banks and government ministries. It is ours to shape!

It is our lives!

___

VOID NETWORK- Theory, Utopia, Empathy, Ephemeral Arts

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The Left, Progress, and the Peasant- French Farmer’s Revolt 2024

crystalzero72 — Fri, 17 May 2024 14:35:19 +0000

In January of this year, while eco-justice activists were redecorating the Mona Lisa at the Louvre to protest climate change, French farmers besieged several French cities in protest against a range of policies threatening the material foundations of their way of life. In response to recent increases in agricultural costs due to the war in Ukraine and a drop in prices due to free trade policies implemented by the EU, tractors blocked the A6, a major highway leading into Paris, and in the south, farmers dumped manure and other agricultural waste on the front steps of city hall in Toulouse. The protests followed several months of protest at the end of 2023, and were echoed a month later by further protests in February of 2024.

The following article from Lundimatin seeks to provide some historical and existential context for the revolt, and to challenge some of the reflexes and assumptions of the left’s response. The article is of interest to us for two reasons. First, it helps explain the material basis of resistance to the mega-basins by organizations like Soulevement du Terre as well as the larger division between urban and rural workers in France. Second, it provides an excellent example of the kind of gap between contemporary leftist political categories and reflexes and the experience of rural workers that continues to provide an opening to the right wing, both in France and elsewhere. We take it to be the responsibility of partisans everywhere to find ways to close this gap and hope this article will make some contribution to that effort.

Charlatan Revolutionary Group

published in lundimatin#413, January 30, 2024

In recent days, we’ve seen prefectures covered in manure and set on fire, mutual insurance companies set ablaze, “foreign” trucks turned over by tractors and their food distributed to Restos du Cœur or burned on the asphalt. There are calls to surround Paris, others to rename the Élysée “Le Lisier” and a government particularly concerned not to add fuel to the fire. A ready-made media narrative, coordinated by both politicians and FNSEA representatives, has led us to view this movement solely from their point of view, i.e., their interests: agribusiness is allegedly engaged in a tug-of-war with the State to recoup a little cash and exert pressure against ecological regulations that are squeezing their margins. All this in a brown, reactionary and conservative atmosphere. Good. The Groupe Révolutionnaire Charlatan has sent us this text, which aims to approach the question by way of a completely different axiom: trying to understand revolt from its historical and ethical coordinates.

Lenin against the Muzhiks

“We have learned how to overthrow the bourgeoisie, how to suppress them, and we are proud of the fact. But we have not yet learned how to regulate our relations with the millions of middle peasants, how to win their confidence, and we must frankly admit it.”

– Lenin, speech to the ^8th Congress of the CPSU

In public school history curricula we’re given all the great stages of “progress”–the Industrial Revolution, the rural exodus, the Republic–as a single uninterrupted series of pliant modifications, useful amenities, and welcome improvements to the lifestyles of backwards populations, thanks of course to the philanthropic efforts of an intrepid urban elite trained in the school of economic rationality. It’s this vision–not too far off from the one behind the colonial project–that we have in mind today when we talk about the peasant world.

The reality of primitive accumulation, the forced displacement of populations, and the obliteration of the rural world–the land, the languages and the peasant way of life all included–is still seen in many left-wing circles as a positive and necessary stage that, with all the promise of mechanization, is supposed to bring about an egalitarian society, free to decide on its modes and methods of production; in short, industry as a necessary step in the socialization of our means of existence.

After killing their boyars and dividing up their lands equally, the muzhiks registered thousands of grievances with the Petrograd Soviet and voted for the socialist-revolutionaries in droves, unaware, however, that with the ideological confusion that was Bolshevik modernization, a tsarless Moscow was still scheming against them. All they needed was 100,000 tractors to get the peasants out of the way of the only real historical struggle, that between the proletariat and bourgeoisie. The rest of society, their ways of life, their revolutions, were much less important; and a decade later they could be put to death by the thousands, at least those of them branded “kulaks”—anyone with the misfortune of owning two cows, an unconscionable sign of allegiance to the petty-bourgeoisie.

Of course this loaded history has no parallel with the contemporary situation in France, where the peasantry has all but disappeared. But it is indicative of how deep the left’s blind spots can cut, and of the plethora of social groups that still coexist in complete ignorance of one another. We firmly believe that a “revolutionary,” if such a thing exists, is whomever brings about revolution, regardless of his or her background or beliefs; anyone who, when society reaches the point of no return, takes a resolute stand for a new world.

It therefore seems useful to give a brief overview of the rural world in modern France, in order to better evaluate its current political situation. Revolutionary theory does not make abstract proclamations from on high, with the overarching goals of an outmoded theoretical system; it descends into the masses, tries to make sense of the clandestine promises of emancipation and the repressed desires for an egalitarian world that dwell in the heart of each individual—and, putting this secret discourse into a system, giving it a vocabulary, it extends the means to speak the language of revolution to everyone.

The peasant world since the second world war

“The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of the monster, a robot in the seat.”

“The driver sat in his iron seat and he was proud of the straight lines he did not will, proud of the tractor he did not own or love, proud of the power he could not control.”

– John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, 1939

In so far as it is possible to describe the peasant as the land’s most literal inhabitant–living off the earth and giving direct expression to the social and cultural singularity of his region through his customs, dialect and way of life–it should be made clear from the outset that this is not how the right sees them. This peasant–who is no longer with us–lived in their own civilization, with its own languages, traditions, ingrained particularities, as well as its own symbolic and religious systems. This dense web of particularisms was an obstacle to the projects of the State–the tax inspector and the soldier alike. How could they make their way in a world that spoke its own language, where the land was farmed as the people saw fit, and whose inhabitants may or not have given themselves family names–that could change from one village to the next?

The eradication of this incongruous race was therefore an integral part of the modernization effort, nullifying its particularities, mapping its lands, turning the father into the de facto representative of the group, and conscripting its sons to die in wars. But the earth has a thick skin, and it wasn’t until after the Second World War that this unification effort reached its final phase.

The material and social foundations of this very particular world were swept away during the Marshall Plan era by a series of structural modifications and intensive mechanization: hedgerows were cut down, ditches filled in, and gigantic plots marked out to be plowed by tractors driven by a new generation of farmers trained by Jesuits and Dominican modernizers in agricultural technical schools. The state invested billions in this project. In 1954 there were 230,000 tractors in France; by 1963, 950,000. The consequence of this acceleration was the definitive decapitation of a large part of the farming population, unable to expand and mechanize, and thus unable to compete.

A competitive labor market, productivity gains, crushing competition from small businesses, all of which ensured solid growth and consumption as a means of redistribution: nothing too harmful, as any liberal economics textbook will tell you.

But what became of the man on his iron machine? With all the family farms gone, all his neighbors became agricultural laborers or fled to the city, and he was left to feed the monster: to stay competitive in a capitalist economy, you have to keep moving. More land, more fertilizer, more machines. There are few subjects the various ideologies of modernization agree more on: working the land is a kind of bondage, a thankless task that weighs on the individual, confining him to his plot of land and the shadows of the pre-enlightened world. As it turned out, the technical and economic needs of the luminous modern world were leading the planet to its doom, and in the meantime creating a class of wage-earning consumers with a dull, repetitive existence, probably not that different from that of the workers of yesteryear–the kind of same dependence, only with gadgets and processed food. The modern farmer found his own new form of bondage in agro-industrial techniques.

This new technological dependence has three faces: dependence on the enormous debt amassed from the purchase of machinery and land; dependence on the agro-industrial networks that manage all stages of production and control all regulatory bodies; and dependence finally on the machine itself and its dynamics. After all, if your neighbor can buy a bigger tractor, buy smaller farmers off their land and fertilize to excess, how could you possibly beat his prices? With competitive markets and private property, farmers became each other’s executioners, just like the rest of society.

This logic only intensified with France’s entry into the European Union and the Common Market. Although the early days of agro-industry had a certain kind of success in France–i.e. increased competition–this situation came to a standstill in the 1980s, when the European market was flooded with cheaper products from other countries, while the creation of the WTO and the signing of several treaties ratified the end of customs protections.

Article 135 of the Treaty of Lisbon straightforwardly prohibits social harmonization, making it impossible for member countries to demand Europe-wide standards for labor rights. That would hardly be in the spirit of competition!

Modernization can therefore be summed up as a mixture of interdependent elements: land consolidation, a reduction in the number of farmers, an increase in the number of industrial farms, the dominance of monoculture, dependence on machines, inputs and chemistry.

All of this contributed to the current situation: from 2,500,000 farms in 1955, only 400,000 remain today, and the new European standards will cut large swathes out of that number too. The decline is first and foremost that of peasant farming, swept away in the progress of a system that has conquered French soil, and which feeds the misfortune and destitution of thousands of farmers everyday.

Agribusiness and the FNSEA

As with the cops, the same people we see in the media capitalizing on the number of suicides in the profession are often the same who instigated the working conditions and modes of sociability that caused them; a reactionary union like the Alliance Police Nationale–just like the FNSEA, in fact, defender of corporations and large-scale cereal production in the north of France–is only really there to boost careers, keep the dirty laundry in house, and maintain a lobby on behalf of the institution’s least scrupulous members. The FNSEA is particularly mafia-like in this respect.

But the transformation of agriculture into an institutional and corporatist structure is at least as complicated as the tidal wave-like upheaval of the mental and physical universe of those caught up in its gears. The left’s feverish eagerness to round things up into its own categories reveals a profound inability to grasp the social dynamics of certain sectors, and the prevalence of ideas and relationships to the State that differ from their own.

What does this eagerness tell us? That its contemptuous (and contemptible) ignorance of the agricultural world, with all its fractures and contradictions, keep it from attaining any real grasp on current events that doesn’t fall back on the truncated categories of a moralistic, urban leftism.

Let’s be clear: the FNSEA is still a powerful force, with many high hopes behind it and with its hand still on a number of levers. But when it comes to revolution, and all the more so in an age that’s lost all sight of class politics, union membership and electoral politics don’t tell us much about the real, concrete political dispositions of different groups. A number of past struggles have already revealed the inability of the Left’s intellectual software to comprehend the desires, sensitivities and pain of those belonging to certain social categories. This has long been the case, for example, with the suburban youth.

For city dwellers ignorant of the agricultural world’s many “faces,” it’s difficult to differentiate between the small-plot farmer, the large landowner and the “peasant” businessman. The figure of Arnaud Rousseau makes this flagrantly clear whenever he tires of running the same corporations behind the agro-industrial system, and goes on television to defend the interests of farmers, only to end up demanding measures to protect the economic model he himself profits from.

This powerful agri-business is the necessary consequence of the economies of scale required by land consolidation: by establishing gigantic monocultures to avoid paying for a larger variety of expensive machinery, we no longer have the resilience of a polyculture and end up with only two or three types of products to send to market. The only outlet for our production is the food industry. Scale up this pattern and here we are, irrevocably dependent on the logistics and chemical sectors, seed and livestock suppliers, slaughterhouses and so on. Over-specialization necessarily leads to dependence on industry at several levels; and as the FNSEA dominates the chambers of agriculture, it falls into a mafia-like arrangement between all the industrial sectors involved, from suppliers to supermarkets, to extract maximum profit from the farmer.

The farmer, on the other hand, is now an entrepreneur-worker saddled with debt–200,000 euros on average. A paradoxical double-bind: proletarian arms on capitalist shoulders, bound to technology and global commerce at the same time as a world experienced as rural and remote. Proletarianized in Marx’s sense because dispossessed of the means of production, in Wallerstein’s sense because blocked off from any possibility of buying and selling locally, and in Debord’s sense because deprived of a way of life. The disintegration of local communities reached the countryside and created, as in the rest of modern society, a decline in direct solidarities, the rise of consumer individualism, careerism and the middle-class, with the knowledge to boot of a fleeting population, only aggravating the sense of social isolation.

It is essential to understand the collapse of this world and the moral shock and the resulting sense of abandonment, if we are to fully comprehend what the farmers are asking for. The Gilets Jaunes stood at the periphery of the middle classes: people who had been promised the same lifestyle as upper-class consumers, particularly those living in cities, and who bitterly saw these hopes swept away by the economic slump. Farmers come from that same world, but with very different working conditions: after all, if it’s possible to set a human being to the cadences of a salaried routine–cities, with their traffic, commercial districts and giant dormitories are there for just that–it’s difficult to impose the same rhythm on the land. Even when industrialized to death, agriculture remains dependent on a host of natural and biological parameters that are difficult to adapt to the needs of the Market and Government–even if many engineers see it differently in their sick dreams.

Part of the left is trying to make up for this by replaying the old figure of the “model” working-class proletarian. There are thus good workers and bad bosses; the good, unionized “rank and file” ready for revolt, and the ever-scheming reformist “leadership.” And then there’s the inevitably reviled National Rally vote, but that’s for the wealthy elites to take care of, because, as we all know, good conscience always comes at a price.

On the institutional left, masters in the art of recuperation, it’s on the theme of Euroscepticism that the problem lies. With criticism of the European Union having been largely abandoned to the sovereigntist right, and part of the far right too, the institutional left is forced to limit its arguments to the demand for food security and better agricultural wages. The European Union pays subsidies to 8 out of 10 farmers–400,000 out of 500,000. The progressive plan relies on the Chambers of Agriculture, the national agency for agricultural management created a hundred years ago. In short, the aim is to make something of a reserve force for the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, subsidizing the few farmers that remain with redistributive policies implemented at the national level, and all this against a backdrop of a downward trend in the number of European farmers.

