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(March 17^th, 2019)

Paris is ours
(ACTA)

Never before had the Champs-Élysées truly been “the most beautiful avenue in the world”. For a day, this artery, this symbol of luxury, became the embodiment of a regained common power.

Yes, order managed to contain most of the disorder on and around the Champs – despite some more or less successful attempts at wild breakaways. Act XVIII gained in intensity what it lost in geographical extension. But, it was enough to hear the Yellow Vests chanting “revolution!” all afternoon. It was enough to see the crowd pull down the huge metal plaque that protected the Bulgari shop, carry it forward, and charge the police – bellowing “We won! We won!”. It was enough to see the banners come within a few meters of the Arc de Triomphe, the enemy retreat and flee behind the Louis Vuitton before our onslaught. In short, it was enough to be there to understand.

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Not only Paris burns…

Notations on the yellow vests

Introduction

If there’s an image which is habitually repeated in the yellow vests movement, it’s that of demonstrators that break a police cordon, or expel the riot police in a hail of rocks, or simply organize a barricade in order to block the street and sack the luxury shops, while with open lungs and full of adrenaline they proudly sing the hymn of La Marseillaise. It’s a great image for expressing the confused and contradictory nature of the movement. In any demonstration there can be found vindications of the Citizens’ Initiative Referendum (RIC) and for leaving the European Union in order to defend the national economy. At the same time, some french and regional flags wave here and there with a certain parsimony. All of this cohabiting within the movement with constant aggressions against private property, with the sackings and pickets, the creation of threads of solidarity, the appropriation of meeting places and proletarian associationism: definitively, the practical questioning of democracy. All the while, you can see everywhere a strong vindication of the nation and its symbols, among them the French Revolution, which at the same time plays the role of symbol of national pride and of the uprising against the tyranny and misery.

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