How Macron is working to revive… the yellow vest movement

How Macron is working to revive… the yellow vest movement

Many Yellow Vest groups across the country have been grappling with this difficult equation : with fatigue, the repression that is unbelievably violent, the media and political slander, the government attacks, the inevitable divisions, the destruction of meeting points at roundabouts, how to organize to bounce back. Well, it is the power of billionaires, bankers and other financiers or trust bosses, who, through their exaggerated exactions, created the movement that is preparing in the same way to give it new perspectives. Yes, yes, we are not joking, this is exactly what is happening and the power is building new forces for the Yellow Vests’ struggle and it cannot do otherwise.

Indeed, by remaining in power, Macron can only return to what he calls "reform," that is, siphoning off public funds, giving them as gifts to at least 1% who already hold power and most of the wealth. He aims for massive tax cuts for "businesses," that is, capitalists ! He aims for a massive reduction in funds dedicated to public services : the dismantling of civil servants, the destruction of public hospitals, the destruction of public schools, the destruction of public research, the destruction of public transport, the destruction of pensions, the increase in energy prices, the destruction of pensions, the destruction of social benefits, a new fuel tax, and so on.

In short, Macron has tried to convince himself that he has sufficiently reduced the Yellow Vest movement to go on the attack again. In the months that have passed, he has learned nothing and understood nothing. The pretentious man believes himself to be above the profound social movements of the exploited classes. He believes he can surf on a social volcano. He wants to tell himself, and his small royal court tells him, that it was not a revolution but a riot. He can only make himself believe that he has succeeded in defeating the movement over time and through his repression. He can therefore only relaunch his antisocial attacks even more vigorously. He also counts on the unions still having enough credibility to prevent the wave of self-organization from reaching businesses and giving the movement a general character of mass direct action.

But the reality is different : the Yellow Vest movement has profoundly affected all sectors of the working world. It has taught us more about social reality, about friends and enemies, about the strengths and weaknesses of the labor camp and also of the capital camp, about the reality of the State as well. The awareness acquired in this movement is just waiting to be expressed in action. All it takes is one strong provocation from the authorities for new ideas to transform into a new reality. The most deprived have learned to do politics, and all that’s missing is an opportunity for them to learn how to use their politics against the propertied classes.

Macron, with his grand claims that nothing would stop him from reforming, can only throw himself into this trap and throw the wealthy classes into it at the same time. By remaining in power, he cannot back down.

We can already see him launching trial balloons in several directions. He is demanding new negotiations from the unions on his attacks on civil servants. He is launching "local hospitals," hospitals from which many services will have been removed, particularly surgery and maternity, and which will have to meet a set of specifications with massive staff and spending cuts. He is destroying public schools by handing them over to the private sector, by imposing a "duty of reserve" on teachers to break up struggles, by closing teacher training schools, by transforming pawns into precarious teachers, by removing the separation of primary and secondary schools to eliminate teaching jobs, etc. His deputies are starting to put the fuel tax back on the table, presented differently, with a nice cover ! His so-called anti-rioters and in fact anti-peaceful demonstrators law completes the system that leads him to believe that he will have finished with the mass movement of the yellow vests, having already succeeded through repression in breaking up most of the roundabout gatherings that had served as a mode of organization and emblem of the movement.

Macron, in keeping with his motto, is attacking the working classes from every angle : the destruction of all public services, aid to capitalists, the elimination of social benefits, and all-out attacks on workers, the unemployed, and the most deprived. He can only end up arousing anger.

The capitalist bourgeoisie demands that he go all the way, demanding further job cuts for capital. International institutions warn that the climate is bad for the global capitalist economy. In the event of a general collapse, states will want to use public money to save trusts and banks again ! However, state funds are at their lowest, and instead of stopping its gifts to big capital, the government is multiplying them. It refuses to reinstate the wealth tax (ISF) or reduce tax loopholes. It refuses to pursue trusts that do not pay their taxes. It refuses to reduce the crazy spending on arms and war around the world. It is relaunching the arms race and testing nuclear weapon launchers. It is sending its troops to fight new wars in Chad and Mali. It is threatening Venezuela. It is sending its weapons to Egypt and Australia.