From the Gilets Jaunes to the Garbage Riots

Our aim in this text is to demonstrate that it’s no surprise that the minority factions of the ultra-left are systematically ultra-confused in the face of an event like this, incapable of grasping its meaning and scope; and that certain basic facts need to be reviewed if that faction that calls itself revolutionary is to live up to its own task. We won’t even mention the helpless gesticulations coming from the parliamentary left, who’ll try anything to seem like the defender of a people who no longer recognizes it. Their constant state of alarmism with regards to the far right is nothing more than the desperate discourse of electoralism, still trying to sell us the prophecy of a defiant electoral victory as the only way to save ourselves from the threat they pose. As far as we’re concerned, the real obstacle to mounting a counterattack is precisely the disempowerment of the citizen that comes from the vote itself.

What’s happening on the road blockades escapes both this electoral logic and the usual workings of social dialogue and its intermediaries–despite their being undermined by Macronian politics. François Purseigle is missing the point whenever he mentions the sociological differences between farmers and the Gilets Jaunes. Whether or not the former are closer to the upper sociopolitical categories or the lower is of no interest to us: what does matter is that yet another sector of the population is starting to refuse the institutional monopoly on politics.

The comparison with the Gilets Jaunes can only go so far: the revolt in winter 2018 was not a redundant occurrence, destined to be repeated, but the start of a whole new sequence in French politics. It shows a cruel lack of imagination to identify and compare events without recognizing the evolution taking place from one to the next. Nothing repeats itself; trends emerge, evolve and modify themselves. This is the only context in which comparison is really of any use, otherwise it does little more than feed a defeatist fetishism like that which took hold of the Champs-Élysées recently–which is not to be totally discarded, but it doesn’t represent the best use of our time and energy. The strength of the Gilets Jaunes movement lies in its capacity for constant renewal, its ability to pop up anywhere. Need we remind you?

The only repetitions in this case are the failure to confine the unrest to the union mold, to sort those causing the trouble into a few predefined factions, and to harness the movement with a few recognized spokespersons and watchwords. Just like the early days of the Gilets Jaunes, the movement is becoming autonomous, starting from a trigger point and broadening in a haphazard way towards a general feeling of exasperation. This vague but powerful sentiment is a very important indicator: it reveals the system’s inability to reproduce itself, a contradiction that has reached a point of unsustainability. We know that part of the population can no longer live as it used to; but what’s even more radical is that it can no longer imagine living as it used to–quite a shocking shift to come to terms with.

To go back to the events of 2023, we said in a text from the time that the shift we were seeing in strategies and in the widespread feeling of upheaval was struggling to produce a shift in minds and discourse.^[1] What made the Gilets Jaunes so powerful–the shared feeling of having to start from scratch in order to succeed, the revolt that was unleashed as soon as a desire to regain control of our lives was born, the constant inventiveness, the revival of old, outdated forms of struggle–the Garbage riots failed to capture. Everyone recognized something new in the events that took place at the Place de la Concorde, instinctively understanding the new possibilities looming in the shared feeling of frustration with our passivity; a huge swathe of what hitherto had been impossible ceased to be so. It was the opposite of a crisis, the opposite of a stalemate: it was momentum. Hence the chaotically scattered marches, the new slogans, the unexpected convergences, the enormous sense of motivation.

What drained this momentum was the impossibility of translating it into everyday language, into the way we talk to each other about the situation.

This new situation existed only in embryo, in the collective unconscious. The repressive routine of union marches and the politicking of central government officials, who moved the dates around, blocked the coordination of strikes and riots, and prevented the prolonging of strikes. It was only by accident that any of these tactics were undermined in the first place. All this was overcome only by accident. What was missing was an awareness of the opposition between two irreconcilable positions, that everything should change and that nothing should change; neither of which were clearly articulated on either side. Had there been a serious attempt to translate this new situation into words and action, its explosive potential would have tripled.

But the atavistic mental software of the left was still stuck 30 years in the past, repeating the same banalities, rehashing the same repertoire. Without critically rethinking the role of the unions, the usefulness of their practices and the relevance of their slogans, we fell back into apathy less than three weeks after the start of this magnificent sequence of events. There’s a lot of collective responsibility for this; unable to pull their heads out of their asses, the “revolutionary” faction continued to repeat its slogans over and over again, drooling over the riot videos and tolerating the presence of members of parliament who only sought to calm the protest in order to better exploit it. No one with any sense of these shortcomings even tried to bring them to our attention.

What this tells us about the current situation

“But especially: the exposition of a revolutionary perspective must still consist of describing and explaining what takes place day after day, and is never satisfied with the ridiculous, abstract proclamation of general goals.”

– Guy Debord, Letter to Afonso Moteiro

We must not underestimate the farmers’ capacity for struggle; they have always been apt to mobilize in spectacular fashion. Blockades with tractors, manuring town halls, releasing pigs on the freeway: nothing is totally new here, only the tempo of the mobilization. The FNSEA is being torn apart, the movement’s going on the offensive; what we’re seeing ever since the Gilets Jaunes movement, and increasingly so, is that the people know how they should talk to the state.

A certain pattern from the Gilet Jaunes playbook might seem familiar: mobilization on a scale that seems trivial to a left that is totally disconnected from this fringe of the population; slogans that demand a better quality of life on the broadest of scales, which make the rest of the population vibrate in unison; partial convergence; and a critical distance from the unions. Other sectors then begin to feel they have something in common to express; as in many recent movements, we quickly see the rest of the population feel concerned by the struggle of a single sector, as soon as it frees itself from the usual institutional and media framing. It’s this automatic shift towards something collective, this informal feeling of a collective struggle to be waged, that revolutionaries need to work on; it’s where they ought to put their pens.

What’s happening now is an attempt by politicians of all stripes to fit the protest into their own categories, and a temporary silence from the watchdogs of the State and the FNSEA, who are carefully waiting for the situation to evolve in a direction more likely to lead to decay. They’re stalling, not sleeping: as with the post-Concorde riots, their stupor will only last until they figure out how to seize on the slightest moment of weakness to roll out their rhetoric of a return to order and send in the troops to ensure it.

In the face of all this, we might fear that the revolutionaries will stick to their old habits, lining up empty ideological formulas without trying to understand how to take advantage of the situation. Despite some positive developments since 2018, we remain incapable of changing our modus operandi and even our way of understanding society and its uprisings.

Yet it is precisely the task of revolutionary activists to reflect on the current situation, to anticipate it, to give it a language, to understand its invisible motivations and its grandiose possibilities. As a press release from Action Antifasciste Paris-Banlieue rightly put it, militant enquiry is a primary means of action within everyone’s reach: communicating, investigating, gathering testimonies, delivering observations. This facilitates both overall understanding and communication with the different factions engaged in the struggle.

Against Convergence

This is neither a call for support nor an injunction to rise up. The agricultural world expects nothing from us, and we expect nothing in return.

What the Left describes as the convergence of struggles refers to an artificial coming together of distinct movements, collectives and social groups; artificial because rather than abandoning the kinds of categorical separations produced by the system, the proposed convergence simply lines them up alongside one another, ultimately reinforcing the fundamental divisions. The convergence of struggles relies on the existence of a centralized organization responsible for carrying out a programmatic synthesis of the specific interests of the separate categories: students, wage earners, farmers, agricultural workers, artisans, civil servants, etc. The old Leninist way of doing things is safe and sound: the party owns the working class, formulates its interests and dictates its conduct–the party is everything.

We have little interest in the pious hopes of convergence and the politics of recuperation they struggle to conceal. Nothing will ever emerge from a left so stuck in its ways, be they institutional or extra-parliamentary. We have no illusion of influencing the political sensibilities of anyone on the ground, no matter how many surveys are carried out. But still we refuse to remain passive spectators of the growing grievances and the prospect of the mobilization being surpassed by other sectors of the population–truck drivers and construction workers in particular. If we can’t be the movement itself, we need to be there to understand the nature and scale of what’s happening.

The Charlatan Revolutionary Group

January 2024

SOURCE:

https://territories.substack.com/p/the-left-progress-and-the-peasant

The post The Left, Progress, and the Peasant- French Farmer’s Revolt 2024 appeared first on Void Network.

France: A Movement Ends, An Explosion of Rage

crystalzero72 — Thu, 07 Sep 2023 17:13:22 +0000

On June 27, 2023, just a few weeks after the last of the giant demonstrations against the “reform” of the pension system, French society experienced a powerful explosion of youth revolt engulfing the whole country for several days. It was set off by the police murder of seventeen-year-old Nahel Merzouk, who was driving a car without a license in a Paris banlieue (suburb). He was killed in the course of a police stop with a bullet in the heart. How did we move from a large-scale movement against a governmental ”reform” aimed at adding two years to the minimum retirement age and set to increase the impoverishment of retirees, to an explosion against police violence?

We should start by looking back at the abrupt end of the movement against the “reform.”¹ After a series of demonstrations called by the unions, after a growing number of strikes which did not succeed in spreading or increasing their duration, the perspectives for struggle were increasingly reduced. Fatigue and lassitude finally took over, along with a feeling of powerlessness to change the balance of power favoring a government supported by capitalist forces and well-off sectors of society. The strikes, though involving active and determined workers, never generalized to a level capable of blocking the functioning of society. Repeated demonstrations, the energy and creativity of the demonstrators, the use of blockades and sabotage, the formation of networks of struggle collectives, the links forged between students and workers, and the sympathy of the majority of the working class—all these were not enough to sustain the dynamic and make it possible to pass to a more offensive level of struggle. Although very popular, the active movement remained the effort of a minority. The successive demonstrations only revealed to the eyes of the participants the impasse which the union forces sought increasingly to hide with triumphalist speeches, an irritating demagoguery. The movement was finally exhausted, and the activism of minorities could do nothing about it.

The clear end of the movement did not efface the collective consciousness with a profound and massive rejection of the neoliberal line of present-day capitalism and its more and more authoritarian modes of governing. This rejection did not succeed in finding its way to become a decisive force of opposition. The rejection it expressed is therefore still there, so the defeat was not experienced as the defeat of the collective and its subversive energy. The general feeling is summed up by a phrase given different emphases and nuances: “We have lost but they haven’t won. The fight will start again, sooner or later.”

PARIS, FRANCE – July 2: Clashes occur between rioters and police in Paris, on July 2, 2023, after the death of a 17-year-old boy killed by the police in Nanterre in the suburbs of Paris on June 27, 2023. Firas Abdullah / Anadolu Agency/ABACAPRESS.COM

This disgust with the political class and its propagandists, with the increasing repression of all forms of opposition, with general unhappiness, social impoverishment, and growing class inequality provided a context for the explosion of revolt against police violence among young people in working-class neighborhoods. This is racist violence that is a daily experience in the neighborhoods that are parking places for young people—poor and for the most part excluded from the world of work and social life in general—who, though of immigrant origin, are often “French” for one or two generations. Police violence and its racist dimension have a long history in France, with roots deep in the class conflicts marking the origin of industrial capitalism in France and the repression of successive groups of immigrants who have long composed the working class. To that must be added the consequences of a badly digested colonial heritage and the nationalist rebellions of the postwar period. More recently, police repression has returned to the forefront of social life with the movement of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests), of whom more than 3,000 were wounded and mutilated by the police. Now it is extending to all forms of opposition to the social order, including struggles against the destruction of the environment. These have been systematically criminalized and confronted by the police. This was notably the case recently at Sainte-Soline, in the center-west of France, where 30,000 people, mobilized to block an agricultural-industrial project of privatizing water resources, came up against militarized police forces that produced dozens of wounded and left two young people in critical condition.

It is hard to analyze an event like the banlieue youth revolt, characterized by spontaneity and improvisation. Clearly, the spontaneity is the fruit of a pre-existing situation, and the unpredictable was obviously to be predicted. But this revolt took unexpected forms and it is difficult to see its links with earlier struggles. Karl Marx once suggested there are social revolts that are like earthquakes—it is pointless to try to predict them, and even more to dissect them or to set them in pre-established schemas and political projects constructed in advance. Nonetheless, if one is an enemy of the existing order, one cannot dissociate these events from the current crisis of society and one is inevitably led to solidarity with them, even if that solidarity is purely abstract and impossible to make concrete, even if these revolts do not open a perspective on radical social change. Perhaps they are signs of something different on the horizon. Only the future will tell and provide perspective. Meanwhile, some facts can help us understand the circumstances of the explosion.

The recent revolt of young people in working-class neighborhoods has surpassed the similar revolts of 2005² in intensity and breadth. While at that time, the rebellion went on for three weeks, this time it lasted only a few days, but involved more of the country; it reached many little provincial cities traditionally considered “calm” and not only the big urban centers. The revolt was not confined to neighborhoods outside the city proper, the suburbs, but expanded into the urban centers. As a Communist city official in the Paris region observed, “Symbolically speaking, this went far beyond what happened in 2005.”³ Indeed, the explosion of anger and rage focused above all on “symbols of the state” and in particular on the so-called forces of order, the police and the gendarmerie (military police), viewed in any case by the young of these neighborhoods as the heart of the state’s repressive control. Contrary to what the government and its propagandists want people to think, schools and civic institutions (libraries, cultural enters) were not the most commonly attacked locations—even though for many kids these places are centers of power, places that they assimilate to others where they are rejected, devalued, excluded. Among the 2,500 public buildings set on fire or damaged in more than 500 urban areas there was a high number of police stations and gendarme posts, compared to a small number of schools (168). Gun stores were pillaged here and there by people who took hunting rifles and other weapons, a new fact testifying to the increased level of violence in clashes with the authorities. Another novelty: a hundred mayor’s offices were attacked, along with elected politicians, occasionally in their private residences.

Institutions of repression and control are replacing the collapsing institutions of the welfare state. This evolution has been visible for years: the increase of repression is the counterpart to the willful and continuous dismantling of the welfare state. The realization of this fact was central to the revolt of the Gilets Jaunes and more recently to the movement against the pension “reform.” To quote Marx once again, the forms of political power tend to correspond to the forms of the capitalist exploitation of labor. The latter are increasingly violent, characterized by the precarity, fragility, and harshness of working conditions and low wages. The forces of repression are hated in the poor neighborhoods, where young people are abandoned to “uberized” jobs. They are, so to speak, a world of proletarians outside of the classical proletariat. The police, on the other hand, are always supported by the bourgeois classes (naturally), by shopkeepers, and also by workers who are afraid of losing the little they still have and who are attached to a “balanced” past, mythologized and longed for, which will not return.

