Tag Archives: Yellow Vest protests

Political Nightmares Multiply for Europe Ahead of Davos, by Tom Luongo

Posted on January 11, 2019 | Leave a comment

The globalist-inspired European integration dream is crumbling. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

Europe’s dreams of integration are slipping away as the people wake up from the nightmare erected for them.

As we approach Act IX of the Yellow Vest protests in France and the threats of creating bank runs we get the news that both Presidents Trump and Macron will not be attending the convocation of globalists known as the World Economic Forum at Davos.

Trump’s not attending because it’s clear he’s no longer a member of The Davos Crowd and Macron isn’t because any public appearance by him will double the number of people donning high visibility safety gear and taking to the streets.

It almost feels like we’ve reached Peak Davos, with these announcements. But, clearly neither of these men are invited because in the minds of The Davos Crowd they no longer figure in their long-term plans.

Macron not attending is also a sign his government will be sacrificed on the altar of the Yellow Vests in the near future.

The Yellow Vest protests will have to be dealt with in a substantive manner that goes far beyond a few temporary injunctions against higher taxes. They are now vandalizing another symbol of middle class oppression in France, speed cameras.

All of the governments of Europe are broke. And the speed camera is simply another in a long line of instances of them trying to squeeze blood from the now impoverished and shrinking middle class.

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French Yellow Vest Protesters Urge Supporters To Spark Bank Run With Mass Withdrawals, by Tyler Durden

Posted on January 11, 2019 | 32 comments

You won’t see much in the mainstream media about the Yellow Vests’ planned bank runs, but it may be the most important aspect of their protests. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Activists from the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement have vandalized nearly 60% of France’s country-wide speed camera network, according to Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, who said that the wilful damage was a threat to road safety and endangered lives, according to the BBC.

The BBC’s Hugh Schofield, in Paris, said evidence of the vandalism is visible to anyone driving around France, with radar cameras covered in paint or black tape to stop them working. But the extent of the damage – now believed to affect more than half of all 3,200 speed cameras in the country’s network – was unknown until Mr. Castaner’statement on Thursday.
He said the devices had been “neutralised, attacked, or destroyed” by members of the protest movement. –BBC

Speed limits in France have become a hot-button topic, after the Macron government lowered the limit on many roads from 90 km/h (55 mph) to 80 km/h (50 mph) early last year.

Yellow Vest protesters upset over an increase in fuel taxes have also complained about the rising costs of commuting for those who can’t afford to live near urban centers where they work – citing speed cameras and toll roads in their complaints.

Bank run?

While the Yellow Vest movement has been taking to the streets for violent clashes with French police, activists from the movement are now recommending that French protesters empty their bank accounts to spark a bank run – in a move which one protester, Maxime Nicolle, called a “tax collector’s referendum.”

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Yellow Vests: Shockwaves Felt Across the Continent, by Claudio Grass

Posted on January 10, 2019 | Leave a comment

The Yellow Vest protests are unique in a number of ways, and they’re probably harbingers of things to come. From Claudio Grass at lewrockwell.com:

When the first demonstrations on the streets of Paris were reported seven weeks ago, nobody could have foreseen the endurance, the tenacity and the viral effect of the Yellow Vests movement. After all, the French are known to protest and to strike, it’s part and parcel of their culture. However, by the time this article is being written, protests, marches and demonstrations have broken out in a multitude of European cities.

Why was it different this time?

To begin with, it is worth taking a closer look at the situation in France, the point of origin of this “contagion”. There are a few very important elements that set the Yellow Vests apart from past protesters. For one thing, unlike previous demonstrations, this one wasn’t led by the unions, nor was it organized by any identifiable political body. The protesters had no unified or homogenous political beliefs, party affiliations or ideological motivations. In fact, through interviews and public statements of individuals taking part in the demonstrations, it would appear that any organized elements, or members of the far-left or the far-right were a slim minority among the protesters. And while those few were the ones largely involved in the violent clashes with the police and the destruction of private and public property, the crushing majority of the Yellow Vests were peaceful, non-violent and largely unaffiliated with any particular political direction.

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Macron May Trigger Debt Crisis with Yellow Vest Crackdown, by Tom Luongo

Posted on January 9, 2019 | Leave a comment

If the Yellow Vest protests upend the stability of French society and the government, it could lead to a debt crisis. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

The Yellow Vests have reached critical mass. And the movement has now created the perfect storm for President Emmanuel Macron.

He can no longer ignore it, even though he tried to do so. And his lack of understanding of the situation as well as his open contempt for his opposition has placed him in a political vice.

Ignoring the problem will only make him look weaker and more disinterested. He could address the situation, put France first and step aside for new elections, which is the decent thing to do.

But, he’s chosen the predictable third option, crack down on the protesters in a futile show of strength. Authoritarians react to challenges like clockwork.

Disobedience is met with violence. More disobedience is met with more violence.

Before last weekend’s Act VIII protests Macron had one of the Yellow Vests original organizers, Éric Drouet, a truck driver, arrested and released pending a trial for “organizing an undeclared demonstration” while meeting with friends at a restaurant.

