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YELLOW VESTS

Death penalty, scrapping gay marriage? What are the ‘yellow vests’ really demanding?

French President Emmanuel Macron might have made a string of concessions in a bid to appease the "yellow vests" at the end of 2018 but that hasn't stopped thousands of them taking to the streets to continue the protests. An online survey has added to the confusion around what exactly they demanding from the government?

Published: 9 January 2019 12:25 CET

Death penalty, scrapping gay marriage? What are the 'yellow vests' really demanding?

Yellow vest protestors demonstrate with placards reading 'RIC' for "Citizens' Initiative Referendum" in Perpignan. Photo: AFP

The demands of the “yellow vest” protesters have been evolving and growing since the the movement first took hold in France in November.

After the catalyst that sparked the “yellow vest” protests — the ecological tax on fuel — the group's demands have certainly been nebulous although generally linked by the idea of promoting social justice, such as improving spending power for the ordinary, working French person.

Initial “yellow vest” demands also ranged from the re-introduction of France's wealth tax (ISF) on the country's most wealthy to insisting the democratically elected president must resign – a demand that is still heard during each protest.

A recent online consultation suggests the demands may have radicalised along with the movement itself, which has lost some of its original leaders, who have quit to set up their own political groups.

More than 9,000 contributions were submitted to the consultation set up by France's Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) between December 15th and January 4th in response to the country's “yellow vest” protests.

The contributions were voted on over the course of the three weeks, receiving a total of 260,879 votes — and the results were somewhat surprising.

Photo: AFP

The most popular contribution of the consultation by far was the proposal to abolish gay marriage or the “repeal of the Taubira law”, with nearly 5,897 votes in favour.

This was followed by a somewhat vague demand for “a real policy for families — global and ambitious”, which received 4,611 votes.

However in general the contributions that attracted the most votes were ones that were line with traditional rightwing views.

For example, the call for a referendum on extending “medically assisted procreation” (known as “PMA” in France) to lesbian couples and single women received 3,021 votes and an end to wind energy subsidies received 2,930.

A victim's right to appeal for a second criminal trial received 2,845.

Other popular contributions included a return to universal family allowances rather than means-tested ones (2,827 votes) and the universal abolition of surrogacy (known as GPA in France), which received 1,917 votes.

It's important to note that the consultation was not only open to “yellow vests” but to the public in general, which may explain why these demands do not seem entirely consistent with those previously been made by the gilets jaunes.

To explain the surprising results, French journalist Vincent Glad suggested that the online consultation may have been snubbed by “yellow vest” protesters who don't believe in it because they don't think that the government plans to take the results seriously, arguing that he believes it was hijacked by far-right campaigners, such as anti-gay marriage group La Manif pour Tous (Demo for All).

While it's hard to pin the results of the online consultation on the 'yellow vests' it shows the problem the government has in trying to understand the movement it is facing.

Government figures have dismissed those still protesting as “insurrectionists” whose only aim is to overthrow the government.

Photo: AFP

One demand that has regularly appeared in recent weeks is for the government to hold citizens' initiative referendums, which would either be used to propose new laws, scrap current ones or even change the constitution.

Some ministers have half-heartedly backed the idea and some opinion polls suggest the French are vastly in favour of the initiative, with support for the move the strongest above far-right voters.

Le Grand debat

It might come as no surprise that these subjects will not be up for debate in the upcoming Grand Debat, which was announced by Macron in response to the “yellow vest” protests.

This consultation will see the president meet with civil society groups, mayors, businesses and the “yellow vests” however government spokesperson Benjamin Griveaux confirmed on Tuesday that topics such as gay marriage, the death penalty and abortion would not be up for discussion.

“We will not um and ah on values,” Griveaux told BFMTV, adding that the right to abortion, the death penalty nor gay marriage would “be on the table during the national debate.

The minister said that this consultation would focus on “the four themes that have been identified” namely the ecological transition, the organization of public services, taxation and democratic issues.

This debate “will lead to concrete achievements by mid-April,” said Griveaux.

Member comments

Daniela - 13 January 2019 at 21:00 CET

I really don’t see how the yellow vests life can be improved by abolishing gay marriage? So I’m glad that’s not being discussed.
Why don’t they just concentrate on demonstrating to reinstate the ISF tax.

Become a Member to leave a comment.

Is France's 'yellow vest' movement really on its way back?

Yellow vest protests in Paris in 2019. Photo: AFP

When Priscillia Ludosky put on a yellow vest for the first time and headed out to the Champs Elysées to protest, she had no idea that nearly 300,000 people would do the same.