The modern French state (and in this it is setting an example for Europe) is increasingly based on institutions dealing in open violence. The police have become a state within the state. Even worse, recent developments suggest that the branches of the police charged with repression on the streets somehow lost their connection with the top of the institution, with the hierarchy of command. Instead, they are very much under the control of the police unions whose links with the extreme right are by now well known. This development is producing unease even among the ruling elite, the leading liberal press, and the judiciary. The same development can be seen in other sectors of the state: for instance, everyone knows (even if it is not openly said) that the Minister of the Interior, in charge of the police, cannot be nominated without the agreement of the police unions. Similarly the Minister of Agriculture and Ecological Transition is “chosen” by the main agricultural-industrial firms, as the energy minister is “chosen” by the bosses of the nuclear industry. One could say that we are progressing towards transparency about the real nature of democracy.

There is also the question of social immiseration. The explosions of revolt brought with them a lot of looting—much more than in 2005. In many places, after the kids had broken shop windows and stolen some candies it was their mothers and grandmothers who came to stock up on noodles, sugar, flour, oil, and canned food—something that tells us a lot about the period we are entering in our supposedly affluent society. These revolts were also, in part, hunger riots.

The young people who ran free in the streets were for the majority very young, between twelve and seventeen, younger than in 2005. There were over 3,000 arrests, with more than 1,300 youths processed through expedited trials, and more than 700 individuals sentenced to serious prison terms, 8 months on average.⁴ Thus the imprisoned surplus population continues to grow. A few big-city suburbs and neighborhoods saw a momentary mix of kids in revolt and those who have been drawn for years to clashes with the police in demonstrations, the so-called black bloc. But for the most part these remained two worlds separated by ideology. I’ve heard of the reply (real or made up) of a young rebel to a black bloc member: “You get yourselves arrested because you are engaged in politics, we do it because we are young!” On the other hand, given the form of the revolt, its spontaneity and suddenness, and the places in which it broke out (streets and blocks), workers generally expressed no solidarity. Here and there the intervention of teachers or local civic or cultural workers made it possible to discuss things, to “reason with” the young people’s rage. Discussions of the event certainly took place in workplaces and among families at home, but without any particular impact. One wonders to what extend the “family” institution still exists within the world of proletarians which is decomposing or imploding. We know that the number of single-parent families continues to increase, especially those headed by single mothers, for the most part unable to pay attention to the children thanks to the struggle for daily survival: long hours of work and transportation, debilitating fatigue. Macron’s speech demanding that families “control your children,” visibly had no relation to reality.

However, in the neighborhoods where the revolts broke out, people openly expressed a clear understanding of the situation and a critique of the police. The sense that the government lies, that the police are out of control and defend the interests of the well-off, is generally shared. People reject state violence, which is seen as violence against the working classes—even if at the same time people demand more from the state. A contradiction which reveals the present level of social consciousness, far from understanding that the repressive state is the only state possible in the present period of capitalism.

Groups thinking of themselves as “radical” saw these revolts as the basis of a “revolutionary” situation, which should be developed and “politicized.” Given the circumstances, in particular the repressive force of the modern state, to incite fourteen-year-olds to pursue this path of confrontation, ignoring their weaknesses, seems irresponsible. Much wiser were the words of a woman from a neighborhood association who, because she didn’t feel like having any arguments to calm the young people down, simply advised them: “Take care, don’t put yourself in danger.” Because they really are in danger, before and during the revolt. It is already a lot to take seriously the reasons for their anger.

Practically all the discourse of the old left, in contrast, demonstrates incomprehension of the events, a denial of the condition of this abandoned youth who “is angry at everyone, at the whole world,” as someone said. It is true that rage against the world does not necessarily lead to the idea that another world is possible. And there is a big difference from the social movement that preceded it, where this idea was present even if it could not be realized. The fact is that a social explosion without results or immediate perspectives is disturbing. Thus the renowned thinker Edgar Morin (one of the last nonconformist left intellectuals) who wrote about the events without touching on the material conditions—the daily violence—that provoked them invoked jihadism to suggest a nihilist quality. It’s an easy and perverse move to make, since the great majority of the young people involved are of immigrant origin: “Unlike the jihadists motivated by hatred for unbelievers, we see here the opposite of faith, a sort of nihilism. Beyond rage at the death of Nahel M. it seems that the intoxication of smashing everything and setting fires was lived as a dark festival by those who carried it out.”⁵ The threatening image of the (twelve to seventeen-year-old !?) “barbarian” thus discreetly replaced the figure of the “jihadist,” a discursive development that deserves some discussion. In any case, Morin concluded that “the events can be read in two different ways: as revealing the deep evil that is eating way at our society, or as an attack of adolescent madness, collective and transitory.” The “profound evil of our society” seems the correct reading to me.

To conclude, with a few notes on the attitude of political and union forces: Here things are at the moment somewhat confused. The near totality of political forces in France defend the liberal principles of capitalism. Only the new party France Insoumise takes a position against this orientation, with the weak support of several marginal Socialists (the majority have signed on to Macron’s neoliberal project) and the Greens, themselves divided between “realists” and “radicals.” In contrast, the decaying Communist Party, currently run by a neo-Stalinist clan, patriotic and productivist, holds demagogic ideas about “order” and the police, regarded as “order workers.” The political class as a whole is engaged in a ferocious struggle to put France Insoumise , now the principal enemy of the liberal consensus, beyond the pale. For the time being, this party has been behaving in a rather dignified way within bourgeois politics: it has defended the young arrestees and demanded a “democratic reconstruction” (?) of the police. That it asked angry young people not to destroy social goods (schools, social centers, libraries, health centers, public transportation) without mentioning the attacks on the police and their buildings has been very badly taken by other political organizations. This might explain, in part thanks to electoralist demagoguery, why they are far from power. What would they do if they were in the government? There is also the fact that this new party is composed of people coming from civil society, militants involved in the recent struggles, neighborhood activists. It is a party motivated by the strong feeling of social conflict that has been at work in France for years. However, even given young people’s disgust for politics, it is likely that this attitude will be rewarded in the next elections. The unions have also been prudent in their reactions. The biggest ones (CFDT, CGT) and the more combative one (SUD) did not condemn the youth; they timidly tried to establish links with their revolt and the general social situation.

A bit of sociological information gives us something to think about: comparing the locations of these revolts with those of demonstrations against the pension “reform” shows an overlap, particularly in the small provincial cities. We can at the very least conclude that the atmosphere of social revolt currently deep-rooted in French society has reached the young people excluded from it. Their need to fight against social injustice, against injustice in general, is an idea whose time has come. Like the recognition that the government lies and that we can’t expect it to improve the situation of the weakest members of society. We should not forget that the recent struggles of the Gilets Jaunes and their insurrectionary spirit remain alive. Everything is there: everything is present, in the memory of the moment.

We have to see what comes next, for better and for worse. The general situation will not be stabilized, austerity will increasingly affect the working classes, the exclusion of the young will continue and even be more severe. The forms of political representation will continue to discredit themselves, parliamentary democracy will take more authoritarian forms. Other events, movements, struggles will come. History goes on.

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Written by Charles Reeve

Source: Brooklyn Rail

See Charles Reeve, “Letter from Paris”, https://brooklynrail.org/2023/04/field-notes/Letter-From-Paris-1
In 2005 revolts in French banlieues broke out on October 27 in response to the deaths of two adolescents, electrocuted within a power installation while attempting to escape a police patrol.
The mayor of Grigny, L’Humanité, June 30, 2023.
Figures from the Ministry of the Interior, July 5, 2023.
Edgar Morin, “La crise française doit être située dans la complexité d’une polycrise mondiale,” Le Monde, July 29 2023.

The post France: A Movement Ends, An Explosion of Rage appeared first on Void Network.

BLACK VESTS- France arrests 21 after hundreds of African migrants occupy Pantheon

crystalzero72 — Mon, 15 Jul 2019 13:22:26 +0000

Text by:NEWS WIRES

France on Saturday detained 21 African migrants who surged into the Pantheon in Paris to push their claims for regularised status, police said.

The 21 will be held pending investigation into potentially “violating legislation on foreigners,” the local prefecture said.

One demonstrator was also detained on a charge of violent behaviour against a police officer and was due to face a magistrate Sunday, the Paris prosecutor said.

A small crowd gathered outside the police commissariat in Paris’ fifth district where the migrants were detained. Some brandished placards urging the authorities to “free the gilets noirs (black vests)” and “police racists,” according to an AFP photographer.

The “Black Vests” is a Paris-based migrant association that takes its name from the “yellow vest” anti-government protest movement.

French authorities had arrested 37 people on Friday after around 700 undocumented migrants stormed the Pantheon, the final resting place of France’s greatest non-military luminaries including the writers Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Emile Zola.

In a statement Friday, the Black Vest protesters said they wanted “papers and housing for everyone”, describing themselves as “the undocumented, the voiceless and the faceless of the French Republic”.

They also demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe.

After the migrants were Friday brought out of the Pantheon Philippe tweeted the need to respect “the rule of law which means respect for the rules that apply to the right to remain, respect for public monuments and for the memory they represent”.

The “Black Vests” are known for staging headline-grabbing protests in support of the undocumented.

In June, they briefly occupied the headquarters of the Paris-based catering and property Elior Group and in May its activists occupied a terminal at the city’s Charles De Gaulle airport against “Air France’s collaboration” in the deportation of undocumented migrants.

(AFP)

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source: https://www.france24.com/en/

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Τα κίτρινα γιλέκα πίσω απ’ τους καπνούς των πυρομαχικών του γαλλικού κράτους- Της Μυρτώς Ράις

sissydou — Tue, 19 Feb 2019 09:29:09 +0000

Τι συμβαίνει λοιπόν στη Γαλλία; Ποιοι είναι αυτοί που φόρεσαν το φωσφορίζον κίτρινο γιλέκο τους και κατεβαίνουν στους δρόμους επί τρεις μήνες; Τι είναι αυτό το κίνημα που όχι μόνο δεν υποχωρεί, αλλά ριζοσπαστικοποιείται και έχει επανεφεύρει τον τρόπο κινητοποίησης; Από τις 17 Νοεμβρίου 2018, που πρωτοεμφανίστηκαν, ως τις 16 Φεβρουαρίου 2019, που γράφονται οι γραμμές αυτές, τα κίτρινα γιλέκα μετρούν 14 πράξεις (κάθε σαββατιάτικη κινητοποίηση είναι μια νέα πράξη, ίδιας αρίθμησης με αυτήν των κλασικών θεατρικών έργων) κι ένα ταυτόσημο ενδυματολογικό στοιχείο (το διακριτικό γιλέκο των αυτοκινητιστών) τους βγάζει επιτέλους από την αφάνεια. Χωρίς ζεν πρεμιέ, χωρίς σκηνοθέτες, χωρίς έτοιμες ρεπλίκες, και με τους βασιλείς στα θεωρεία να κοιτούν, αφ’ υψηλού μεν τρέμοντας δε, την έκβαση της επαναφοράς ενός έργου που μάλλον δεν θα όφειλε να είναι τόσο αυτοσχεδιαστικό όσο οι προηγούμενες ιστορικές εκδοχές του…

Το κείμενο που ακολουθεί δεν γράφτηκε από κάποια ειδική ή έστω επίδοξη κιτρινο-γιλεκολόγο -αν και οι τίτλοι αρκούν μερικές φορές για να νομιμοποιήσουν το λόγο. Γράφτηκε με την εμπειρία και την ενσυναίσθηση κάποιας που έχει ζήσει πολλά χρόνια στη γαλλική πρωτεύουσα. Επιχειρεί να θέσει ή να ξαναθέσει τα βασικά ερωτήματα, να απαντήσει σε ορισμένα κλισέ, να βάλει τα πράγματα σ’ ένα ευρύτερο πλαίσιο.

Ας θυμηθούμε καταρχήν πώς ξεκίνησαν όλ’ αυτά. Το Σεπτέμβριο 2018, η κυβέρνηση ανακοινώνει την αύξηση, από το νέο έτος, του φόρου καυσίμων κατά 11,5%. Μετά από μια σειρά μέτρων που συνεχίζουν τη διάλυση του κοινωνικού κράτους, κάνοντας ταυτόχρονα δώρα στους πλουσιότατουςⁱ, ο νέος αυτός φόρος πλασάρεται ως «οικολογικός». Η αντίδραση είναι άμεση και έρχεται από εκείνους που ουσιαστικά θα τον επωμιστούν: την ήδη φτωχοποιημένη μεσαία τάξη, και δη την επαρχία, όπου η χρήση του ιδιωτικού αυτοκινήτου δεν είναι επιλογή, αλλά ανάγκη. Οι γραμμές των τοπικών τρένων έχουν κλείσει και εξακολουθούν να κλείνουν η μια μετά την άλλη. Οι κάτοικοι της επαρχίας είναι υποχρεωμένοι να παίρνουν το αυτοκίνητό τους για να πάνε στη δουλειά που συχνά απέχει χιλιόμετρα από το σπίτι τους, για να μεταφέρουν τα παιδιά τους στο σχολείο, ακόμα και για να αγοράσουν ψωμί. Είναι λογικό εξάλλου για μια χώρα που πρωτοστατεί στην αυτοκινητοβιομηχανία να δημιουργεί τις προϋποθέσεις πώλησής τους!