Macron’s policy is, on all fronts, a mad rush forward that will only stop when it hits a wall ! It will go all the way, until it drags into the yellow vests workers from all sectors, from psychiatry who can’t take it anymore, from hospital emergency rooms, from all sectors of the public hospital, from services that are closing in "local hospitals", from schools and colleges that don’t want his so-called reform, and also employees, even those who received a small Macron bonus. And it will also convince retirees with reduced pensions, single women with children, precarious or forced part-time workers, the unemployed, poor students, ruined shopkeepers, poor farmers, small fishermen, self-employed people at the end of their rope, all those who are crushed by this society will find themselves together this time and the wave will not only hit Macron but, with him, the entire propertied class that he defends.

The international bourgeoisie has constantly told Macron that he is playing with fire and that his boasting is dangerous, that he would do well to watch the "Danger" signals that are flashing everywhere. The wealthy and their political representatives have learned nothing from the situation and can only head straight for the wall.

They will succeed in convincing the working world that the world of capital is waging class war against them and that they can only respond with a class struggle that goes to the bottom of things, that attacks the root of the evil, that demands not small things but the totality of wealth and power. In short, the best revolutionary ferment today in France is the power that is leading the social counter-revolution, that of Macron and we wish him good success in lighting the fuse of the social revolution !!

It is not only the exploited and oppressed of France, it is a whole part of humanity that is marked by the Yellow Vest movement in France and for which there will be a before and an after, this movement representing a decisive date, a major change in the course of history. It is not so easy to say exactly what has changed, even if it is obvious, for those who are for as well as against the Yellow Vests, that nothing will be the same again. It is obvious for those who fight alongside the movement as for those who oppose it. It is obvious even for those who fight in countries very different from France. The immediately international character of the diffusion of the Yellow Vests’ particularities is, moreover, one of the characteristics that shows that the Yellow Vests have taken up the torch of movements like the Paris Commune or the Soviets of Russia, movements which also had an influence worldwide from the outset.

Nothing in the recent or ancient past of class struggles in France seemed to prepare the most deprived to lead such a movement, with its own characteristics that are unlike any other. No struggle of the working class in France, just as no social movement, be it of the unemployed, retirees, the homeless, or other social or political movements, trade union or associative, of the past prepared for the Yellow Vests, did not anticipate in any way such a movement. And this is true not only for the method of struggle, for the form of organization, for the attitude towards power as for the economic, social and political objectives that it defended and defends without separating them from each other.

In fact, everything is different from the classic struggles waged by reformist apparatuses, and first of all the fact that the most deprived affirm that they are no longer silent in politics, that they do not rely on institutions to dictate policy and are not content with purely economic demands, that they do not intervene to demand one measure or reject another but to decide for themselves the entire future of society.

But the Yellow Vests do not only differ on this or that point, by this or that method, by this or that form of organization, and diverge fundamentally, in goals, with the reformist, union, political, social and associative apparatuses, do not only refuse to put themselves under their direction, they have provoked a violent reaction from them, a reaction whose radicalism can astonish all those who do not realize to what extent the very existence of the Yellow Vests unmasks the double game of the reformists, breaks with their deceptions and betrayals. The reformists never reject the State of the possessing classes, they are content to criticize this or that policy without fundamentally questioning the system. The reformists in no way represent a class organization of the most exploited and oppressed, unlike the Yellow Vests. Reformists never endorse the self-organization of the exploited, including during struggles and to lead them, and of course, to lead the whole of society and give it prospects for the future. Reformists all consider capitalism as an insurmountable horizon and act accordingly. The Yellow Vests have proclaimed that a society in which a significant fraction does not have the means to survive has no future and that it will not be allowed to function as such while the propertied classes increasingly line their pockets.

By asserting that the poor no longer accept, no longer give in, and above all, no longer remain silent, but decide for themselves, the Yellow Vests have triggered a revolution of consciences and struggles, a massive social revolution. Killers of all stripes, open or hidden adversaries, have quibbled over whether this was truly a revolution, but the reality is stronger than all this empty chatter. The simple violent reaction of the propertied classes, notably the bloody repression by the forces of repression aided by the justice system and the media, endorsed by the reformist apparatuses, says more about their terror in the face of this movement than all the speeches.