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France in Free Fall, by Guy Millière

Posted on January 8, 2019 | 1 comment

The French government is giving up without a fight a battle many of its citizens demand it wage: reversing immigration and preserving French culture. From Guy Millière at gatestoneinstitute.org:

  • French officials evidently understand that the terrorists are engaged in a long war and that it will be difficult to stop them; so they seem to have given in. These officials are no doubt aware that young French Muslims are being radicalized in increasing numbers. The response, however, has been to strengthen Muslim institutions in France.
  • At the time President Macron was speaking, one of his emissaries was in Morocco to sign the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which defines immigration as “beneficial” for the host countries. Under it, signatory states pledge to “strengthen migrant-inclusive service delivery systems.”
  • A group of retired generals published an open letter, saying that signing the Global Compact was a further step towards “the abandonment of national sovereignty” and noted that “80% of the French population think that immigration must be halted or regulated drastically”.
  • The author Éric Zemmour described the “yellow vests” revolt as the result of the “despair of people who feel humiliated, forgotten, dispossessed of their own country by the decisions of a contemptuous caste”.

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Tucker Carlson and the Plight of the Yellow Vests, by Tom Luongo

Posted on January 6, 2019 | 1 comment

The Yellow Vests are protesting the globalism that is destroying their livelihoods and their ways of life. From Tom Luongo at tomluongo.me:

I have to hand out sincere kudos to Tucker Carlson. His opening salvo for 2019 was one for the ages. It was a broad-ranging, fifteen-minute rhetorical tour de force.

Tying together Mitt Romney’s vulture capitalism, unchecked immigration, political corruption and the destruction of the middle class family, Carlson laid out a story that if everyone took off their ideological blinders for a few minutes (myself included) would see as simply a horror show.

Carlson’s thesis is that the American family is disintegrating. He’s right. But it’s not just America. It’s everywhere globalism has been the watchword of public policy, ie. Europe as well.

The Yellow Vests in France began protesting over a rise in diesel fuel tax to support climate change initiatives and has morphed into a full-blown revolt against globalism, neoliberalism and French government institutions.

It is the next stage of the dreaded populist uprising of Hillary Clinton’s ‘deplorables.’ And it’s jumped borders. This is the kind of color revolution I can support, not the fake ones ginned up by oligarchs like George Soros.

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France Ablaze Again; Yellow Vests Rage After Founder Arrested; Cops Punched, Tear Gas Deployed, by Tyler Durden

Posted on January 6, 2019 | Leave a comment

The Yellow Vest demonstrations aren’t going away. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

More violence has erupted across France just days after French authorities arrested a key organizer of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement.

After the protests began peacefully, Paris police deployed teargas and batons as protesters began to riot during the so-called ‘Act VIII” Day of Rage, while marches were underway in several other cities across France and London. Protesters in Paris hurled objects at riot police manning bridge barricades over the Seine river, while garbage bins were torched along the upscale Boulevard Saint Germain.

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Macron Arrests “Yellow Vest” Organizer In Escalation Which Will Surely Calm Things Down, by Tyler Durden

Posted on January 5, 2019 | 1 comment

Maladroit Macron makes more miscues in the Yellow Vest demonstrations. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

French authorities have arrested a key organizer of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) movement for leading an unauthorized demonstration, signaling a crackdown on the anti-government demonstrators after nearly two months of violence-filled protests.

Eric Drouet, a truck driver from the suburbs of Paris, was arrested in Paris on Wednesday evening near the iconic Champs-Élysées avenue – a prime location for the yellow vests to gather. Drouet was detained while leading a commemoration of yellow vests who have died since the movement’s inception, most of whom were hit by cars during protests at roundabouts throughout the country, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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What next for the populist revolt? by Frank Furedi

Posted on January 2, 2019 | 2 comments

The populist revolts we’ve seen so far—Brexit, Trump, the Yellow Vests—are nothing compared to what’s coming. From Frank Furedi at spiked-online.com:

People have rattled the elites – now they need to go further.

In the West in 2018, we witnessed the intensification of a new conflict – that between anti-populist political elites and a growing grassroots movement that is hostile to these elites.

Many commentators have interpreted this conflict in classical economic language. This is fundamentally a struggle over the distribution of resources, they claim. Even an astute commentator like Fareed Zakaria, who recognises that the ‘yellow vest’ protestsin France are underpinned by profound cultural tensions, especially between rural and urban France, is nevertheless drawn towards a narrowly economic explanation. ‘It’s part class, part culture, but there is a large element of economics to it as well’, he says.

Zakaria’s commentary – titled ‘The new dividing line in Western politics’ – is a good illustration of today’s widespread reluctance to face up to new cultural and political tensions, to recognise that people are moved to protest these days by concerns that do not fit into the 20th-century model of socio-economic class struggle.

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Why The ‘Blue Vests’ Movement Could Bring Protests In France To A Whole New Level, by Richard Enos

Posted on December 22, 2018 | Leave a comment

As demonstrations, protests, riots, and outright revolutions become more common throughout the West, a crucial question arises. Which way do the praetorians, the police and military, go? From Richard Enos at collective-evolution.com:

  • The Facts:A protest about working conditions and pay on the part of police officers in France dubbed the ‘Blue Vest’ protests adds a new wrinkle of complexity to where the Yellow Vests movement may go.
  • Reflect On:What would be the consequence of a collective awakening to higher truth on the part of a country’s law enforcement officials?

As the motives and mandate of the Yellow Vests movement come more clearly into focus, and the sense of power and potential within individual citizens continues to rise, not only in France but in other countries as well, another development occurring alongside the protests has the potential to take things to a whole new level:

Police in France have repeatedly warned about fatigue and frustration seeping into the ranks in recent years and it appears the month-long and often violent yellow vest protests has pushed them over the edge.

They have already warned the government that they are at breaking point and on Wednesday they will launch their own protest movement, which has earned them the title “les gilets bleus”  – the blue vests, after the protective body gear that they wear.–France’s The Local

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