Για πρώτη φορά, ένα κίνημα ξεκινά μαζικά από την επαρχεία. Τα κίτρινα γιλέκα δεν είναι ούτε οι φοιτητές του Μάη του ‘68 ή του κινήματος κατά της Πρώτης Σύμβασης Εργασίας το 2006, ούτε οι περιθωριοποιημένοι κάτοικοι των «υποβαθμισμένων προαστίων» που φλέγονταν το 2005. Είναι άνθρωποι για τους οποίους η εργασία είναι αξία, άνθρωποι που εργάζονται όσο κανονικά το επιτρέπει η «αγορά», που τα φέρνουν βόλτα ολοένα και πιο δύσκολα και που, με τον νέο φόρο, δεν θα έχουν πια την δυνατότητα να καλύψουν οικονομικά τις βασικές μετακινήσεις τους. Είναι, και το ξέρουν, η ραχοκοκαλιά της παραγωγής. Διαδηλώνοντας στην πολύ συμβολική λεωφόρο των Ηλυσίων Πεδίων, ενώ αρχικά πιστεύουν ότι θα εισακουστούν από τους κυβερνητικούς τους εκπροσώπους…

Η κυβέρνηση απαντά χαρακτηρίζοντάς τους οικολογικά ανίδεους και ασυνείδητους, ρίχνοντας λάδι στον θυμό που έχουν ήδη ανάψει οι επανειλημμένοι περιφρονητικοί και ταπεινωτικοί χαρακτηρισμοί του Μακρόν προς τα λαϊκά στρώματαⁱⁱ. Ωστόσο, το οικολογικό επιχείρημα βρίσκει απήχηση σε μια άλλη κινητοποίηση, της οποίας αφετηρία ήταν η παραίτηση, στις 28 Αυγούστου 2018, του υπουργού Οικολογικής Μετάβασης, Νικολά Υλό. Το δάκρυ που αυτός ο νεο-Κουστώ άφησε να κυλήσει στο τέλος της ομιλίας του κατά το τελετουργικό παράδοσης του Υπουργείου, και η ανησυχία που εξέφρασε για την κατάσταση του πλανήτη, άγγιξαν και θορύβησαν μια πιο εύπορη μάλλον μεσαία τάξη. Οι μηνιαίες πορείες «για την κλιματική αλλαγή» που είχαν οριστεί σε όλες τις πόλεις συνέκλιναν αυτόματα με τα, νεοσύστατα τότε, κίτρινα γιλέκα.

Η ανάφλεξη, όμως, καθώς και ο τρόπος κινητοποίησης, δεν ήταν τόσο απρόσμενη όσο ίσως μοιάζει. Ήδη από τις Όρθιες Νύχτες το 2016, και το κίνημα ενάντια στον νέο Εργασιακό νόμο (τον οποίο σχεδίασε ο ίδιος ο Μακρόν ως Υπουργός Οικονομικών του Ολάντ, απορρυθμίζοντας ακόμα περισσότερο το Εργασιακό Δίκαιο), συνέβαινε το εξής πρωτοφανές: στις διαδηλώσεις, τα συνδικάτα και οι αντιπροσωπείες των κομμάτων είχαν εξοστρακιστεί από την κεφαλή της πορείας. Την κεφαλή της πορείας είχαν πλέον καταλάβει τα black blocs βέβαια, αλλά και όποιο άτομο εγκατέλειπε αυθόρμητα και ανοργάνωτα τη θεσμοποιημένη νεκρώσιμη ακολουθία για να γίνει μέρος της κεφαλής της, του μόνου ζωντανού της κομματιού. Κατά (πρωτάκουστη) ομολογία ακόμα και της ίδιας της αστυνομίας, αυτή έφτασε να είναι αντίστοιχου μεγέθους με το υπόλοιπο «νεκρό» σώμα των συνδικάτων και των κομμάτων. Και η αποφασιστικότητά της ολοένα και εντεινόταν. Η αποθεσμοποίηση των επίσημων πολιτικών φορέων, η απόδραση από τα δεσμά τους, η ακύρωσή τους ήταν ήδη εν δράσει. Η συνείδηση ότι στο παιχνίδι της «διαπραγμάτευσης» και του «διαλόγου» συμμετέχουν μόνο όσοι τελικά το οδηγούν στο συμβιβασμό και την ήττα δεν ήταν απλώς κεκτημένη, αλλά είχε βρει διέξοδο και απάντηση μέσα στη νέα διεκδικητική μορφή της κεφαλής της πορείας. Η άρνηση των κίτρινων γιλέκων να εκπροσωπηθούν, να καπελωθούν από συνδικαλιστικούς ή κομματικούς φορείς, να διαπραγματευτούν με την εξουσία, ακόμα και η καχυποψία τους για την λέξη «πολιτική», είναι γέννημα της νέας αυτής μορφήςⁱⁱⁱ. Έχουν καταλάβει ότι η ζωή πάλλεται έξω από τους θεσμούς, ότι η απόδραση από τη θεσμοθετημένη πολιτική σφαίρα είναι προϋπόθεση για να επανασυνδεθούν με το πολιτικό.

Αφού λοιπόν απέδρασαν, τα κίτρινα γιλέκα οργανώνονται τοπικά και δρουν τοπικά. Με κύριο μέλημά τους την οριζοντιότητα και την άμεση δημοκρατία, σχηματίζουν τοπικές συνελεύσεις, καταλαμβάνουν τους πολυάριθμους κυκλικούς κόμβους των αυτοκινητοδρόμων, στήνουν οδοφράγματα, μπλοκάρουν τις εθνικές οδούς, τα λιμάνια, τα αεροδρόμια, τις πύλες των βιομηχανιών, τα σούπερ-μάρκετ. Ξέρουν ότι ο καπιταλισμός στηρίζεται στην κυκλοφορία των εμπορευμάτων, ότι το σύστημα δυσκολεύεται (και τελικά καταρρέει) εάν παρεμποδιστούν οι ροές. Μες στο κρύο του χειμώνα, στους κυκλικούς κόμβους αναβιώνει η ζεστασιά των ανθρώπινων δεσμών, φιλίες αναπτύσσονται, η αλληλεγγύη ισχυροποιείται. Στους τρεις αυτούς μήνες, έχουν καταφέρει εκείνο που οι επαγγελματίες της πολιτικής αδυνατούν να πετύχουν: την αλληλεγγύη εν μέσω διαφωνιών. Εάν ύστατος στόχος του καπιταλισμού είναι να πλήξει τις ανθρώπινες σχέσεις, αυτές ακριβώς, ως απόλυτο καταφύγιο και πανίσχυρο όπλο, επανασυνδέονται στους κατειλημμένους κυκλικούς κόμβους της Γαλλίας. Με έναυσμα το βίωμα αυτό, τα κίτρινα γιλέκα απευθύνθηκαν απευθείας στον πληθυσμό και κάλεσαν σε γενική απεργία αορίστου χρόνου. Τα εντελώς αποπροσανατολισμένα πλέον συνδικάτα δυσκολεύονται να ακολουθήσουν: ξέρουν να συσπειρώνονται ενάντια σε μεμονωμένα μέτρα, ο προβληματισμός όμως πάνω στη γενική κοινωνικοπολιτική κατάσταση, καρδιά της αναζήτησης των κίτρινων γιλέκων, μοιάζει να τους είναι άγνωστος. Αποτελούν προφανώς μέρος του προβλήματος.

Μαζί με την αποκαθήλωση των θεσμών και την επιστροφή των σχέσεων, μέσα από τις ρωγμές που υπέστη η γενική απομάκρυνση-απομόνωση, εκείνο το οποίο επίσης επανέρχεται είναι η αληθινή γλώσσα. Η οργουελική προφητεία έχει επιτελεστεί: ένα αόρατο χέρι έχει αφαιρέσει από το λεξιλόγιο τις αρνητικές λέξεις και τις έχει αντικαταστήσει με θετικές, οι οποίες μας απαγορεύουν να σκεφτούμε τον καπιταλισμό με τρόπο αρνητικό, μας απαγορεύουν δηλαδή να σκεφτούμε τις αντιφάσεις του. Πώς να δώσεις μάχη ενάντια στις μαζικές απολύσεις, όταν αυτές ονομάζονται πλέον «πλάνο για τη διατήρηση της εργασίας»; Πώς να εντοπίσεις την προπαγάνδα, όταν αυτή ονομάζεται «παιδαγωγική»; Οι τεχνοκράτες των think tanks κατασκεύασαν μια γλώσσα, και τα συστημικά ΜΜΕ την παπαγαλίζουν, που ονομάζει το μαύρο, άσπρο. Τα κίτρινα γιλέκα, βγαίνοντας από την αφάνεια και παίρνοντας δημόσια το λόγο, ξέθαψαν τις κλεμμένες λέξεις, τον πραγματικό κόσμο και τις αντιθέσεις του. Πρόκειται για μεγάλο βήμα.

Πέρα από τα συνολικά ζητήματα κοινωνικής, φορολογικής, εργασιακής, και οικολογικής δικαιοσύνης, τα κίτρινα γιλέκα θέτουν για πρώτη φορά με τόση ευκρίνεια το ζήτημα της «πραγματικής δημοκρατίας». Το πολιτικό σύστημα της 5^ηςΔημοκρατίας δεν φημίστηκε ποτέ για την αντιπροσωπευτικότητά του. Από το 2002, όπου ο Ζαν-Μαρί Λε Πεν εμφανίστηκε στο δεύτερο γύρο των προεδρικών εκλογών, οι Γάλλοι καλούνται συστηματικά να διαλέξουν ανάμεσα στο κακό και το χειρότερο. Όλο και λιγότεροι συμμετέχουν στο δίλημμα. Κυβερνώνται, και το ξέρουν, από έναν άνθρωπο ο οποίος στον πρώτο γύρο των εκλογών δύσκολα ξεπερνά το 30% των ψήφων (Ο Μακρόν πήρε μόλις 24%, το οποίο αντιστοιχεί σ’ ένα 10,5% πραγματικής στήριξης^iv), αλλά ο οποίος συγκεντρώνει την απόλυτη εξουσία. Ενδεικτικά, ας αναφέρουμε τα πιο αξιοπερίεργα του γαλλικού προεδρικού μοντέλου: ο Πρόεδρος της Δημοκρατίας, ως αρχηγός του στρατού, μπορεί να αποφασίσει πολεμική εισβολή χωρίς καν να ρωτήσει το κοινοβούλιο. Είναι εκείνος ο οποίος ορίζει τον πρωθυπουργό και την εκτελεστική εξουσία. Οι παλαίμαχοι (οι ηττημένοι δηλαδή) Πρόεδροι της Δημοκρατίας μπορούν να συνεχίσουν να ασκούν την πολιτική τους συμμετέχοντας στο συμβούλιο που ελέγχει τη συνταγματικότητα των νέων νόμων. Ο δε Μακρόν πέρασε τους περισσότερους νόμους ως πράξεις νομοθετικού περιεχομένου. Το σύστημα αυτό δεν βρίσκει πια νομιμοποίηση στις συνειδήσεις των κίτρινων γιλέκων, ειδικά από τη στιγμή που η αρχική τους προσδοκία να εισακουστούν έμεινε ανεκπλήρωτη, και με την συμβολή των ως τότε προσφιλών τους ΜΜΕ που ακατάπαυστα τους παρουσιάζουν ως «εχθρούς της δημοκρατίας». Η επιθυμία ανατροπής του συστήματος μπορεί να είναι μακριά, πάντως η αμφισβήτησή του γίνεται στην πορεία όλο και πιο ριζική. Το αίτημα εγκαθίδρυσης Δημοψηφίσματος με Πρωτοβουλία των Πολιτών (RIC) είναι η έκφραση της συνείδησής τους ότι η πολιτική εκπροσώπηση είναι τουλάχιστον ελλειμματική.

Το σύνθημα «Μακρόν παραιτήσου» αντήχησε ως και σε κάποιες αυλές δημοτικών σχολείων. Όπως και στον Μάη του ‘68, στους τοίχους των πόλεων διαβάζεται η ποίηση, το χιούμορ και οξυδέρκεια των εξεγερμένων. Η μοναρχοποίηση της εξουσίας είναι ίσως αυτό που για πρώτη φορά κλίνεται σε όλους τους τόνους: «…Ε, αν δεν έχουν πετρέλαιο, δώστε τους βιο-καύσιμα», «Τέλος η εποχή των βασιλιάδων», «Λιγότεροι βασιλιάδες, περισσότερες βασιλόπιτες», «Ζούμε για να πατήσουμε στα κεφάλια των βασιλιάδων»… Σε κατάσταση προφανούς πανικού, η μακρονική εξουσία από τη μια λανσάρει επικοινωνιακές επιχειρήσεις και από την άλλη ενεργοποιεί έναν άνευ προηγουμένου κατασταλτικό μηχανισμό. Ωστόσο, η τηλεοπτική εμφάνιση του Μακρόν και τα μέτρα που ανακοίνωσε ακυρώθηκαν εν τη γενέσει τους, η ανοιχτή επιστολή που απηύθυνε στο λαό δεν διαβάστηκε καν, και ο δήθεν δημόσιος διάλογος που εισήγαγε προκάλεσε την ειρωνεία των κίτρινων γιλέκων αφού, προκλητικά, δεν λάμβανε καν υπόψη τα αιτήματά τους. Η προεδρική «παιδαγωγική» και τα τεχνάσματα της επικοινωνίας δεν καταφέρνουν να κατευνάσουν. Οι μάσκες έχουν πέσει. Οι εικόνες καταστολής που κάνουν το γύρο των κοινωνικών δικτύων μόνο ολοκληρωτικό καθεστώς θυμίζουν. Κάθε Σάββατο, ελικόπτερα πετούν πάνω από τις πλατείες, αύρες και θωρακισμένα οργώνουν τους δρόμους και η χρήση όπλων που, απ’ όλες τις χώρες της Ευρώπης μόνο η Γαλλία επιτρέπει, έχει κανονικοποιηθεί. Δέκα χιλιάδες πλαστικές σφαίρες έχουν στοχεύσει τα σώματα των διαδηλωτών, χώρια τα δακρυγόνα και λοιπά πυρομαχικά, προκαλώντας περίπου χίλιους τραυματίες, ανοιγμένα κεφάλια, βγαλμένα μάτια, κομμένα χέρια… Οι συλλήψεις γίνονται πλέον «προληπτικά», οι φυλακισμένοι πληθαίνουν, ενώ μόλις ψηφίστηκε νόμος για να φιμώσει τους πάντες δια παντώς. Εάν η καταστολή δεν ήταν τέτοιας πολεμικής χροιάς, εάν δεν κινδύνευες να βγεις αόμματος ή ακρωτηριασμένος από τη διαδήλωση, η προσέλευση θα ήταν προφανώς μαζικότερη. Και ενώ τα συστημικά ΜΜΕ κραυγάζουν για τις σπασμένες βιτρίνες, η βία της αστυνομίας έχει αρχίσει να κλονίζει και τους ίδιους τους αστυνομικούς. Υποστηρίζοντας ότι η εξουσία έχει χάσει κάθε νομιμοποίηση και ότι ο Μακρόν πρέπει να παραιτηθεί, ο Φρεντερίκ Λορντόν, σε πρόσφατο άρθρο του, καταλήγει χαρακτηριστικά: «Ο Μακρόν θα μείνει στην ιστορία, είναι πλέον σίγουρο. Ως Μακρόν-ο-οφθαλμοβγάλτης ή Μακρόν-ο-χειροβομβίδας. Ίσως ως Μακρόν-το-ελικόπτερο. Είναι ευκταίο. Γιατί τώρα, πρέπει να φύγει»^v.

