Archive of gilets jaunes

With France marking six months of ‘yellow vest’ rallies and civil unrest, a new movement is making itself heard. The Gilets Noirs, the largest collective of undocumented migrants in France, have been conducting a series of high profile actions, most notbaly the recent protests at Charles De Gaulle airport calling for an end to deportation flights. In this article, Luke Butterly reports on the movement.

Are the Yellow Vest protests in France simply the reflection of a resurgent far right populism, and who has gained most from the wave of protests? In this article, the Quantité Critique collective investigate the politics of the movement, and argue that at play is a decisive political battle between the left and right.

An open letter, originally published in French, written by a collective of French 'Gilets Jaunes' university academics - reacting to the social inequalities raised by the Yellow Vests movement, the series of measures the French government has taken since the movement's beginning on 17 November 2018, and to abuses by the police forces during demonstrations and protest actions. The letter demands an acknowledgement of the movement's demands, the resignation of the Interior Minister, and public inquiries into the violent repression that has swept France. As of the 15 May 2019, the letter has collected over 20,000 signatures. It joins similar calls and reactions by famous artists and medical doctors

"There is one demand on which all the Yellow Vests unanimously agree: Macron Resign!" Alèssi Dell’Umbria reports on the Gilets Jaunes in the context of France's infamous social movements.

With its background in responses to the flurry of reforms that Emmanuel Macron has sought to push through since 2017, the Gilets Jaunes has already become a major political event in Europe. In this article, Cedric Durand looks at the background to the movement, and asks where it might be heading.

Sebastian Budgen discusses the Yellow Vests protests in France, the social composition of the movement, its relationship to established political forces, and the absent strategy of the Macron project, with Alex Doherty on the Politics Theory Other podcast

Much has been written about the gilets jaunes and their relation to both politics, of the left and the right, and historical waves of labour unrest. In this article, Joshua Clover argues that the gilets jaunes are in fact a texbook example of a contemporary riot, and may be best seen as an early example of an approaching wave of climate riots.