It is difficult to emphasize enough the importance of the violent hostility not only of the propertied classes, not only of the State at their service, not only of all the official and unofficial institutions, open or hidden, of the propertied classes, up to the media, passing by the forces of police and military repression, but also of all the institutionalized structures of society, including those which claimed to be on the side of the workers or of the popular circles, which enthroned themselves as interlocutors, negotiators, lawyers, defenders of the workers. It is not only hostility that should be spoken of but violent hatred, expressed by means of virulent slander, shameless lies and also by the complete silence that these apparatuses maintained in the companies for long months in their prose directed at the workers, dissuading the working class of the big companies from simply going to see what these first mobilizations of the Yellow Vests were really about.

These apparatuses, called the "left" of the trade unions or politics, or the left of the left, or the extreme left, consciously spread shameless lies, pure slander, treating the Yellow Vests as a movement of bosses, entrepreneurs, embittered petty bourgeois, disappointed Macronists, fascists, racists, vandals, and so on, thus propagating the lies of a government that these organizations claimed to fight. They were all the more violent because this movement forced them to reveal themselves, to show their true nature, to clearly position themselves on the side of power. And above all, the movement showed that the exploited, not only could perfectly well do without putting them at the head of the struggles, could do without their methods of struggle and gained considerably in efficiency, to make themselves feared by their enemies in the ruling classes, but also could do without them to organize themselves, to discuss their perspectives and to decide for themselves their direction. And also that they could do without negotiating with the power, letting so-called representatives negotiate on their behalf with the power, deceiving them of course or being deceived since the possessing classes now negotiate with LBDs, tear gas, batons, weapons of war which are not non-lethal but have slightly reduced lethality !

Faced with all these adversaries, in fact against all the organized forces of society, absolutely all of them, including hypocritical allies such as the "insubordinate" leaders or certain politicians opposed to Macron of all political stripes, the Yellow Vests have not lowered the level of their struggle, have not watered down their wine, have not agreed to give in by negotiating, nor to appoint false spokespersons, nor to participate in the false national debate, nor to request authorizations to demonstrate, to meet or gather, to seek false conciliations, false agreements, on this or that point of detail, to blunt the character of fundamental questioning of society. These opponents range from the far right to the left of the left and even the extreme left, supposedly Trotskyist or anti-capitalist, anarchist, anarcho-syndicalist, movementist, rebellious, Stalinist, environmentalist, ecologist, activist, humanist, anti-racist and others.

Even the organizations that claimed, weeks or months after the beginning of the movement, after having noted that it would not be temporary and was unavoidable, to want to "converge" with it, that is to say, to make it converge with the union apparatuses and the "left" political apparatuses, have remained fundamentally hostile to everything that the Yellow Vest movement represents in terms of historical novelty, in everything that makes it a radical change in the course of the global class struggle, in everything that makes it an enormous breath of fresh air for all struggles in the world, demonstrating not only that, even in an imperialist country that dominates and militarily crushes the world, the propertied classes can be challenged directly and publicly and be incapable of crushing the movement, even by employing police violence worthy of dictatorships in poor countries. The Yellow Vests held firm, in the face of tear gas fired at close range in the face, in the face of violent charges with batons, in the face of shots from LBDs, in the face of accusations of being dictators, of being barbarians, of being rioters, of being anti-Semites, of being fascists and so on...

The ability of the Yellow Vests to continue their struggle in the face of such general hostility from all social and political structures of society, absolutely all of them, already makes it the most significant event in the struggles of recent decades, a reference for all the exploited who want to organize themselves and challenge the foundations of the power of the one percent of profiteers and exploiters.

The true peculiarities of the Yellow Vest movement were not ignored by the participants, nor by the friends, nor by the false friends, nor by the direct and implacable enemies. Everyone noticed that a much larger number of people mobilized by the reformists does not frighten the ruling classes, while a smaller number of Yellow Vests pushes back a power that has not backed down in the face of any union mobilization since the 2007-2008 crisis. Even the unionists understood perfectly well that they did not frighten the bosses and the government and that the Yellow Vests succeeded.