Η κρατική τρομοκρατία οξύνεται μέσα από την προβολή των ακροδεξιών στοιχείων ως ιδεολογικά κυρίαρχων, ενώ τελευταία αναδύεται ως και το συνωμοσιολογικό σκιάχτρο του «σκοτεινού εξωτερικού δακτύλου». Ειπώθηκε, πράγματι, ότι ανάμεσα στα κίτρινα γιλέκα υπάρχουν φασίστες, ότι πολλοί είναι ψηφοφόροι της Λε Πεν, ότι ορισμένα αιτήματά τους είναι κατά των μεταναστών. Το πραγματικό ερώτημα είναι: υπάρχει καλός και κακός λαός; Και έστω ότι οι ψηφοφόροι του Εθνικού Μετώπου είναι ο «κακός λαός», πού αλλού θα γίνουν οι διεργασίες για την ενδεχόμενη μετατόπισή του, αν όχι στο δρόμο, στα κινήματα και μέσα από την επαφή με τους άλλους; Εξάλλου, ποιος επί της ουσίας εκφασίζει τα πλήθη, αν όχι η κοινωνικά ρατσιστική πολιτική των κυβερνώντων; Ποιος, αν όχι η ρητορική του μίσους που με τον Μακρόν ξεπέρασε κάθε σύγχρονο προηγούμενο; Οι ψηφοφόροι της Λε Πεν είναι συχνά άνθρωποι της εργατικής τάξης, κάτοικοι των απο-βιομηχανοποιημένων περιοχών που η ανεργία έχει γονατίσει, απογοητευμένοι και εγκαταλελειμμένοι από την κοινοβουλευτική Αριστερά, αποπροσανατολισμένοι κι αυτοί σ’ έναν κατακερματισμένο κόσμο. Στους τρεις αυτούς μήνες, αποδεικνύεται ότι πράγματι στο δρόμο μετατοπίζονται οι ακροδεξιές τοποθετήσεις: τα κίτρινα γιλέκα στρέφονται ολοταχώς προς τα Αριστερά, κι ο λόγος τους γίνεται όλο και πιο ταξικά δομημένος. Μέσα από τις αλληλεπιδράσεις τους, συνειδητοποίησαν ότι δεν ταυτίζονται με τα ερωτήματα τα οποία θέτει η εξουσία ουσιαστικά για να περάσει τις διαχειριστικές της απαντήσεις. Δουλεύουν προς την κατεύθυνση της αλλαγής του ερωτήματος^vi. Να ένα ακόμα μεγάλο βήμα.

Τα γαλλικό κίνημα των κίτρινων γιλέκων είναι η απάντηση στον ορντολιμπεραλισμό ως επίσημης πλέον πολιτικής της Ευρώπης. Το 2005, το 55% των Γάλλων είχε πει «όχι» στο δημοψήφισμα για το Ευρωπαϊκό Σύνταγμα, έχοντας απόλυτα αντιληφθεί τι αυτό συνεπαγόταν. Ο Σαρκοζί, λίγο αργότερα, έκανε το «όχι», «ναι». Εξόφθαλμα τα κράτη διαλύονται, τα δικαιώματα (πλέον και τα συνταγματικά) καταπατούνται, το κεφάλαιο χαίρει της πλέον ανερυθρίαστης ανομίας, ενώ παράλληλα υποστηρίζονται όλες τις παραλλαγές του μαζι-τα-φάγαμε. Δεκατέσσερα χρόνια μετά το «όχι» εκείνο, τα κίτρινα γιλέκα επιβεβαιώνουν την ορθότητα των τότε φόβων και σηματοδοτούν μια ιστορική καμπή στον τρόπο πάλης. Μαζί τους, αναβιώνει η ταξική συνείδηση, ενσαρκώνεται η δυνατότητα εξέγερσης, και σκιαγραφείται η σύγχρονη μορφή της. Τα κίτρινα γιλέκα, κι εμείς μαζί τους, ζητάμε το τέλος του κόσμου τους.

Μυρτώ Ράις

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ⁱΗ κατάργηση από τον Μακρόν του Φόρου Αλληλεγγύης στην Περιουσία (ISF) βιώθηκε πολύ τραυματικά από πολύ μεγάλη μερίδα των Γάλλων. Η επιστροφή του είναι πάγιο αίτημα των κίτρινων γιλέκων.

ⁱⁱΜε τη χαρακτηριστική έπαρση του μονάρχη και με την βιαιότητα του τραπεζικού, ο Μακρόν έχει χαρακτηρίσει τους Γάλλους «τεμπέληδες», «κυνικούς», «αλκοολικούς», «αγράμματους», «οπισθοδρομικοὐς Γαλάτες», έχει φιλοσοφήσει παρατηρώντας ότι «ένας σταθμός τρένου είναι ο χώρος όπου συναντάς ανθρώπους επιτυχημένους και ανθρώπους που δεν είναι τίποτα», έχει εκτιμήσει ότι αρκεί «να περάσεις το δρόμο απέναντι για να βρεις δουλειά», είχε προσεγγίσει την κοινωνική πολιτική ως κάτι που «κοστίζει ένα κάρο φράγκα». Το γνωστό ζευγάρι κοινωνιολόγων Pinçon-Charlot, στο βιβλίο Ο πρόεδρος των υπερ-πλουσίων, που πρόσφατα του αφιέρωσαν, τον περιγράφουν ως «αρχηγό του κεφαλαίου και πρωτεργάτη του ταξικού πολέμου».

ⁱⁱⁱΕίναι χαρακτηριστικό ότι, ενόψει των επικείμενων ευρωεκλογών και κατόπιν ενθάρρυνσης κυβερνητικών κύκλων, έχουν κάνει την εμφάνισή τους δύο εκλογικές λίστες, οι οποίες διεκδικούν την ετικέτα των κίτρινων γιλέκων και τις οποίες η βάση έχει ρητά αποκηρύξει: τόσο τα κίτρινα γιλέκα όσο και ο Μακρόν ξέρουν καλά ότι το να μπουν στο θεσμοποιημένο πολιτικό παιχνίδι συνεπάγεται την εξουδετέρωσή τους.

^ivΚάνοντας την αναγωγή του 79% της συμμετοχής και του 45% της «χρήσιμης ψήφου», το 24,1% του πρώτου γύρου γίνεται 10,5%. Πηγή: OpinionWay

http://opinionlab.opinion-way.com/dokumenty/OpinionWay-SondageJourduVote-Tour1Presidentielle201723avril2017.pdf

^vhttps://blog.mondediplo.net/il-est-alle-trop-loin-il-doit-partir

^vi Πρόκειται για συμπέρασμα της έρευνας πεδίου του κοινωνιολόγου Μιχάλη Λιανού https://lundi.am/UNE-POLITIQUE-EXPERIENTIELLE-II-Les-gilets-jaunes-en-tant-que-peuple-pensant

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πηγή: Ενθέματα / Αυγή

ΔΙΑΒΑΣΤΕ ΕΠΙΣΗΣ:

VOID NETWORK- Signs of the times / Images from the future: Thoughts on the “yellow vests” and the revolt in France.

The post Τα κίτρινα γιλέκα πίσω απ’ τους καπνούς των πυρομαχικών του γαλλικού κράτους- Της Μυρτώς Ράις appeared first on Void Network.

VOID NETWORK- Signs of the times / Images from the future: Thoughts on the “yellow vests” and the revolt in France.

crystalzero72 — Wed, 02 Jan 2019 14:16:06 +0000

Almost two months after their emergence the yellow vests are still here! The movement started attracting international attention and more extensive coverage after the events that took place on Saturday 1/12. This was expectable, since no matter what our political judgment may turn out to be, we are faced with a nationwide revolt, which has not simply prompted thoughts for a state of emergency, but led to its informal implementation, through the extensive police measures imposed during the 8/12 demonstrations. Among the numerous texts written there are the typical patronizing advices coming from “responsible” commentators, directed mainly towards the “moderate” wings of the movement. There is also a lot of idealization and wishful projection, expressing the need to see “something happening” as a leverage to alarming phenomena, notably the rise of the far-right in many parts of the world. On the other hand, as with all other recent movements, the anti-austerity movement in Greece being a case in point, the yellow vests have become the target of virulent critiques coming from an ultra-left and “class” perspective. Before even the movement has developed its full élan, a veritable compulsion has led some to declare that the “yellow vests” are not what they should be based on some preconceived notion of what a “truly” radical movement must look like. To be sure, the content of the critiques varies. Some see only “spectacle” and not the invasion of the masses into its center, as if it is possible today to have a popular movement that is not captured in massively transmitted images.

Other criticisms confuse a theoretical thesis for a political standpoint, waiting for the famous contradiction between “capital and labor” to go out in the streets in pure form, in a class-struggle devoid of grey areas. Alongside come the expected accusations of being “petty-bourgeois” and “inter-classist”, as if it is possible to have a mass uprising which is not heterogeneous or as if it is impossible to have problems, demands and claims which may not be strictly “proletariat” but nonetheless concern an important part of the working class.

Even more so today, where the generalization of phenomena like indebtedness and precarity have created a wide gamut of common affects and impasses among the middle and lower stratums of capitalist social formations. There are of course critiques which are sensible and insightful, highlighting real contradictions and problems, like the presence of far-right groups, which is enabled by some identifiable features of the movement. It is also astutely stressed that despite the intensity of riots, on the level of political discourse, there is no critique or questioning of the state as the guarantor of right and wellbeing, nor of capital as a social relation. Having said that, it needs to be stressed that the “populist” rhetoric about privileged elites and a disenfranchised people or about the division between rich and poor is not “wrong” in some descriptive sense, that is why after all it has proved time and again successful as a discursive representation of social divisions. The problem with this type of discourse rather lies on the analytical and political level, that it does not pose the issue of the relations and forms that constitute the material presupposition of the separation between people/elite and rich/poor. Here though is the real quandary: even if they are correct, the externality of these critiques relative to the struggles and what is at stake for those who participate in them, reveals the weakness of those who do the criticism to have any meaningful influence in mass movements. Thus, the critique acquires a two-way direction, returning to its source. In fact, the problem does not concern only the ultra-left, but spreads throughout the left hemisphere, since what has become manifest once again is the weakness of the Left and of Anarchy to exercise real hegemony, that is, to affect (political) culture.

To be sure, it is necessary here to move beyond a prescriptive standpoint and try to understand this weakness as a historical phenomenon. Nonetheless, if a small leftward turn can be traced, it has partly to do with the fact that leftists and anarchists did participate in the yellow vests instead of simply passing judgments on them. Regardless how we would like things to be, the fact that red and black flags have not been waving in the thousands does not make the yellow vests movement reactionary by default.
The same is true for the presence of national flags, so much so of the French flag which concentrates multiple and conflicting significations and meanings. This is not to say that the presence of national symbols is not potentially problematic, especially in the sense that it tends to assert the division between native citizens and foreigners upon which the modern national state rests. Having said that, the presence of xenophobic elements must not be overstressed. Neither the identity nor most of the demands and claims of the movement are xenophobic or nationalist. Everyone can on principle become a yellow vest, which is why it has been relatively easy for different social groups to flow into the movement. Moreover, the latter addresses issues which concern many people regardless of their ethnic identity. For is there a wage earner that does not want a better wage or anyone living in a given community who would not benefit from greater access to decision making?

It is such economic and political demands and aspirations pertaining to social justice and civic recognition that provide the material ground for an international/polyethnic unity on a mass scale, and without which calls for such unity remain evocative but idealistic declarations of what should happen. Even if from our perspective such demands and aspirations are not enough, radicalization can only happen as a dialectical process immanent to the movement.

The yellow vests are a popular uprising – plebeian is an equally valid term – in the full sense of the term: a representative part of “the people” have risen against a life that becomes increasingly difficult to live. Obviously, at a first level, the expectations and demands of the movement cannot but express the reality of the people who compose it, since this very same reality is determined by an established economy of desire. Indeed, the fact that – despite the extensive mechanisms of consensus and integration that exist in modern capitalist societies – social experience is never unitary, nor even within the same class, helps explain the plurality of desiring flows permeating the movement, thus also its inner tensions and contradictions. Yet even if the yellow vests remain for the most part attached to a social reality against which they rebel but beyond which they cannot see, the core claims and aspirations of the movement are not reactionary. Nor has the far-right been able to acquire hegemony, no matter if after the end of the movement Le Pen or other rightwing groups will be able to draw votes from it. Moreover, as long as they exist social movements are by definition not static. Apart from the already manifested and noteworthy capacity for mass scale, horizontal direct action, there has been also a marked radicalization as well as a move towards a more “leftwing” direction.

