The Digger

The Yellow Vests movement has faced shocking police violence. And it’s not just from a few bad apples: it’s part of President Macron’s strategy to silence protest. Since November 17 the  gilets jaunes  movement has been spreading across France. Protesters from all around the country are demanding fairer taxes, wealth redistribution, and more direct democracy, with demonstrations in multiple cities every Saturday. According to polls, the movement is supported by a majority of the population. So far, the government’s response to all this has essentially been repressive,  More than  1,700 people have been injured , of which at least eighty-two are  seriously  hurt, and ten fatalities have been confirmed since the beginning of the movement. (A constantly updated list can be found  here ). The deaths mainly owed to road accidents, where angry drivers, blocked in their cars, drove over protesters. But one was caused by the use of po...

Excerpt: By Isabel Roy and Johannes Stern  17 January 2019 The protests by “yellow vests” in France have exposed the anti-working class character of the Left Party in Germany. The Left Party leadership and its affiliated media reacted with hostility to the first mass demonstrations which took place in late November in Paris and other French cities. “Language of Violence” was the title of the Left Party daily  Neues Deutschland (ND) on November 26. The paper was not referring to the brutal actions of the French police and security forces, but rather to the mostly peaceful demonstrators who took to the streets to protest against higher fuel taxes and for higher wages and more social justice. “The ‘Yellow vest’ demonstrations which were not approved by the police have” degenerated into violence “and it took hours for the police ‘to restore calm,’” the paper complained. For the Left Party leadership the biggest social protests in France since the general strike of 1968,...

Yellow Vests, Italian Budget  Battles & Silent Labor Unions   "While organized labor restrains itself, both right- and left-wing populists take the helm on EU on economic issues, many claiming they are not anti-European as such, but merely determined to stop the austerity policies that have done so much harm to the population." Excerpts: " Since mid-September, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, has been battling with Italy over its budget.  The populist government in Rome—led by the  Five-Star Movement , orM5S, and the  League —have decided to stimulate the economy by giving money to the poor, lowering taxes and increasing public investment. With an assist from financial markets that are penalizing Italian government bonds, the Commission has been threatening an “excessive deficit procedure” if Italy doesn’t reduce spending and resume measures to balance its budget. In theory this austerity policy will make the country more sta...

Link:  ROAR Magazine   — by Jerome Roos "… the most beautiful of all doubts Is when the downtrodden and despondent raise their heads and Stop believing in the strength Of their oppressors." - Bertold Brecht Excerpts: "Four weeks in, the uprising also continues to confound mainstream journalists and experts. “The gilets jaunes have blown up the old political categories,” one French media activist told ROAR on Saturday night, after a long day of riots in the capital. “They reject all political leaders, all political parties and any form of political mediation. No one really knows how to confront or deal with this movement — not the media, not the government, nor anyone else. What we are witnessing is unprecedented in French history.” While the outcome of these dramatic developments remains uncertain, it is clear that France is currently living through a rupture of historic proportions, taking the country onto uncharted terrain. For the left, the emerging scenari...

Link:   Eventually This Had to Happen: France Investigates Russia over Yellow Vest Riots - Global Research                                 

Link:  Yellow Vests Rise Against Neo-Liberal ‘King’ Macron  by Diana Johnstone "For centuries, the “left” hoped popular movements would lead to changes for the better. Today, many leftists seem terrified of popular movements for change, convinced “populism” must lead to “fascism.” But it needn’t be so" Excerpt:   “I’m more worried about the end of the month than about the end of the world.” After the second Yellow Vest Saturday, November 25, which saw more demonstrators and more tear gas, the Minister in charge of the budget, Gérard Darmanin, declared that what had demonstrated on the Champs-Elysée was “la peste brune”, the brown plague, meaning fascists. (For those who enjoy excoriating the French as racist, it should be noted that Darmanin is of Algerian working class origins). This remark caused an uproar of indignation that revealed just how great is public sympathy for the movement – over 70% approval by latest polls, even after uncontrolled vandalism. Macr...

Link:   Macron Heralds The End Of The Union  by Raúl Ilargi Meijer "There are 28 countries in the Union at this point, and one of them is already preparing to leave. There are 28 different cultures too, and almost as many languages. It was always going to be an uphill struggle, a hill far too steep for mere greed to master and conquer. History soaked Europe in far too much diversity through the ages for that. To unify all the thousands of years of beauty and darkness, of creativity and annihilation, of love and hatred, passed on through the generations, a lot more than a naked and bland lust for wealth, power and shiny objects was needed." Excerpts: " Traditional right/left parties have been destroyed all across Europe in recent national elections. And it’s those traditional parties that still largely hold power in Brussels. As much as anyone except Germany and perhaps the European Commission hold any power at all. The shifts that happened in the political spect...

Link:   French Socialists Call for General Strike to Oust Macron, Abolish Senate Excerpt: "Macron’s announcement that he will suspend certain proposed tax increases has done nothing to extinguish the movement. For right-wing and left-wing politicians who have been in power for almost 40 years, the risk is that pushing Philippe out of office will not be a lasting solution. It amounts to going back to the polls and making a few small reforms so that nothing really changes. As for pushing Macron out, nobody thinks seriously about it. Yet this is the goal that the Yellow Vest movement increasingly advances with the slogan “Macron must go!” This is where the current movement comes up against its main limitations but also poses a number of questions. On the one hand, even if, locally, many organized sectors of the labor movement, local unions, CGT Union Locale and even CGT Union Départamentale converge with the Yellow Vests and vice versa, this is a trend that is still too un...

ZCommunications » Yellow Vest Protest Movement Exposes Inequality Excerpt: "The organized Left showed little sympathy for this, self-organized, autonomous (albeit amorphous) uprising of desperate and angry lower middle class people who, out of long experience, reject domination by union and party leaders. Plus, they live in places no one has heard of and sing the Marseillaise (originally a revolutionary song, but who remembers?) More, the color “Yellow” used to stand for “scab unions.” So the unions and Left parties, as usual embroiled in infighting among each other, instead of supporting the Yellow Vests’ struggle against Macron and offering leadership by example, left the field open to the Right. LePen’s people (also embroiled in internal squabbles) attempted to manipulate the movement and made little headway, as did belatedly Melanchon. France in Crisis? Hegemonic Balance Sheet: An autocratic President without a party or a mandate. Crowds calling for him to resign. A...