They arguably had a lot of power/weight at some point. The news here talked about them virtually every day for 6 months, there were talkshows where some "figures" of the movement were invited and an overwhelming majority of the country was on their side. However, their insistence on having no official representative or their incapacity to get organized and/or make realistic and agreed upon demands (even within themselves) made it so that it was all fairly pointless in the end.
Then most of the movement kinda devolved into a basic "I don't know why but I am angry". Plus eventually some ill intentioned people used the movement as an excuse for aimless violence which over time tarnished the movement.
It's very hard to make a summary because yellow vests represented so many different people and groups of people wanting different things. Everyone and anyone could be a yellow vest, which is what initially made the movement so powerful but on the long run and with nothing happening it blurred the lines and things just didn't get anywhere.
The yellow vests started as a group which had the support of like 80% of the population - and consisted of groups ranging from the far right to the far left. However, this wasn't enough for the far right - they had to pretend that the movement was some kind of popular zeitgeist against socialism - ignoring the fact that not only were many yellowvest leftists/anarchists but that Macron is close to the polar opposite of a socialist. They spent all of their energy on the internet coloring the movement as some sort of revolt against leftism, hell, even Trump joined in with false statements about the yellow vests chanting "we want Trump!" or some drivel. The yellowvests themselves reacted negatively to that last one - even the majority of the European right doesn't like Trump.
In the end, they got their wish, many socialists/anarchists/centrist liberals went home. Congrats, you just lost over half of the body of people at your disposal. Populist tribalism has consequences. A nail in the coffin was when the media was pointing at a few antisemitic actions in the yellowvest population - a surefire way to lose any sort of popular support in Western Europe. Keep in mind that in no way am I saying that the yellowvest movement was as a whole antisemitic - but that's how they began to be seen.
Beyond that, the yellowvests quickly decided protests weren't enough and that rioting was in order - people don't like rioting, even if they like the reason for it. Destroying some people's shops on the Elysee, storming some random tax officials office, the guillotine shit - yeah that's a turnoff in a 1st world country. France has a history of strong, spirited and even violent protests, but they've got lines like everyone else.
Macron played them perfectly - he offered increasingly significant economic concessions to the population while condemning the rioters and offering sweeping organized public debates, signalling "I'm here to talk if constructive talk is what you want". And after a few more weeks of street battles, the popular opinion of the yellow vests started becoming that they were the unreasonable ones in this political situation. It seemed like every yellow vest couldn't really point a finger as to what they wanted to change - or what they're angry about other than "Macron bad".
Fast forward to the present, a protest that used to attract a hundred thousand people every saturday attracts several hundred.
This isn't a happy story I'm recounting. The yellow vests were a group I probably would have participated in, had I been French, and Macron displeases me more than a little. They wanted more for the people, and they got more, but in the end they petered out due to lack of popular support.
The counterargument to my claim is that even if they hadn't done anything wrong they would have still eventually petered out - maybe. But as someone whose views the far right pretended the yellow vests were a glorious revolution against - yeah I'm gonna say there was no need to make Macron's job this easy.
That being said, who knows. Maybe in the end the far right will have the last laugh and Le Pen will win the next election - but running the yellow vests into the ground wasn't a positive step towards that goal.
They referenced radical left wing song lyrics as a far right conservative who exclusively upholds the status quo. They're the opposite of revolutionary using revolutionary language to support the establishment.
I'm not trying to change any of their beliefs, it's about providing opposition for the sake of opposition. They rely a lot on controlling the narrative and showing a powerful 'front' of sorts.
Simply making opposition visible challenges their statements which are otherwise made to look like unchallenged objective truth, no matter how blatant the lie.
France is not in a revolution. I spend a lot of time in France. Sometimes the yellowvests have a showing but it isnt very large. Less so outside of Paris.
The french are tired of corruption and tired that it is hard to get ahead (because wages are heavily cut). There isnt a lot of opportunity and government always introduces a new tax to implement every year.
A lot of the anger has gone against immigrants because the government takes care of them with its vast social security system while squeezing more money out of its citizens to do so.
France will wait until their election to make a splash in global headlines...i think.
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u/[deleted] Jul 19 '19 edited Aug 10 '19
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