Tag Archives: France

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

‘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.’

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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?”

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

‘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.’

“Lessons from France: The war on dissidence”

“No insurrection is sustainable only with bravado. If the yellow vests have persisted, it has been because of indignation – an ongoing, unanswerable indignation. But they have also been animated by the discovery that together, in daily struggle, new worlds can be made.”

lundimatin: “The gilets jaunes: An ultimatum”

‘On Saturday, March 16, will converge on Paris Act XVIII of the yellow vests, under the slogan “Ultimatum: all France in Paris!”, the demonstration of “popular neighborhoods” against police violence and the” march of the century” for the climate, that is to say, almost all of the questions that the current power is unfit to answer. All the questions that exceed it, and which are the very urgency of the present. All the reasons we have to take our destiny out of its hands.’

“The gilets jaunes: A question of time”

“A reflection on the re-appropriation of time as the revolution within the yellow vests insurrection.”