And that’s not all : the Yellow Vests have managed to profoundly change the working class, the fraction that participated in the movement, and even those who are not in favor of it. And first of all, they have achieved this by challenging the entire social and political order, something the reformists never did. They have broken with actions of partial and purely economic demands. They have established the most deprived as a true political force, which, despite the hostility of the media, asserts itself in the public square, making its wishes known and not just pleas. By rejecting all negotiation with all institutions, elected or not, by rejecting the false bourgeois democracy that suggests, in particular, that the elected president has every right to pursue whatever policy he pleases, by rejecting even all debate with the authorities, the Yellow Vests have imposed a democracy of those who struggle and debate, but among themselves. Never have the participants in a struggle discussed so much among themselves. Never have they debated all their decisions so widely and freely. Never have they decided all their actions, all their banners, all their placards, and all their leaflets themselves. In the Yellow Vest movement, no self-proclaimed leadership has made decisions behind their backs ; only the participants in the roundabout committees or assemblies have decision-making power, and no representative can negotiate or debate with anyone on their behalf.

And the Yellow Vests are not satisfied with the democracy of struggle : they want it to express their democratic will on all of society. As Marat would have said, the working people don’t just need bread, they need freedom. The Yellow Vests are particularly opposed to the false democracy of the propertied classes which imposes everything on the poor and nothing on the rich, which gives all rights to the tiny minority, less than one percent, of capital owners, and no rights to the most deprived, not even the right not to starve, the right not to freeze to death, the right not to lack housing, health, education, etc. The Yellow Vests have been accused of wanting to impose the dictatorship of the poor but that hasn’t stopped them : yes, they demand that the most deprived have enough to live on and not just survive ; Yes, they demand that no one suffers from hunger, that there is enough to feed a family, that pensioners are not squeezed, that poor employees are not destitute, that women raising a child alone have the means to do so, that social benefits are not reduced to nothing, that public services are not cut to better distribute crazy sums to trusts and banks, etc. And they link all these questions together, something that the reformists have always been careful not to do.

By doing so, the Yellow Vests have revealed many things that were carefully hidden by society and its organizations, not only by the enemies of workers and the poor, but also by their false friends. First of all, the violent class character of the State against the poor, against workers, against the exploited, and in favor of the exploited has been clearly exposed by this movement and this has not only consisted of revealing the sole character of the president in the service of the propertied classes, but the entire government, all institutions, all means of repression, all means of information, all justice, prefectures, town halls, regions, elected officials, administration, etc. The movement has revealed the rottenness of this system which distributes public money to private interests of a small number of rich people while refusing pennies to those who cannot make it to the end of the month.

But, above all, the Yellow Vests have revealed the character of the radical opposition between the interests of the rich and those of all those who live only from their work, but when the Yellow Vests themselves do not use the term "class struggle" or "class interests" to describe it. They have revealed the real balance of power between exploiters and exploited, between the working people and the State, a balance of power that was absolutely not shown by the struggles organized or knowingly disorganized by the union apparatuses. Even union movements that were very well followed by the workers did not in any way show that the workers possessed the means to make themselves feared. Quite the contrary, even a union tidal wave in the streets, as for pensions in 2010, meant above all that the workers were allowing themselves to be deceived and led astray. Even a very well-attended strike, like the last railway workers’ strike, with union unity, far from strengthening the Rail workers, only proved that they were still deceived by the reformist apparatus and therefore that the propertied classes had nothing to fear from that side. And this is not surprising since the unions maintained their strike in dotted lines, their refusal of any junction with the other sectors on strike, teachers, hospitals, energy, postal workers, and even other public transport sectors, their refusal of any decision actually taken by the assemblies of the station strikers, their refusal of the junction with the unemployed, with the retired, with the undocumented, with the homeless, with the self-employed, yet unemployed trying to survive by exploiting themselves or by submitting to various Ubers, with the petty bourgeoisie caught by the throat, with single women in poverty, with the workers of companies that are closing and laying off, etc. The unions were thus rejecting precisely everything that the Yellow Vests had put forward and which made them unique and strong. The workers who followed them had no chance, even if they were very numerous, of making their enemies fear them, let alone making them back down. Far from positively marking the entire class struggle, unlike the Yellow Vest movement, this type of union action could only break any progress in the organization and consciousness of workers. The unions, in fact, for a long time now involved in the negotiations to break up the public rail service in France, only pretended to want a tough fight against the privatizing government. As proof, some of the unions participating in the inter-union movement openly and publicly supported privatization and only asked for its adjustment !!! The government therefore knew in advance that the appearance of unity in the struggle of the union bureaucracies was nothing more than smoke and mirrors that only blinded the railway workers.

