Like a bonfire, popular uprisings burn unevenly. That they inflame, it seemed to be extinguished in order to suddenly flare up again. So with the French uprising LJ ("yellow vests"). It is impossible to predict what will happen next. Although the Macron regime neglected the rights of a man and a citizen, introduced armored personnel carriers to Paris, arrested thousands of demonstrators and threw hundreds in jails, one cannot guarantee that this unacceptable violence will bring him the desired fruits of peace.
The Parisian uprising returns me to my youth - by May 1968, and in fact half a century has passed since then. Parisians rarely rebel, but every rebellion is remembered by humanity and becomes a stage in its path. 1789 - The rebel Parisians bury the old regime, proclaim democracy, freedom, equality and fraternity. 1848 - The rebel Parisians begin the Spring of Nations. 1871 - The Paris Commune becomes a forerunner of the socialist revolution. 1968 - the revolution of freedom and the lifting of prohibitions. And now, in 2018, the Parisians put an end to the radical neoliberal project of enslaving humanity.
Even if repression, mass arrests, propaganda and armored personnel carriers will help the Macron regime to hold on, the bell rang: the end of the dream of bankers and rich people to tighten their belts, and to grow their third chins. After all, the uprising of 1789 only set an example, and the elimination of the old feudal order took dozens more years across Europe.
In Europe, and Pushcha in London has already accused Russia of fomenting the Paris uprising. I would be glad and proud if such an accusation had at least some basis. Official Moscow, the government, nowhere and in no way intervenes in principle and even has not yet condemned the brutal suppression of the uprising and the arrest of children and schoolchildren. But public Russia in social networks and public organizations has not yet moved away from the trauma of Kiev’s “Maidan” of 2014 and instinctively does not support popular speeches, seeing the machinations of Soros and the State Department in everything.
No, the main ringleader of the “color” revolutions, George Soros and his voice, Bernard Henri Levy (BHL, as the French call him), who danced on the Kiev stage at one time, have already condemned the uprising and called the rebels “Nazi fascists.” The people of France were not afraid of this label and supported LJ - 75-80% of the people believe that they are right. So this uprising is not inspired, it is driven by the popular spirit.
The rebels have no single center, no party, no leadership — as is usually the case with real, not staged, revolutions. Therefore, the ruling regime did not manage to bribe and intimidate the leaders on the move, it was not possible to agree with the opposition party (and the neoliberals have worked this technique over the past 50 years).
The Paris uprising showed a crisis of parliamentary democracy. The collusion and rapprochement of the main parties have led to the fact that there is already no big difference between the left and the right - all are approximately the same and say the same thing with different accents. So it is in Paris and in Berlin. Manipulations of the press led to the fact that Macron won the elections in France - an unknown bank employee to anyone. And he began to carry out the program of bankers: he freed the rich from taxes, and the poor increased taxation. The people did not tolerate long because they did not feel the legitimacy of Macron who jumped out of the box. After all, a famous party did not stand behind it, there was no tradition - only a television media device.
Due to the lack of a single LJ leadership, we do not know the exact demands of the rebels. It is clear that they are against neoliberalism - they want the rich to pay, not the middle class. In social networks, they spread the official charter of LJ, from which it is clear that we are not talking about a gas tax for a long time - the government, under pressure from demonstrators, agreed to cancel it.
Among other requirements - to revise the privatization, return the dismissed workers and employees, again to recruit doctors to hospitals and teachers in schools, to put an end to the dismantling of the welfare state. Leave the European Union, withdraw from NATO, stop participating in wars abroad. Stop the massive migration to the country and at the same time stop the looting of the former French Africa, because it is this looting that is pushing the Africans to a mass flight to France. Stop the competition of countries: who will make more concessions and concessions to corporations and their owners.
In short, the insurgents demand that the reforms of recent years, which took place both in France and in other developed countries, be brought back into full swing. They want to return to France, which existed until 1991, when, from the fear of the USSR, the then rich people somehow considered the workers and allowed them to live and flourish too. The rebels demand to stop the vicious union of the press and the elites, give a voice to the people, listen to their wishes.
Judging by these requirements, France is today ahead of the rest. On the barricades of Paris, the neoliberal dystopia of creating a state for the super-rich collapses. And even if the uprising is finally crushed, its basic demands will be a beacon for new uprisings and revolutions until they win. And the people will surely win.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.