Tag Archives: France

“Looking back-forward at the gilets jaunes: A taking stock”

Posted on August 5, 2019 by

“We share an unfinished debate on the yellow vests’ movement, on what is or was radical within it, and where it failed, if indeed it did so. We begin with a critical appraisal of the movement, followed by a more apologetic note, and in turn a response.  What separates the two sides of this debate is an interpretation or analysis of capitalism.”

Posted in crisis, disobedience, Nota Bene, power, resistance, revolt, the common

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Jacques Fradin: “The insurrection of the yellow vests and the revolution of the revolution”

Posted on May 25, 2019 by

“The uprising of the yellow vests can be interpreted as a resurgence of the oldest movements of revolt … Or, rather, this uprising can also be interpreted as the first insurrection of a new revolutionary era, the era of the revolution of the revolution – symptomatic of a new political era that emerges by dissolving or destituting liberal hegemony.”

Posted in anarchism, autonomy, democracy, disengagement, justice, Nota Bene, revolution

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lundimatin: “Theses on the concept of the absence of an epoch”

Posted on May 11, 2019 by

“When friends say, for years, that the revolution is no longer an absolute goal, they do not say so much that they do not want to take power or that they want to preserve some aspect of their princely life, they say above all that the great night, as a total upheaval of the conditions of existence, is impossible, among other reasons, because power is everywhere and especially in everyone.”

Posted in anarchism, defeat, melancholy, Nota Bene, power, revolution, the Left, violence

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Bernard E. Harcourt: “Compagnon de route [Fellow Traveler]”

Posted on April 29, 2019 by

‘So for now, rather than put on the yellow vest, I would take on the mantle of “companion de route” – fellow traveler, like those who, famously, in the twentieth century, did not join the Communist Party, but sympathized with the aims and goals of Communists and were willing to work with the movement.’

Posted in democracy, emergency, Nota Bene, revolt, the common, the Left, violence

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Etienne Balibar: “‘Gilets jaunes’: the meaning of the confrontation”

Posted on April 29, 2019 by

“That is how democracy is invented and perhaps, at the end of the day, how a regime can change. It is not a long road from the roundabout to the town hall, via the public square, which does not mean it is easy to travel. Demonstrations, popular assemblies, municipal counter-power, États Généraux or their modern equivalent, such is perhaps the squaring of the circle; it must be resolved on a daily basis and over the coming weeks, probably quite quickly, so that a political idea that everyone now needs can emerge from a revolt that no one had expected.”

Posted in agonism, democracy, emergency, freedom, governance, justice, Nota Bene, power, revolt

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Gabriel Rockhill: “The Failure of the French Intelligentsia? Intellectuals and Uprisings in the Case of the Yellow Vests”

Posted on April 29, 2019 by

“Although France has the reputation of having a leftwing intelligentsia, some of the most visible theorists on the Left—including the self-proclaimed torchbearers of the ‘spirit of ’68’—have positioned themselves firmly against the movement or admonished it from the sidelines.”

Posted in Negri, Nota Bene, revolt, the Left, Žižek

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Paris-luttes.info: “The gilets jaunes: Understanding the resistance of an insurrection”

Posted on April 20, 2019 by

“A background analysis of the yellow vests movement, after five months of mobilisation. A return to the salient points of this long sequence of struggle: the articulation strike-blockage and economic struggle-political struggle; the centrality of democratic issues; and the prospects of Commercy/Saint-Nazaire.”

Posted in anarchism, disobedience, Nota Bene, resistance, revolt

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Paris-Luttes.info: “The gilets jaunes: What violence?”

Posted on April 7, 2019 by

“The political act, as opposed to voting, is when people invite themselves in and break into an institutional game determined by power.  This is perhaps anarchism: to reject the rules of the game, to expect nothing from power, to give up the idea that the power will grant anything, to grant oneself.  Strikes, blockages, wild demonstrations.”

Posted in agonism, anarchism, Nota Bene, power, revolt, violence

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Alain Badiou interviewed about the Gilets Jaunes, Macron and future of the French left.

Posted on April 1, 2019 by

“Things are happening, anarchically, as is always the case with beginnings. Experiments must be linked to a careful, prolonged and systematic examination of Marxism, but also to the revolutionary attempts of the twentieth century as a whole. What really happened in Petrograd and Shanghai? What is the balance sheet? What formulation allows us to avoid the failures of these undertakings?”

Posted in founding, melancholy, Nota Bene, revolution, the Left, tragic politics, violence

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CrimethInc. Collective: “Yellow Vestiges: Inside the Riots of March 16”

Posted on March 24, 2019 by

‘Anarchists and other anti-authoritarian participants seem to have outlasted every effort by police to crush the movement by brute force, by politicians to co-opt it into fruitless “dialogue,” by “leaders” to pacify and dominate it, by fascists to use it as a recruiting platform.’

Posted in anarchism, In The News, power, revolt, violence

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