Where can the whole thing lead to? It cannot go unnoticed that the movement has forced Macron, self-styled as a hard-poised reformer who will “not back down”, to make concessions and (perhaps even more crucially) recognize the movement and its concerns. On the other hand, there are signs of fatigue and demassification and it is possible that the yellow vests have started encountering the same limits that other movements in the recent cycle of struggles have stumbled upon. We cannot fail to notice especially that no organs and institutions capable of acting as “dual power” have emerged. Thus, while their persistent refusal to enter negotiations and be represented is a strength of the movement and a source of potential, the lack of representative organs leads to an impasse, since the current structures of representation are not challenged on the level of an alternative. Again, balancing between critical comprehension and a prescriptive standpoint is the key for an effective political intervention. We cannot of course simply will a movement to follow our desired course and if the revolt in France shows something, just like the anti austerity movement in Greece (not to speak of the much more minoritarian movements in other western countries), is that a revolution is not in the ordre du jour. Having said that, the transformation of social relations is a macro-historical process, which passes though failed expectations, mass unrest and uprisings of wide intensity and extensity.

The yellow vests are such an uprising. In fact, they have a crucial characteristic, which adds to their significance: their class composition is nothing less than the social backbone of contemporary capitalist societies. To this extent, they indicate the depth of the current crisis. Equally important, the movement has managed to reveal the non-correspondence between a people and its state/juridical representation. This has further verified that the greatest threat for a state is always its population. It follows that although in the short-term the yellow vests may not be the harbingers of spring, or worse they may be the spasms of a long winter, they nonetheless foretell of a possible revolutionary outbreak. After all, no matter what the content of a revolution may be, it will concern much more than the actions of small and ideologically compact groups. Not because everything that is of mass scale is necessarily positive and experiments on the molecular level irrelevant, far from it. But it is politically absurd to advocate revolution and dismiss mass movements that fight for an improvement of life and also have horizontal/egalitarian qualities and conversely valorize small and ideologically homogeneous spaces as prefigurations of a grand communist future. Instead of an either/or logic, the question should be how the latter political milieus can positively contribute on the former movements. Nor can revolutionary change be reduced to a wave of irregular attacks from “the excluded”, as fantasized by romantic representations of the marginalized proletariat living in the ghettos, banlieues and slums of the modern metropolis. While, the latter groups obviously must be empowered, we simply cannot talk seriously about a social transformation of wide scale – and in face of what takes place but also of what is coming is there anything less needed? – that does not embrace broad segments of the middle and working classes. It is from this viewpoint that we insist that the yellow vests, both in what they have done as well as in all those things that they could (not) have done, are not only a sign of the times but an image of an uncertain future which germinates with hope.

In all events, from a distance, every judgment, praise and critique are easy. However, because many of us have found ourselves in a similar position, the question faced by the politicized minorities that still raise red and black flags remains: can we participate in something that exceeds us, in struggles that pose the problem of organization and justice on the level of a historical stake, to find ourselves next to people that we do not agree nor identify with, to risk, to err, to be disappointed? If the answer is negative, we can verbalize about revolution, but we will not be one of its productive vectors.

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Text by Void Circle – political assembly of Void Network / member of Anarchist federation in Greece

VOID NETWORK (Theory, Utopia, Empathy, Ephemeral Arts) https://voidnetwork.gr

The post VOID NETWORK- Signs of the times / Images from the future: Thoughts on the “yellow vests” and the revolt in France. appeared first on Void Network.

Τρέξε, κίτρινο γιλέκο, ο παλιός κόσμος είναι πίσω σου!- Yannis Youlountas

sissydou — Thu, 20 Dec 2018 23:38:02 +0000

Αλλάζει πραγματικά μορφή το κίνημα των κίτρινων γιλέκων και απελευθερώνεται από την άκρα δεξιά που προσπαθούσε να το εκμεταλλευτεί από την αρχή; Υπό ποιές προϋποθέσεις μπορεί το κίνημα να εξαπλωθεί και να φέρει τη ρήξη με κάθε πολιτική αντιπροσώπευση; Και εάν τελικά έπεφτε ο Μακρόν, ποιός θα ήταν ο άσος στο μανίκι του κεφαλαίου και ποιός ο καλύτερος τρόπος για να τον εμποδίσουμε;

ΤΡΕΞΕ, ΚΙΤΡΙΝΟ ΓΙΛΕΚΟ, Ο ΠΑΛΙΟΣ ΚΟΣΜΟΣ ΕΙΝΑΙ ΠΙΣΩ ΣΟΥ!

Εδώ και μερικές ημέρες, το ετερογενές κίνημα των κίτρινων γιλέκων μοιάζει να εξελίσσεται και να «ριζοσπαστικοποιείται» (αναπαράγοντας τα εκφοβιστικά λόγια των καθεστωτικών μέσων).

Συγκεκριμένα, παρατηρούνται τα εξής:
– μια όλο και μεγαλύτερη αποφασιστικότητα.
– μια αρκετά γενικευμένη αποδοκιμασία οποιωνδήποτε προσπαθειών πολιτικής οικειοποίησης.
– διεκδικήσεις που μπορεί να προήλθαν από το ένα και μοναδικό θέμα των φόρων, αλλά τώρα παίρνουν διάφορες προεκτάσεις, συχνά έως και την πλήρη απόρριψη του πολιτικού συστήματος, και όχι μόνο του Μακρόν.
– τρόποι δράσης που ξεφεύγουν επιτέλους από μέρη χωρίς ενδιαφέρον – εάν εξαιρέσουμε τα λίγα λόγια που ανταλλάσσονται με πολλούς περαστικούς – όπως είναι τα σταυροδρόμια.
– μια όλο και μαζικότερη άρνηση κάθε «πολιτικής αντιπροσώπευσης», όποια κι αν είναι αυτή, μια άρνηση που ακόμα παραμένει πολύ αόριστη όσον αφορά τις συνέπειές της, χωρίς ιστορικό ή ιδεολογικό σημείο αναφοράς, αλλά αφήνει να υποφώσκει μια επιθυμία που μόλις διακρίνεται δειλά, να διαβεί το ρουβίκωνα της άμεσης δημοκρατίας.

Ωστόσο, το κίνημα παραμένει ακόμα πολύ συγκεχυμένο, έως και αντιφατικό μέσα σε έναν κυκεώνα εργοδοτικών και μισθοδοτικών διεκδικήσεων. Δεν μιλά για πάλη των τάξεων, αλλά εκφράζει ένα «φτάνει πια» ενάντια στους πλουσιότερους και ο λόγος είναι απλός: μεταξύ των κίτρινων γιλέκων βρίσκονται και μικρά αφεντικά, βιοτέχνες και έμποροι που τα έχουν με άλλα αφεντικά, πιο μεγάλα και πιο ισχυρά από τους ίδιους. Η λέξη οικονομικά αντικαθιστά τη λέξη καπιταλισμός, η οποία κρίθηκε ότι θα προκαλούσε πολλές αντιπαραθέσεις με βάση την κοινωνιολογία του κινήματος. Σίγουρα, φαίνεται να μπαίνουν στο στόχαστρο όλοι οι επαγγελματίες πολιτικοί οι οποίοι και απωθήθηκαν παντελώς (εκλεγμένοι εκδιώχθηκαν σε πολλές πόλεις ενώ άλλοι έγιναν δεκτοί με την προϋπόθεση να βγάλουν τις τρίχρωμες κορδέλες του δημάρχου ή του βουλευτή, όπως στην πόλη Μαρτίγκ για παράδειγμα). Οι οπαδοί ωστόσο της Μαρίν Λεπέν φαίνεται να είναι πολλοί σε ορισμένες περιφέρειες, κυρίως στη βόρεια και ανατολική Γαλλία, χωρίς απαραίτητα να φανερώνονται. Προκύπτει λοιπόν ένα ερώτημα: μπορούν οι πρώην φηφοφόροι της Λεπέν, λιγότερο πολιτικοποιημένοι, να εξελιχθούν πραγματικά με τρόπο θετικό μέσα από την επαφή με άλλους εξεγερμένους στο πεδίο δράσης, όπως διατείνονται ορισμένοι παρατηρητές, ή υπάρχει κίνδυνος να συμβεί το αντίθετο, με άλλα λόγια να επιτύχει η άκρα δεξιά ένα ακόμα ορόσημο όσον αφορά τη διείσδυσή της στους αγώνες και την οικειοποίησή τους;

Ένα ακόμα σημαντικό πρόβλημα επιτείνει αυτό το δίλημμα: η πλειοψηφία των αρχηγών της άκρας δεξιάς, αν και εύκολα αναγνωρίσιμοι, διώχνονται σε σπάνιες μόνο περιπτώσεις από τις συγκεντρώσεις, με εξαίρεση κάποιες παράκτιες πόλεις στην νότια και τη δυτική Γαλλία. Το Σάββατο στο Παρίσι, ο φασίστας Ivan de Benedetti και η συμμορία του δεν απομακρύνθηκαν δυστυχώς από τα κίτρινα γιλέκα, αλλά από μια αντιφασιστική κινητοποίηση. Το αποτέλεσμα: η πλειοψηφία των διασημοτήτων της άκρας δεξιάς στη Γαλλία συνεχίζουν να συγχρωτίζονται με το πλήθος των εξεγερμένων, λίγο ως πολύ παντού, με τη δικαιολογία ότι το κίνημα είναι «απολιτικό» και αυτό δεν δηλώνει τίποτα καλό. Παρομοίως, εάν ο ρατσισμός και η ομοφοβία πολεμώνται από ορισμένες τοπικές συλλογικότητες κίτρινων γιλέκων, δεν συμβαίνει το ίδιο παντού, φτάνοντας στο σημείο να βλέπουμε εμετικά συνθήματα σε πλακάτ να βρομίζουν με την παρουσία τους τα στραυροδρόμια και εύλογα το κίνημα να χάνει την υπόληψή του στα μάτια μιας μερίδας έμπειρων αγωνιστών που αρνούνται να συνταχθούν με μια τέτοια σύγχυση.

Κίτρινο γιλέκο, εάν θέλεις να ανοίξεις τον αγώνα σου, πέταξε πρώτα ό,τι μας αηδιάζει.

Αυτό συνδέεται με μια άλλη πηγή ανησυχίας που δεν αφορά μόνο το κίνημα, αλλά αυτό για το οποίο μας προετοιμάζει το κεφάλαιο σε περίπτωση πτώσης του Μακρόν. Ο άσος στο μανίκι του περιμένει ήδη στα παρασκήνια. Όπως συμβαίνει και εδώ και έναν αιώνα στην Ευρώπη. Πάντα εκεί, ετοιμοπόλεμος να επέμβει, μόλις το πολιτικό καθεστώς που έχει χτιστεί πάνω σε αυταπάτες δείξει σημάδια αποσταθεροποίησης. Πάντα έτοιμος, παραμονεύοντας, επιμελώς ενσωματωμένος από τα καθεστωτικά μέσα στα τηλεοπτικά πλατό εδώ και χρόνια, από εκμπομπές πληροφόρησης έως τοκ σόου. Αυτός ο άσος στο μανίκι του κεφαλαίου ήταν πάντα η άκρα δεξιά.

Αδύνατο; Δεν το πιστεύετε; Ξαναανοίξτε τα βιβλία ιστορίας σας, δείτε τι βγαίνει από το καπέλο σήμερα από τη μια άκρη του κόσμου στην άλλη και θυμηθείτε τι συμβαίνει εδώ και αρκετές δεκαετίες στη Γαλλία, κυρίως κατά το 2001-2002 ή μετά τις δολοφονίες στο Charlie Hebdo. Το κόμμα της Μαρίν Λεπέν ήρθε πρώτο στη Γαλλία και περιμένει την ώρα του.

Όταν οι μαριονέτες του κεφαλαίου (κέντρο, αριστερά, ή δεξιά) δεν θα είναι σε θέση να συνεχίσουν το θέαμα των διαφωνιών τους στους αγώνες στο δρόμο, μια εξουσιαστική πολιτική αψίδα θα βγει σίγουρα στο προσκήνιο, με τον ένα ή τον με άλλο τρόπο, για να αποφευχθεί το μοιραίο. Μια πολιτική αψίδα γύρω από τη Μαρίν Λεπέν και ορισμένους συνωμότες (αναμφίβολα κάποιες προσωπικότητες των μέσων, παλιοί τραγουδιστές, σωβινιστές αθλητές και πολύ χυδαίοι γελοιογράφοι, καθώς και ένας αρχισυντάκτης για να καθησυχάζει τους δημοσιογράφους και τους αναγνώστες τους, μια τσιμπιά πολιτικών ανεμοδούρων της δεξιάς και ίσως και της αριστεράς, μια γερή κουταλιά κάθε είδους υπερμάχων της εθνικής κυριαρχίας θα προσκληθούν στη φιέστα για να απαλύνουν τα χαρακτηριστικά της νέας κυβέρνησης και φυσικά μια μεγάλη χούφτα στρατιωτικών και αστυνομικών σε καίριες θέσεις). Μια πολιτική αψίδα που θα συγροτηθεί τόσο για να «αποκαταστήσει την τάξη» (με πολύ απολυταρχικό τρόπο) όσο και για να προσποιηθεί ότι «ικανοποιούνται ορισμένες διεκδικήσεις» των κίτρινων γιλέκων (όσες δεν ενοχλούν πολύ το κεφάλαιο φυσικά, γιατί η αστή Μαρίν Λεπέν έχει ήδη δώσει προ πολλού όλες τις απαραίτητες υποσχέσεις, θυμίζοντας για παράδειγμα ότι δεν θα αυξήσει τον κατώτατο μισθό και ότι θα κρατήσει την ίδια γραμμή όσον αφορά τις περισσότερες γεωπολιτικές θέσεις του γαλλικού κράτους).
Με λίγα λόγια, εάν σήμερα είμαστε κοντά σε μια επαναστατική συνθήκη –της οποίας τα κύρια χαρακτηριστικά είναι η μαζική θέληση για κατάλυση της εξουσίας και αλλαγή του πολιτικού συστήματος– είμαστε επίσης επικίνδυνα κοντά σε μια άφιξη της άκρας δεξιάς, μια ανάδυσή της μέσα από τη μακρά πορεία ανόδου της στη Γαλλία με τη συναίνεση του κεφαλαίου και των μέσων του, μέσα σε ένα παγκόσμιο κλίμα απολυταρχικής σκλήρυνσης της πολιτικής εξουσίας.

