#1
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating: +
The vests remind me of road crews who, God bless them, have found room in the budget for 6 people to be doin nothing. So that's who I imagine is rioting. No politics, nothing at stake, just this is way more exciting than their normal lives. I wonder what percent of the participants are actively aware that they're providing cover for fascist terrorism. Anyway, my opinion is, this is a good time to watch anarchists nut over a dangerous, cop-inclusive movement

Edited by swampman ()

#2
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i don't know what to think of this upheaval as i do not speak french
#3
Ireland
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I dunno, some of these folks seem alright. Some demands for public housing etc. All the random French twitter Maoists I follow seem to be cautiously optimistic. And the protests haven't been purely relegated to white French suburbanites, La Reunion has been rioting for days now on similar issues.
#4
Ireland
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How many cops are involved in protests? Because I know the state deployed 90,000 cops to quell the one today
#5
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long ass thread over the last couple weeks
#6
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pescalune posted:

All the random French twitter Maoists I follow seem to be cautiously optimistic.


Catchphrase

#7
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i respect the propensity of Europeans to just get out there and have a damn good riot
#8
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating: +

pescalune posted:

How many cops are involved in protests? Because I know the state deployed 90,000 cops to quell the one today


I saw a video of cops taking their helmets off and being congratulated by protesters, and another somewhat popular video is a woman trying to reason with the police. I certainly don't see anyone saying "abolish the police". I feel like the massive police turnout to these protests is more about the internal material reality of policing, that wants to pay out a lot of overtime, use up munitions so they can order up new ones, satisfy the most openly fascist elements of command, save face as the undisputed lords of the block, keep officers in a state of violent paranoia / readiness etc.

I'd love to see evidence that there is a class conscious aspect to the protests if anyone has any of that

Edited by swampman ()

#9
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what is the class composition of the violence?
#10
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edit:evidence is income based and not a form of class consciousness

Edited by beeturia ()

#11
Post rating: +++++
Here's some of the demands of one of the groups, in my paraphrasing into English:

It includes a maximum wage of 15,000 euros a month, raising the SMIC to 1,300 a month, and pensions at a minimum of 1,200 a month. It calls for an end to an austerity and a look at the debts of the French state, with a refusal to pay debts that are illegitimate and for the burden of repaying debt to go to the 80 billion euros a year lost from fraud, not the most poor.

It does call for the deportation of failed asylum seekers. But it includes a mandate that "asylum seekers be well treated," and that they be given housing, security, food, and their children be educated.

It also calls for rent controls, and for jobs to be created for the unemployed, as well as gas and electricity to be taken back into public ownership and the prices reduced.

And they want the retirement age to be reduced to 60 again, and 55 for those with physically demanding jobs.



That's from this: https://yetiblog.org/le-programme-politique-des-gilets-jaunes-42-revendications/

I've seen those same videos of cop inclusivity, but there was none of that on the streets from what I saw, just outright hostility and hate directed towards every single cop, from all sorts of people, which yes does include fascists.

That twitter thread kinch posted is frankly ridiculous. The CIA isn't color revolutioning Macron. The anger is popular and real. There've been all sorts of demands released and they all call for ending austerity, many call for taxing the rich, building 5 million units of public housing, banning plastic bottles and other pollutants.

Calling it white is also lazy, there has been a lot of action by high schoolers in poor working class neighborhoods where black and brown French people are in greater numbers. There was an Arab boy beaten to a pulp by the cops just today.

I think the Maoists are too optimistic, but to be fair these riots are the first time that the Phillipe government has backed down on anything at all. And there's a convergence of movements with climate marches that are springing up where the Gilets Jaunes are participating. They've been called the Gilets Verts there.

"Way more exciting than their normal lives" is true, but I'm not sure it's really a germane criticism. If you read anything about revolutionary times you see similar observations of the often carnival atmosphere of the violence by the masses. Not that we're in a revolutionary situation, though according to reporting internally ministers are calling what's happening a "pre-insurrectionist" situation.

#12
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating: +
Okay, I stand corrected, and I now mean the thread title sincerely
#13
UNUSUALY COOL
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Most of the time when you see something like this in the media it's already been infiltrated by, and might even have been instigated by, far-right groups supported by some slice of the bourgeoisie in pursuit of their own interests. But that doesn't mean socialists are allowed to abrogate their responsibility to get into the street, build their presence and help people out in the current moment, and that exact story is a decent amount of the history of socialist organizing during eras of reaction. Full knowledge of all of that is what keeps people active, while working in ignorance of it is a lot of what makes people give up. I don't share every POV of Maoists in France but one thing they have in common with socialist parties in the post-colonial world is an active understanding of all that stuff from their own experience.
#14
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#15
Ireland
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You also have the unions getting more involved. The CGT refused to because of fascist infiltration but you have the SNCF railway union and smaller unions out marching with orange jackets now as well. "Macron to the Gulags" in one place and "No more migrants" in another, anti-colonial protests and nativist ones (more of the latter, granted). The fascists do still seem more influential than the left but it's grown far beyond what they can effectively control and infiltrate. I think you can also see that in recent footage and pictures the crowd in Paris getting less white with each passing day.
#16
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if they burnt every single car in paris it would be a good start
#17
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I'm trying to form an opinion about the protests but it's difficult because they're french. The french are mostly very gross and annoying
#18
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Petrol posted:

I'm trying to form an opinion about the protests but it's difficult because they're french. The french are mostly very gross and annoying



english catchphrase

#19
Post rating: ~

Petrol posted:

I'm trying to form an opinion about the protests but it's difficult because they're french. The french are mostly very gross and annoying



Mais, ca n'est pas juste! (est aussi correcte mais)

This article obviously suffers from New York Times Aids but it's decent: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/world/europe/yellow-vests-france.html

#20
UNUSUALY COOL
Post rating: +
*lights a rollie* It's, like, *flicks brim of snapback w/ middle finger* I get it, I'm present for this, but it's total Fail AIDS to invent new kinds of Fail AIDS.
#21
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The anger is real and leftist movements have integrated the gilet jaune protest/participate in the issues discussed by the movement.
But the movement could still be backed to assure West europe aligns politically with the US government.
The main talking point of the gilet jaune's alt-right is the upcoming Marrakech pact. (Global Compact for Migration)
The US was first to back out of the GCM in dec 2017, against the unanimity of 193 UN members.
Now other countries have backed out and Belgium's government just fragmented again, because the alt-right N-VA left to oppose GCM.