The comparison between the methods and results of the actions of the trade union apparatuses and those of the Yellow Vests shows in particular that numbers are not enough : hundreds of thousands who follow like sheep cowards, opportunists, calculators and schemers, petty bureaucrats and cowardly leaders are less powerful than a few hundred or thousands of determined people who organize themselves.

The Yellow Vests, by their actions, by their assertions, by their objectives, by their very existence months later, despite the violent repression and slander, have attracted the attention of all, participants, friends and enemies, polarized the political and social situation in France and beyond. A good part of humanity has its eyes fixed on what the Yellow Vests are doing, on what the Yellow Vests want, on what the Yellow Vests are saying. The simple fact that this struggle, violently fought and repressed, denounced with no less violence, manages to maintain itself, does not renounce anything, does not retreat on any point, does not fall back on any demand, does not change its method, does not allow itself to be channeled, diverted, or stifled, is a global demonstration that touches the exploited and oppressed in many countries. The Yellow Vests serve as a reference in many countries for which "French democracy" had been presented as exemplary. The fact that a great struggle that continues and confronts the possessing classes is capable of self-organization, including in a dominant capitalist country, is noted by workers and the poor in every corner of the world and this changes the consciousness of the world’s proletarians and their confidence in their own abilities.

In this sense, the entire history of class struggles in the world, the fight between the exploiting class and the exploited class, owes something fundamental to the Yellow Vest movement. Because this struggle is a class struggle of the exploited, an autonomous struggle, independent of any institution linked to the power of the owners, parties, unions or associations, it marks global struggles, encourages all attempts by workers to organize themselves independently, to trust in their ability to confront the apparatus of the big bourgeoisie, without being deceived, without being used or manipulated by anyone.

Of course, there is not a single tendency, a single opinion, a single current, within the Yellow Vest movement but multiple ones that confront each other, but these confrontations do not take place through fixed apparatuses but between individuals engaged in the movement who discuss and evolve their points of view. Proletarian revolutionary Marxists of course have their place in these debates and have no need to hide their flag. The autonomy of the movement in no way prevents the defense of diverse points of view and their confrontation ; on the contrary, it is the condition for it. The autonomy and class character of the movement do not prevent the existence of opinions of all kinds, as is generally the case within companies. The working class does not have in mind the revolutionary capacity leading to power for the workers, and the activists who defend this perspective have a whole battle to wage within the struggle to make their ideas and proposals known. They have to fight within the struggle, as within the companies, opposing political and social opinions and even political and social adversaries disguised as "friends of the movement." This is the case of those who attribute imaginary qualities to all the Mélenchons, Arthauds, Besancenots, or even to mortal enemies of the workers like Le Pen or the putschist and genocidal General Tauzin. Truly revolutionary militants know that the working class does not miraculously become aware of its historical role and that it can only do so by accumulating real experience during its struggle and on condition that the tiny minority of truly revolutionary militants, participants in this struggle, do not give up developing their perspective, despite all the attacks from the false friends and true enemies of the yellow vests, including those infiltrated within the struggle.

It is the real, spontaneous, self-organized, and independent movement of the proletarians that alone can enable the exploited to prepare to become a new ruling class, which expels the old ruling classes and expropriates the propertied classes. The Yellow Vests are not there yet, but they have taken a big step forward and changed the consciousness of the proletarians of France and the world.

On behalf of all the exploited and oppressed of the world, a big thank you to the Yellow Vests of France !