It was November 17th, 2018, the first 'yellow vest' protest in the capital and the birth of a mass-movement so large that its vows to overthrow French President Emmanuel Macron’s government seemed, for a moment, credible.

Nearly two years later, Macron is still president – and aiming for reelection – while the ‘yellow vest’ movement has all but disappeared from the public eye.

“It’s been a long time since I wore the yellow vest,” Priscillia Ludosky, founder and leading figure of the movement, told The Local.

She had not left the movement, but said she was less active than she had been.

“I'm less on-the-ground than I used to. The pandemic put the brakes on most things,” she said.

Despite France's rising coronavirus rates, the 'yellow vests' have declared a comeback protest on September 12th, promising to “never give up”.

? Chaque #GiletJaune sait où il doit aller le #12Septembre .

????? – ???????? – ?????? – , ???…

Et si cela ne suffit pas !!!
On ne lâchera rien !!! ✊✊✊ pic.twitter.com/sRAsVQkPSC

— ??? ?????? ?????? ?? (@GiletsJaunesFr_) August 3, 2020

But with the protests before lockdown gathering only a fraction of the numbers they once rallied, how much is there really left of the 'yellow vests'?

“The movement is much smaller, much less active, and much more divided than it was at the outset,” historian Sylvain Boulouque told The Local.

Boulouque has followed the movement from the beginning and has written the book Mensonges en gilet jaune (Lies in yellow vests), about the role social media and fake news played in fuelling the 'yellow vests' anger.

When the ‘yellow vests’ first spiralled into a national mass-movement, their rallying cry “Macron demission !” (Macron resign) was the one ringing the loudest, and it was also one of the few demands that all of the ‘yellow vests’ could unite behind.

“The movement spans all the way from the extreme-left to the extreme-right. There is no unity on the fundamental political questions,” Boulouque said.

The more time passed, the more the movement's internal divisions became clear. Today, Boulouque said, there was “a little bit of everything” left, and just keeping track of the movement had become a challenge.

“It’s so local that the demographic changes from town to town and week to week,” he said.

Among the extreme right-wing were a number of conspiracy theory believers, he said, including anti-mask activists who opposed the French government's new rules on masks.

Pro- and anti-masks was just the newest fault line dividing the 'yellow vests', Boulouque said.

“The pandemic will split them rather than reunite them,” he said.

‘Covid proved our points’

Seizing on the pandemic to re-mobilise the masses is what the still-active 'yellow vests' hope to do on September 12th.

Leading 'yellow vest' figure Jérôme Rodrigues. Photo: AFP

Jérôme Rodrigues, another ‘yellow vest’ leading figure, told Slate that the pandemic was their “best ally”.

“Covid proved our points about the degrading of the health system and the limits of the capitalist system,” Rodrigues said.

When the French government imposed a nationwide, strict lockdown in March, it was to save the hospitals in hard-hit areas such as Paris from the mounting pressure of a rapidly increasing patient flow.

The lockdown, which lasted over two months, had a crippling impact on the economy and saw the government spend billions on emergency help schemes to prevent chain bankruptcies and mass layoffs.

Despite the government's efforts to kickstart the economy, France’s unemployment rate is set to increase by 10 percent by the end of the year. Young people will be the worst affected, according to France’s national institute for statistics, Insee. Rodrigues predicted that the looming downturn would reaffirm people's faith in the 'yellow vest' movement.

“With the coming crisis, people who were doing well financially and who have never had a hard time are going to fall flat on their faces,” Rodrigues said.

'Yellow vest' leading figure Priscillia Ludosky has been participating in protests against police violence and in support of France's hospital sector the past months. Photo: AFP

'Sensationalist media'

Rodrigues became a symbol of the ‘yellow vests’ after he was hit in the eye by what he claimed to be an LBD rubber bullet fired by police (the police refute his accusation, but the authority overseeing the police has launched an investigation into the matter).

Blinded in one eye, Rodrigues incorporated one of the most jarring features of the protests: their increasingly violent character. The recurring scenes of violence that dominated the protests contributed to the ‘yellow vests’ hogging headlines for months – not just in France, but across the world.

Images of burning cars, police armed with rubber-bullet guns, violent fist-fights and black-clad protesters smashing ATMs with baseball bats shocked the world.

But the violence also dominated the media coverage of the protests, which meant what the protesters were saying got less attention.

To Ludosky, this was a big problem.

“The media won’t cover anything unless it’s sensationalist,” she said.

Ludosky authored the online petition that became the catalyst for the ‘yellow vest’ protests. In it, she wrote that the government’s proposed carbon tax was both falsely branded a green policy and was harmful to the many people who depended on their cars to get around every day.