N-VA, Marine Le Pen and Bannon met up saturday to discuss the pact.
Now this non-legally binding pact acts as a scarecrow in west EU as well. And the European elections are coming up in May.
#22
Post rating: +

beeturia posted:

Marine Le Pen and Bannon met up


they fucked.

and now we're fucked

#23
Black Belt
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The demands link posted itt includes fixing the migrant camps, with their terrible housing and sanitation conditions, overcrowding, by moving them out of France.
#24
lies half the time
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now it's the camps themselves that migrate
#25
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gonna be like the peter jackson steampunk movie, but with more genocide.

or possibly an equal amount, or less; the movie isn't out yet, so I don't actually know how much genocide is in it.
#26
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local neonazi dipshits have taken up the yellow vests, over a hundred of them were out fucking around today. so regardless of how it started, i think that answers what the ongoing character of this shit is gonna be
#27
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that's right, line up in front of the #happywall and smile for the camera dudes
#28
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Where is that violet? I see a lot of stuff on American social media saying things like "You Voted for Socialism? You got it!" in reference to Macron, so I'm not sure the movement in France should be based on dipshit settlers thinking that the French are pro-Trump.

That said, it looks like the "movement" whatever it is is losing steam, or has been intimidated. There were half the amount of manifestants today as there were last week. I partially think that's down to the violence of the cops, the videos of people having their eyes shot out were cowing. I'm not there now but I would have thought twice before going out without eye protection, and I read a comment on a news article in Le Monde with someone claiming that cops were confiscating eye protection and tear gas gear from people on their way to Paris.

This from Lille seems good:

«Pour Noël, un cadeau : le retour de l’ISF !»

"For Christmas, a gift : the return of the tax on fortunes!"



#29
Ireland
Post rating: +
Some fascists and conspiracy loons tried to do a yellow jacket protest in Dublin yesterday. Maybe a hundred or so turned up and it ended with a couple of guys trying to rob a nearby bank, but accidentally attacking an office block first
#30
Ireland
Post rating: +
In better yellow jacket Ireland news, a video went around of 3 old people being roughly evicted by Bank mercenaries in a rural area with the police watching over. And last night 70 people wearing high bus jackets turned up at the house, beat the shit out of the mercenaries, kicked them out and burned 5 of their cars.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=290810631777148&id=433698377110266&_rdr
#31
Post rating: +
in conclusion, the yellow jackets are a land of contrasts
#32
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spain's minority gov just announced 22% increase of minimum wage, likely motivated by fear of similar protests gaining momentum locally. although worth noting the psoe -podemos-etc coalition are only in power because majority party president lost vote of no confidence.
#33
Post rating: +

Parenti posted:

in conclusion, the yellow jackets are a land of contrasts


sometimes, a yellowjacket is a wasp, other times a yellow jacket is a WASP

#34
Dont Mess With Sucess
Post rating: +

shriekingviolet posted:

that's right, line up in front of the #happywall and smile for the camera dudes


I feel like its more difficult for me to recognize people's faces when they're surroudned by this color, but that it wouldn't be more difficult for computers

#35
Post rating: +
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/frances-minorities-are-angry-too-but-theyre-mostly-sitting-out-of-the-yellow-vest-protests/2019/02/28/2901cd34-2bb8-11e9-906e-9d55b6451eb4_story.html?utm_term=.cc44187ea691

What actually happens when you have "non-ideological" mass movements is that the actual proletariat gets marginalized. The only illusion is that this is some kind of false consciousness, rather than the same class dynamic of white labor aristocracy who elected Sarkozy coming out to defend their privileges, white petty-bourgeois saying we can't be sectarian or that vague anti-capitalism is the best we can do, and anti-imperialism and communism getting the shaft.

Communism doesn't make sense of the proletariat isn't the large majority, so it would make sense to look to these coalition type politics to make up for the surface phenomenon of the majority voting for imperialism and social democracy and the left reduced to either tailing the social democrats or reduced to competing with NGOs in "marginalized" groups. Obviously it doesn't work if your goal is anti-imperialism and communism, but the movement in 2005 didn't work either since it lacked a mass internationalist character. I'm not sure what the organizational form will be that is capable of transcending the nation state as unifier but it sure as hell won't be in France or America, the left populist movements there are already moribund symptoms.
#36
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#37
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can somebuddy fill me in on the yellow jackets; how strong are they really, who supports them in france, what are the chances of an escalation?
#38
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on the one hand i initially thought the fash element could be neutralised or else persuaded with solid and rigorous education by the communist element, i enjoyed the bana parody account, and indeed like everyone else i have made posts drawing satirical parallels between assad and macron. on the other hand they are pretty obviously being taken over by the fash now and i am a fucking moron.
#39
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"lack of communist education" sounds like an idealist concept to explain stuff, especially compared to the class interests of french lol
#40
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Education for fascists:
How do dig your own grave (Don't worry about your family they'll be billed for the bullet.)