Όταν ολόκληρος ο κόσμος γίνεται φασιστικός, αργά ή γρήγορα δεν θα μπορέσει δυστυχώς να το αποφύγει και η Γαλλία.

Άσκοπο να επεκταθούμε στις συνέπειες: όντας το τελικό στάδιο του καπιταλισμού, ο φασισμός δεν διστάζει ποτέ να εξαλείφει ή να εξουδετερώνει μαζικά τους αντιπάλους του και κάποιες κατηγορίες αποδιοπομπαίων τράγων. Ο φασισμός δεν είναι τίποτα άλλο παρά η αυστηρότερη έκφανση μιας ήδη απολυταρχικής κοινωνίας που γίνεται ακόμα πιο απολυταρχική. Είναι η μετάλλαξη του καπιταλισμού σε καιρούς κρίσης και όχι η λύση στην κρίση. Ο φασισμός είναι ένα προσωρινό αδιέξοδο στο οποίο μας σπρώχνει το κεφάλαιο όταν ανησυχεί.

Η μόνη μας ευκαιρία να αποφύγουμε τη δραματική αυτή εξέλιξη έγκειται στην απόρριψη κάθε πολιτικής αντιπροσώπευσης, που σήμερα βρίσκει όλο και περισσότερα ευήκοα ώτα. Με άλλα λόγια, να απορρίψουμε τους κανόνες του παιχνιδιού, να βγούμε από τα επιβεβλημένα πλαίσια, να απειθαρχούμε, να σαμποτάρουμε, να μπλοκάρουμε τα πάντα… και συγρόνως, να πληθύνουν οι λαϊκές συνελεύσεις («λαϊκές» κατά την έννοια της Λουίζ Μισέλ και του Φερνάν Πελουτιέ, βέβαια), χωρίς άλλες εντολές παρά μόνο προτάγματα, συνοπτικά και οποιαδήποτε στιγμή ανακαλέσιμα. Να απελευθερωθεί το κοινωνικό φαντασιακό και να μη θελήσουμε ποτέ να γυρίσουμε προς τα πίσω. Να προκαλέσουμε την επιθυμία να αναζητήσουμε μαζί άλλους τρόπους διαβίωσης και κοινής οργάνωσης. Να κάνουμε κοινή τη γνώση και τον πλούτο μας. Να σκεφτόμαστε τις δράσεις μας και να κάνουμε πράξη τις σκέψεις μας. Να προωθούμε γύρω μας την έξαψη που προκαλείται από την αλλαγή εποχής και τη δημιουργία ενός «κοινού χώρου», όταν η εξουσία δε σταματά να προξενεί φόβο και απομόνωση για να μας κάνει να πέσουμε πιο βαθιά στην παγίδα της.

Αυτή θα είναι πιθανότατα η έκβαση των ιδιαίτερων αυτών καιρών: το καλύτερο ή το χειρότερο.

Σε κάθε επανάσταση, υπάρχουν μόνο δυο πιθανές προοπτικές: είτε να προχωρήσουμε με μεγάλα βήματα το συντομότερο δυνατό προς την ουτοπία διαρρηγνύοντας τις γέφυρες με το παρελθόν, είτε να μας προλάβουν με βίαιο τρόπο οι πιο αντιδραστικές μορφές του παλιού κόσμου και να το μετανιώνουμε για μια ζωή.

Τρέξε, κίτρινο γιλέκο, ο παλιός κόσμος είναι πίσω σου!

Yannis Youlountas (σκηνοθέτης του ντοκιμαντέρ “Να Μην Ζήσουμε Σαν Δούλοι” κ.α.)

The post Τρέξε, κίτρινο γιλέκο, ο παλιός κόσμος είναι πίσω σου!- Yannis Youlountas appeared first on Void Network.

ΚΕΝΟ ΔΙΚΤΥΟ: Σημεία των καιρών / Εικόνες από το μέλλον: Σκέψεις για τα «Κίτρινα Γιλέκα» και την εξέγερση στην Γαλλία

sissydou — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 15:49:29 +0000

Ειδικά μετά τα γεγονότα του Σαββάτου της 1/12 στην Γαλλία, το κίνημα των «κίτρινων γιλέκων» έχει συγκεντρώσει τα φώτα της δημοσιότητας πάνω του. Αναμενόμενο, αφού (ανεξαρτήτως της πολιτικής μας κρίσης επί αυτής) μιλάμε για μια εξέγερση εθνικής εμβέλειας, που δεν παρήγαγε απλά σκέψεις για κήρυξη έκτακτης ανάγκης αλλά και την άτυπη επιβολή της, μέσα από την αστυνομοκρατία που επιβλήθηκε στην πιο πρόσφατη συγκέντρωση στις 8/12.

Μέσα στον όγκο κειμένων που έχουν βγει, πέρα από τις προβλεπόμενες νουθεσίες «υπεύθυνων» σχολιαστών για «μετριοπάθεια» και «σύνεση», υπάρχει μπόλικη εξιδανίκευση και προβολή ιδίων προσδοκιών. Από την άλλη, όπως και με όλα τα κινήματα της πρόσφατης ιστορίας, με χαρακτηριστικότερο παράδειγμα το «αντιμνημονιακό κίνημα» στην Ελλάδα, τα «κίτρινα γιλέκα» έχουν δεχθεί οξεία κριτική από «(υπέρ)αριστερή» και «ταξική» σκοπιά. Κάποιοι βλέπουν μόνο «θέαμα» και όχι την εισβολή των μαζών σε αυτό, λες και είναι δυνατόν σήμερα να υπάρξει κίνημα έξω από τις εικόνες που το καταγράφουν και αναπαριστούν. Άλλες κριτικές τείνουν να συγχέουν μια θεωρητική θέση με πολιτική στάση, περιμένοντας την περιλάλητη αντίφαση «κεφαλαίου/εργασίας» να βγει στους δρόμους σε καθαρή μορφή, σε μία ταξική πάλη χωρίς γκρίζες ζώνες. Μαζί έρχονται και οι αναμενόμενες κατηγορίες περί «μικροαστισμού» και «διαταξικότητας», λες και είναι δυνατό να υπάρξει μαζικός ξεσηκωμός που να μην είναι ετερόκλητος ή λες και είναι απίθανο να υπάρχουν αιτήματα, προβλήματα ή διεκδικήσεις που δεν είναι αμιγώς «προλεταριακού» χαρακτήρα αλλά αφορούν παρόλα αυτά ένα σημαντικό κομμάτι της εργατικής τάξης. Πόσο μάλλον σήμερα, όπου η γενίκευση φαινομένων όπως η (υπέρ)χρέωση και η επισφάλεια έχουν δημιουργήσει ένα κοινό πεδίο συναισθημάτων και αδιεξόδων στα (μικρό)μεσαία και χαμηλά στρώματα.

Υπάρχουν φυσικά κριτικές που είναι εύλογες και διεισδυτικές, υπογραμμίζοντας πραγματικά πολιτικά προβλήματα, όπως την παρουσία ακροδεξιών ομάδων, την οποία την επιτρέπουν κάποια χαρακτηριστικά του κινήματος. Επίσης ορθώς τονίζεται ότι παρόλη τη σφοδρότητα των ταραχών δεν αμφισβητείται σε επίπεδο λόγου και πολιτικού προτάγματος το κράτος ως εγγυητής του δικαίου και της κοινωνικής ευημερίας, ούτε το κεφάλαιο ως κοινωνική σχέση. Φυσικά, οφείλουμε να παρατηρήσουμε ότι ο λαϊκίστικός λόγος περί προνομιούχων ελίτ και αποκλεισμένου λαού δεν είναι «λάθος» με κάποια περιγραφική έννοια, για αυτό άλλωστε είναι και επιτυχημένος. Το πρόβλημα έγκειται στο αναλυτικό και επομένως πολιτικό επίπεδο, ότι δεν θέτει το ζήτημα των σχέσεων και μορφών που αποτελούν την υλική προϋπόθεση του διαχωρισμού λαού/ελίτ. Εδώ φυσικά βρίσκεται το πραγματικό δυστύχημα: ακόμα και αν είναι ορθές, η εξωτερικότητα των εν λόγω κριτικών προς τους αγώνες και ό,τι διακυβεύεται για αυτούς που συμμετέχουν αναδεικνύει την αδυναμία όσων τις διατυπώνουν να έχουν την οποιαδήποτε ουσιαστική επιρροή σε κινήματα μαζικής κλίμακας. Η κριτική έτσι αποκτά διπλή κατεύθυνση, επιστρέφοντας στην πηγή της. Το πρόβλημα μάλιστα δεν αφορά μόνο τις υπέρ-ριζοσπαστικές τάσεις, εκτείνεται σε όλο το αριστερό ημισφαίριο, αφού αν διαφαίνεται κάτι είναι η αδυναμία της Αριστεράς και/ή της Αναρχίας να ασκήσουν πραγματική ηγεμονία, δηλαδή να επιδράσουν στο επίπεδο της (πολιτικής) κουλτούρας.

Το γεγονός όμως ότι «στους δρόμους της οργής» δεν ανεμίζουν μαζικά κόκκινες και μαύρες σημαίες δεν κάνει το κίνημα εξ ορισμού αντιδραστικό. Το ίδιο ισχύει και για την παρουσία εθνικών σημαιών, πόσο μάλλον της Γαλλικής που συμπυκνώνει πολλαπλές και αντιφατικές σημασιοδοτήσεις. Τα «κίτρινα γιλέκα» είναι ένας λαϊκός ξεσηκωμός – «πληβειακός» είναι εξίσου δόκιμος όρος – με όλη τη σημασία της λέξης: ένα αντιπροσωπευτικό κομμάτι από τα λεγόμενα λαϊκά στρώματα έχουν εξεγερθεί μπροστά σε μία ζωή που έχει γίνει ιδιαίτερα δύσκολη. Αναμενόμενα, οι προσδοκίες και διεκδικήσεις του κινήματος δεν μπορούν παρά να εκφράζουν σε πρώτο επίπεδο την πραγματικότητα των ανθρώπων που το συνθέτουν, αφού αυτή η ίδια η πραγματικότητα καθορίζεται από μία υπάρχουσα οικονομία της επιθυμίας. Το γεγονός δε ότι (παρά τους εκτεταμένους μηχανισμούς συναίνεσης και ενσωμάτωσης που υπάρχουν στις σύγχρονες αστικές κοινωνίες) η κοινωνική εμπειρία δεν είναι ενιαία ακόμα και εντός της ίδιας τάξης εξηγεί και την πολλαπλότητα των επιθυμητικών ροών που διαπερνούν το κίνημα άρα και τις εσωτερικές του εντάσεις και αντιφάσεις. Ακόμα πάντως και αν τα κίτρινα γιλέκα παραμένουν στην πλειοψηφία του ένα κίνημα προσδεμένο σε μία πραγματικότητα ενάντια στην οποία αγανακτεί αλλά πέρα από την οποία δεν βλέπει, ο κύριος όγκος των αιτημάτων και διεκδικήσεων που αρθρώνονται δεν είναι ντε φάκτο αντιδραστικά ούτε η ακροδεξιά μπορεί να ηγεμονεύσει, παρόλο που μετά το τέλος του κινήματος θα μπορούσε να αντλήσει ψήφους από αυτό. Όσο όμως υπάρχουν, τα κινήματα δεν είναι στατικά. Πέρα από την ήδη αξιοσημείωτη ικανότητα οριζόντιας άμεσης δράσης σε μαζική κλίμακα, αν κάτι φαίνεται είναι η τάση ριζοσπαστικοποίησης των κίτρινων γιλέκων και η στροφή προς μία πιο «αριστερή» κατεύθυνση.