The document went viral and gathered more than one million signatures, and the fluorescent yellow vest that all vehicles in France must be equipped with became the symbol of the masses revolting against the elites.

Ludosky said her main point was lost in the coverage. She was not an angry car-enthusiast defending her right to drive, she was saying that the tax was unfair and would impact the most on the poorest.

“The longer we protested, the more they tried to tell everyone that we don't know what we want. That we were only out there to break things,” she said.

The early days of the movement saw hundreds of 'roundabout protests' in the French provinces. Photo: AFP

'They are there'

The violence also discouraged many of the 'yellow vests' who had little experience with protesting and were shocked by the use of force on both sides.

Danielle Tartakowsky, a professor at the Paris 8 University who specialises in social movements in contemporary France, said it was important to distinguish between the ‘yellow vest’ who still turned up to protests in Paris – often young, keen and ready to go head to head with police – and the ‘yellow vests’ mobilising in less urban areas.

“In the countryside the ‘yellow vest’ movement is the same as it was at the outset,” she said.

In her new book, On est là ! (We’re here), a main ‘yellow vest’ rallying cry, she concludes just that; the movement had changed, but the ‘yellow vests’ were still present.

“That does not mean that they are ready to rally in the same ways, but it would be dangerous and delusional to say that they have disappeared,” she said.

Tartakowsky said that, while the 'yellow vests' successes could seem limited from the outside, they had pushed through important change indirectly by showing that it was possible to force through change.

“Even if they did not win on all points they showed that it was possible to win something, to make the government backpedal,” she said, referring to the carbon tax.

The camp

When the protests started, the roundabout became the main stage for the protesters who did not travel to Paris to make their discontent heard and seen in the capital.

From June 2019 until March 2020, just before the pandemic hit with full force, Séverine spent most of her free time on a local roundabout where she and some 30 other ‘yellow vests’ had set up a camp.

A teacher in Amiens, a city a couple of hours north of Paris, Séverine was an early believer that the ‘yellow vests’ would be the movement that finally could radically change a system she saw as unjust, undemocratic and unsustainable.

“I passed all my evenings, all my weekends at the camp,” she said.

The camp was a microcosm of the world they hoped to create.

“We cooked together, discussed, we really had some great moments there together,” she said.

They were all kinds of people at the camp; a waiter, a metro driver, a nursery teacher, a few retirees. An Indian student who just needed somewhere to crash for free.

“It was a very open environment,” Séverine said.

But the problems soon surfaced. The camp, like the movement, swore to a leaderless management style where no one had a final say.

“It was a mess. Obviously, we didn’t manage to make any decisions,” Séverine said.

Violence at protests became a major problem. Photo: AFP

'People are exhausted'

They split themselves into two groups. Oddly enough, the division had little to do with politics.

“It was not about left or right. We actually agreed on the fundamental issues. It was more about strong personalities and people simply not getting along,” she said.

The atmosphere soured. They argued more, discussed less. They went from 30, to 20, to about 10. Then, after the local election in March, just before the pandemic made social distancing the norm, the mayor told them to clear the camp.

Critics have long said the ‘yellow vests’ lack of leadership was their major, perhaps the decisive, default. How could they push for change when they had no idea what they wanted?

Despite having become so disillusioned with the movement that she no longer knew if she wanted to call herself a ‘yellow vest’ at all, Séverine was not sure this was their main problem.

“Demonstrating every weekend is tiring. It requires a significant commitment. I think people are exhausted,” she said.

'I was fed up'

In the months that followed the movement’s heyday in early 2019, the protests followed the same pattern as Séverine's camp.

They were increasingly sparse in numbers and the atmosphere increasingly tense and bitter.

“You're walking in a state of complete stress, afraid that someone is aiming at you. You don't hear the messages anymore,” Séverine said.

Five people have lost a hand in the protests. Twenty-five were blinded in an eye. According to government numbers, 2,500 protesters were hurt in the protests by the end of 2019, along with 1,800 police officers.

“No one could imagine that a movement could last this long without losing momentum,” Ludosky said.

“Keeping on going cost a lot to the people who got involved. It's money, time, people lost limbs, couples separated.”

Like many others, she was put off by the violence. In the end, she left her yellow vest in her car.

“I was fed up,” she said. “Every time I wore it I worried about the police controlling me.”

She was not sure if she still believed in the movement.

“It’s complicated. The presidential elections are coming up soon, crying out for Macron’s resignation doesn’t make sense anymore.”

“But the 12th will be the moment to go out on the streets. Not necessarily in Paris, but we need to show something.”

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