Jacobin, Topic: Can the Yellow Vests Speak?
Link: Can the Yellow Vests Speak? by Éduard Louis France's elites were quick to condemn the gilets jaunes protesters as stupid and backward. But as novelist Édouard Louis writes, they're just standing up for their rights. Excerpt: "The gilets jaunes speak of hunger, of precarity, of life and death. The “politicians” and part of the journalists reply: “the symbols of our Republic have been tarnished.” But what are these people talking about? How dare they? What planet are they from? The media also talk about racism and homophobia among the gilets jaunes. Who are they kidding? I do not want to talk about my books, here. But it is interesting to note that whenever I have published a novel I have been accused of stigmatizing poor and rural France precisely because I mentioned the homophobia and racism that existed in the village where I lived as a child. Journalists who had never done anything for the popular classes were enraged, and suddenly set themselves up to play...