Που μπορεί να πάει; Αυτό θα φανεί μόνο στην πράξη. Κατά πάσα πιθανότητα το κίνημα των κίτρινων γιλέκων θα βρει τα όρια που βρήκαν και άλλα κινήματα του πρόσφατου κύκλου αγώνων. Σίγουρα δεν είναι επανάσταση. Αντιθέτως, αν η εξέγερση στη Γαλλία δείχνει κάτι – όπως και το αντιμνημονιακό κίνημα στην Ελλάδα, για να μην πούμε για τα σαφώς πιο μειοψηφικά «κινήματα των πλατειών» σε άλλες χώρες της Δύσης – είναι την απουσία της επανάστασης από την ημερήσια ατζέντα. Ο μετασχηματισμός των κοινωνικών σχέσεων όμως είναι μακρό-ιστορική διαδικασία, η οποία περνάει μέσα από ματαιωμένες προσδοκίες, αναταραχές και ξεσηκωμούς ευρείας κλίμακας. Τα κίτρινα γιλέκα είναι ένας τέτοιος ξεσηκωμός. Έχουν μάλιστα μία ιδιαίτερη σημασία, το ότι η ταξική τους σύνθεση δεν είναι κάτι άλλο από τη ραχοκοκαλιά των σύγχρονων αστικών κοινωνιών. Υπό αυτό το πρίσμα, δείχνουν το βάθος της κρίσης. Εξίσου σημαντικά, ειδικά μετά την αστυνομοκρατία και την καταστολή της τελευταίας συγκέντρωσης στις 8/12, το κίνημα κατάφερε να φανερώσει τον ασύμπτωτο χαρακτήρα ενός λαού με την κρατική του αναπαράσταση. Έτσι, την ίδια στιγμή, φανέρωσε ότι η υπ΄ αριθμόν ένα απειλή για κάθε κράτος είναι ο ίδιος του ο πληθυσμός. Ενώ λοιπόν στο άμεσο μέλλον τα κίτρινα γιλέκα μπορεί να μην φέρουν την άνοιξη ή ακόμα χειρότερα να είναι σπασμοί ενός μακρύ χειμώνα, συγχρόνως δείχνουν προς ένα ενδεχόμενο επαναστατικό συμβάν. Όποιο άλλωστε και αν είναι το περιεχόμενο μίας επανάστασης (θα) αφορά κάτι πολύ περισσότερο από ολιγομελείς και ιδεολογικά συμπαγείς ομάδες που αδυνατούν να συνυπάρξουν με άλλους και αρκετές φορές μεταξύ τους. Όχι γιατί το «μαζικό» είναι εξ ορισμού θετικό ούτε διότι οι πειραματισμοί σε μοριακό επίπεδο είναι άνευ σημασίας, το κάθε άλλο. Δεν μπορούμε όμως να μιλάμε για κοινωνικό μετασχηματισμό ευρείας κλίμακας – και μπροστά σε αυτά που γίνονται και σε αυτά που έρχονται χρειάζεται άραγε τίποτα λιγότερο; – που να μην αγκαλιάζει πλατιά κομμάτια της κοινωνίας. Από αυτήν την σκοπιά, τόσο σε όσα ήδη κάνουν, όσο και σε αυτά που (δεν) θα μπορούσαν να γίνουν, τα κίτρινα γιλέκα, μαζί με σημείο των καιρών είναι και εικόνα ενός αβέβαιου αλλά ελπιδοφόρου μέλλοντος.

Όπως και να έχει, εξ αποστάσεως, κάθε κρίση, έπαινος ή καταδίκη είναι εύκολη. Επειδή όμως πριν λίγα χρόνια είχαμε βρεθεί και εδώ σε μία ανάλογη κατάσταση, το κρίσιμο ερώτημα προς τις πολιτικοποιημένες μειοψηφίες που συνεχίζουν να υψώνουν κόκκινες και μαύρες σημαίες παραμένει: μπορούμε να συμμετέχουμε σε κάτι που μας υπερβαίνει και δεν μπορούμε να ελέγξουμε, σε αγώνες που θέτουν τα προβλήματα της οργάνωσης και της δικαιοσύνης στο επίπεδο ενός ιστορικού επίδικου, να βρεθούμε δίπλα σε ανθρώπους που δεν συμφωνούμε ούτε ταυτιζόμαστε, να ρισκάρουμε, να απογοητευτούμε, να κάνουμε λάθη; Αν η απάντηση είναι αρνητική, την επανάσταση θα την ρητορεύουμε αλλά δύσκολα θα είμαστε παραγωγικό μέρος της.

__________________

κείμενο: Ελευθεριακή Συνέλευση “Κενός Κύκλος” / Πολιτική διαδικασία της συλλογικότητας Κενό Δίκτυο – Μέλος της Αναρχικής Ομοσπονδίας

ΚΕΝΟ ΔΙΚΤΥΟ [Θεωρία, Ουτοπία, Συναίσθηση, Εφήμερες Τέχνες]

https://voidnetwork.gr

The post ΚΕΝΟ ΔΙΚΤΥΟ: Σημεία των καιρών / Εικόνες από το μέλλον: Σκέψεις για τα «Κίτρινα Γιλέκα» και την εξέγερση στην Γαλλία appeared first on Void Network.

‘Yellow Vests’ Riot in Paris, but Their Anger Is Rooted Deep in France- By Adam Nossiter

sissydou — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 03:06:12 +0000

GUÉRET, France — At the bare bottom of Florian Dou’s shopping cart at the discount supermarket, there was a packet of $6 sausages and not much else. It was the end of last week, and the end of last month. At that point, “my salary and my wife’s have been gone for 10 days,” he lamented.

How to survive those days between when the money runs out and when his paycheck arrives for his work as a warehouse handler has become a monthly challenge. The same is true for so many others in Guéret, a grim provincial town in south-central France. And it has made Mr. Dou angry.

So he used what money he had left and drove 250 miles to join the fiery protests on Saturday in Paris, where the police moved in with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets.

“We knew they were sent in to get rid of us,” he said the day after, “and believe me, they were not into Mr. Nice Guy.” But he vows the protesters are not going anywhere.

The “Yellow Vest” protests he is a part of present an extraordinary venting of rage and resentment by ordinary working people, aimed at the mounting inequalities that have eroded their lives. The unrest began in response to rising gas taxes and has been building in intensity over the past three weeks, peaking on Saturday.

With little organization and relying mostly on social media, they have moved spontaneously from France’s poor rural regions over the last month to the banks of the Seine, where they have now become impossible to ignore.

Ambulance workers and students joined anti-government demonstrations after hundreds were arrested or wounded in confrontations in Paris over the weekend. It’s the third week of the “Yellow Vest” protests that have been spurred on by a gasoline tax.Published OnDec. 2, 2018CreditCreditAbdulmonam Eassa/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

On Sunday, President Emmanuel Macron toured the graffiti-scrawled monuments of the capital and the damage along some of the richest shopping streets in Europe. All around France, the protests left three dead and more than 260 wounded, with more than 400 arrested. Mr. Macron convened a crisis cabinet meeting, weighing whether to impose a state of emergency.

Mr. Macron has previously insisted that, unlike past French governments, he will not back down in the face of popular resistance to reforms like a loosening of labor laws. It’s a harder line than many other western European countries have taken.

The protesters ridicule him as a president of the rich and say he is trying to balance his budgets on their backs as he remains deaf to their concerns.

But if it was the shattered glass and burned cars along Rue de Rivoli or Boulevard Haussmann in Paris that finally got Mr. Macron’s attention, the movement — named for the roadside safety vests worn by demonstrators — has in fact welled up from silent towns like Guéret, an administrative center of 13,000 people, lost in the small valleys of central France.

Far from any big city, it sits in one of the poorest departments of France, where the public hospital is the biggest employer. The cafe in the main square is empty by midafternoon. The hulks of burned-out cars dot the moribund train station’s tiny parking lot, abandoned by citizens too poor to maintain them.

In places like these, a quiet fear gnaws at households: What happens when the money runs out around the 20th? What do I put in the refrigerator with nothing left in the account and the electricity bill to pay? Which meal should I skip today? How do I tell my wife again there is no going out this weekend?

Florian Dou checking his shopping list at a grocery store in Guéret, France./ Credit Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times

The stories of Mr. Dou’s neighbors who also joined the protests were much like his own. Inside Laetitia Depourtoux’s freezer were hunks of frozen meat, a twice-a-year gift from her farmer-father, and the six-member family’s meat ration.

On these cold nights, Joel Decoux’s oven burned the wood he chopped himself because he can’t afford gas for heating.

It is not deep poverty, but ever-present unease in the small cities, towns and villages over what is becoming known as “the other France,” away from the glitzy Parisian boulevards that were the scene of rioting this weekend.

“We live with stress,” said Fabrice Girardin, 46, a former carpet-layer who now looks after other people’s pets to get by. “Every month, at the end of the month, we say, ‘Will there be enough to eat?’ ”

Since the acidic portrait of Guéret in novels by a famous native son, the anti-Semitic 20th-century writer Marcel Jouhandeau, the town is used to being mocked as the epitome of provincial backwardness.

The Yellow Vest protesters, the descendants of those who inspired Jouhandeau’s characters, can now be found waiting at the road blocks as you come into town — truck and school-bus drivers, nurses, out-of-work electricians, housewives, warehouse handlers, part-time civil servants and construction workers on disability aid.

On cold nights the oven of Joel Decoux, left, and his wife Roselyne, center, burned the wood he chopped himself because he can’t afford gas for heating./ Credit Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times

Mr. Dou — who says his 9-year-old son has never been on vacation and his gross salary of 1,300 euros a month, about $1,475, “disappears immediately in the bills” — was among them. There is little left after high taxes and costly utilities such as electricity.

To protest, he and the other protesters wait at night in the middle of the roundabouts, in the rain and cold and mud under makeshift tarpaulin shelters and tents in the darkness of early morning. “The People’s Élysée” is scrawled on one, mocking Mr. Macron’s Élysée Palace, seat of the presidency. “Macron, he’s with the bosses, Macron, he’s against the people,” a singer intoned in a reggaelike jingle from the radio.

Mr. Dou said he had joined the movement from the beginning, and he was an assiduous presence over several days last week on the traffic circles at Guéret. He was there at 11 p.m. on a rainy Thursday, after putting in several hours that morning, and he was there the next day as well.

“We don’t even need the social networks anymore,” he said.

His motivation, he said, was to “recover the country’s priorities. The values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.” The gas tax “was what set it all off.”

Now, he felt that the Yellow Vest protesters really have the government on the run.

“They don’t know what to do. They’re really in a panic.”

Virtually every car that passes honks in sympathy. But the protesters know that their shouts grow faint over the long distance to real power in Paris, and that is what has propelled them to move their demonstrations there.

The protesters stopped a truck at a roundabout in Guéret.CreditAndrea Mantovani for The New York Times

By Friday, Mr. Dou was preparing to make the drive in a shared car up to Paris: checking in with his comrades at the traffic circle and buying last-minute supplies — including solution to protect his eyes from tear gas.

Yoann Decoux, an out-of-work electrical lineman in his 30s who was presented by Guéret’s Yellow Vest protesters as their spokesman, had been arrested in Paris the week before.

“I’ve never been in political demonstrations before,” he said. “But we said, enough’s enough.”

“They don’t even know how we get by with our tiny little salaries,” he said. “But we are humans too, for God’s sake!” He was getting by with vegetables and help from his part-time farmer-father.

None of the Guéret protesters expressed allegiance to any politician: Most said politics disgusted them.

“They are all the same,” Mr. Dou said.

When Guéret’s mayor, Michel Vergnier, a veteran Socialist with decades of connections in Paris, went to see the protesters, they were not welcoming.

“There’s a rejection of politicians,” Mr. Vergnier said. “They are outside all political and union organizations.”

Inside Laetitia Depourtoux’s freezer were hunks of frozen meat, a twice-a-year gift from her farmer-father, and the six-member family’s meat ration. / Credit Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times

It was the end of the month. To a man and woman the Yellow Vest protesters of Guéret said their accounts were tapped out.

“Right now, I’m at zero,” Mr. Girardin said. His wife had done the shopping with 40 euros the day before, a Wednesday. Now there was nothing left to get them through the weekend.

“You get to the end of the month, there’s nothing,” he said.

That is why Mr. Macron’s plans to raise the gasoline tax, modest an increment as it may seem, was the final straw for so many, the spark that finally set off a seething rage that has been building for years.

There was no gas in his car, said Mr. Girardin, a carpet-layer who quit a job with a stagnant 1,200-euro a month salary to strike out on his own. But he was no better off now.

“Once we’ve finished paying all of our bills, there’s no money left.”

Tonight’s meal: noodles, with maybe a little ground beef. “I’d like to be able to take my wife to the restaurant from time to time, but I can’t,” Mr. Girardin said. Weighed down by financial stress, she had gone into a depression. “She’s totally closed in on herself,” he said.

Up the road the next morning, Ms. Depourtoux, a night-shift nurse at the hospital, was up at 6:30 a.m. with her husband, Olivier, an optician, to see their three daughters off to school in the darkness. Their modest house at a country intersection at the edge of town was pleasant but not spacious.

Guéret is located in the Creuse, the second poorest department in France. / Credit Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times

She gently mocked him because “there is never any gas in your car.” With four children and many bills, their money — 1,800 euros a month for her, 1,500 for him — was “very quickly gone,” Mr. Depourtoux said.

The bank refused to lend them any more money. Both had joined the Yellow Vests, and both had gone to Paris the preceding weekend to demonstrate. “As long as it continues, we are with it,” he said.

“We live, but we’ve got to be careful. We can’t go to the restaurant. All the little pleasures of life are gone,” Mr. Depourtoux said. His parents, after a lifetime of work, were reduced to penury: his father in a nursing home and his mother forced to accept meals from charity.

She fills the freezer with deep-discount frozen food from the hard discounter Lidl. They wait to get paid to fill up the car and to do the shopping.

“We just don’t make it to the end of the month,” said Elodie Marton, a mother of four who had joined the protesters at the demonstration outside town. “I’ve got 10 euros left,” she said, as a dozen others tried to get themselves warm around an iron-barrel fire.

“Luckily we’ve got some animals at the house” — chickens, ducks — “and we keep them for the end of the month,” she said. “It sounds brutal, but my priority is the children,” she said. “We’re fed up and we’re angry!’ shouted her husband, Thomas Schwint, a cement hauler on a temporary 1,200-euro contract.

To a man and woman the Guéret protesters expressed fury at the government, and determination to keep going.

“Their response has poisoned the situation even more,” Mr. Depourtoux said. “The citizens have asked for lower taxes, and they’re saying, ‘Ecology,’” he said in a reference to Mr. Macron’s speech of last week where he outlined France’s plans to transition from fossil-based fuels to renewable energy.

At the roundabout, Laurent Aufrere, a truck driver, was deciding which of that day’s meals to skip.

“If I stop rolling, I die. This is not nothing,” Mr. Aufrere said. “What’s happening right now is a citizen uprising.”

source: New York Times

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