Protest
France’s gilets jaunes used to cause chaos. Right now
they’re just chaotic
Pauline Bock
The anti-Macron protest movement is split over a decision to
compete in elections. A battle for its soul is under way
Tue 29 Jan 2019 06.00 GMT
The art of the street demo has a long and venerable
tradition in France, but the era of the colour wars may be only just beginning.
What started with guerrilla blockades of roundabouts by the gilets jaunes
(yellow vests) in opposition to French president Emmanuel Macron’s new fuel tax
has led to weekly marches in Paris and across France, some ending in violent
stand-offs between protesters and the police. On Saturday, for “Act XI” (the
rather portentous title given to the 11th protest) the yellow vests numbered
69,000 across France and 4,500 in Paris. Although down from the previous week,
with 84,000 nationwide, the figures were higher than in December.
The political wing is
viewed with contempt by the gilets jaunes radicals, who remain devotees of a
more grassroots style
The next day, it was the turn of the foulards rouges, or red
scarves. Their “Republican march for the liberties” drew about 10,000 people on
to the Parisian streets. The choice of red had nothing to do with the French
left. Many scarf-wearers complained that the activities of the gilets jaunes
prevented them from enjoying a Saturday outside or doing their shopping. Their
chants were pro-police and pro-Macron. When the gilets jaunes were outnumbered
on the streets of the capital by an unofficial “leave us in peace” brigade, it
was a sign that the movement which started with roundabouts was at a
crossroads. What were they for, what should their tactics be, and how could
they keep up the levels of popular support that placed Macron so firmly on the
back foot?
A crunch moment is coming. Last week, controversially, a
branch of the gilets jaunes announced it would run for the European elections
under the label “citizen-led rally”. A list of 79 candidates will be published
by mid-February.
The age and professions of the 10 known candidates vary
widely. They are small business owners, drivers, stay-at-home parents and civil
servants. They range from 29 to 53 years old. For now they have no clear
programme, but the mood music is more of the left than the right. Le Pen-style
anti-immigration rhetoric is not part of their anti-elite pitch.
“The citizen social movement born on 17 November shows the
necessity to turn anger into a humane political project that will bring answers
to the French people,” read one statement. “We, French citizens, do not want to
endure the decisions of European institutions and diktats of technocrats and
financial castes, who have forgotten the human factor, solidarity and the
planet.”
Top of the candidates’ list is Ingrid Levavasseur, a nursing
assistant and single mother from Normandy. Levavasseur became a well-known
gilets jaunes spokesperson after a TV show in which she detailed her everyday
financial difficulties and found she had touched a chord: “I thought I was an
isolated case, but I see how everyone suffers. The nurses, the sick, the
unemployed, the hauliers …” She is not the only one to be enthusiastic about
entering politics: Jacline Mouraud, whose Facebook video condemning the fuel
tax went viral in November, is launching a party too. It won’t run for the
European elections, but she has hopes for the 2020 local elections.
But the would-be political wing is viewed with contempt by
the gilets jaunes radicals, who remain devotees of a more grassroots democratic
style combined with new types of protest designed to capture the imagination,
such as the first “yellow night” at the weekend (a sit-in on Paris’s Place de
la Republique).
As the various factions contend, the danger is that the
organised chaos of the early protests becomes just, well, chaos. Since the new
year, the gilets jaunes have developed wildly divergent strategies. Some weekly
marches are declared while others happen on the spot. Unions have joined in,
and are calling for a general strike starting on 5 February. The gilets jaunes
have successfully shaken things up, but disarray is spreading among them too.
Prominent figures are starting to organise independently. Eric Drouet, a
radical who has pledged to keep the struggle on the streets, organised the
“yellow night”; while Priscillia Ludosky, who has stopped working with Drouet,
calls instead for peaceful marches and female-only events.
In Commercy, eastern France, an “assembly of local
assemblies” met up last weekend. They signed a common declaration of their
values: a platform that was “neither racist, nor sexist or homophobic”, aimed
at coordinating the movement democratically, and, pointedly, said they had no
wish to run for office.
The disagreements are undoubtedly endangering the movement’s
momentum, which has also been damaged by occasional outbreaks of violence.
Macron and others have denounced the violence of gilets jaunes “hooligans” at
protests, while ignoring that inflicted by police on the protestors. Dozens of
yellow vests have been injured. On Saturday, Jérôme Rodrigues, an ally of
Drouet, was injured by an object allegedly thrown from police lines. In
response, Drouet posted an online call for “an unprecedented uprising by all
necessary means”.
Huge political opportunities remain. The “great national
debate”, launched by Macron to engage with the gilets jaunes, has been a damp
squib, with the president even drawing red lines around topics he didn’t wish
to see debated, among them the possible reintroduction of a wealth tax. The
French national debate committee, designated to arbitrate the “great debate”,
quit because the government did not want to play by the rules.
As spring comes, the movement, which has remained vibrant
throughout the winter cold, may bring greater numbers to marches. But as some
of the gilets jaunes decide to pursue more orthodox political routes and the
radicals fight to keep the movement non-hierarchical, decentralised and on the
streets, a battle for the soul of the gilets jaunes is on the cards. Who wins
it will be crucial, and not only for a movement which came out of nowhere to
frighten the life out of the occupant of the Elysée. It will also decide the
future course of anti-establishment politics in France. And it’s time for the
gilets jaunes to decide who and what they want to be.
• Pauline Bock is a French journalist based in Brussels
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