(read Part 1)
This is one of the secrets behind the, up to now, remarkable success of the Yellow Vests. This is also, mutatis mutandis, what SYRIZA did in Greece – while being almost oblivious of it – at a symbolic level (only!) when approached the ANEL [3] party, thus uniting the force of the Social (Popular) identity and of the National one, behind the major national and social demand of the abolition of the neo-colonial Memoranda, even if this never materialized into anything real and led finally to a majestic Bubble, which was controlled from early on by foreign powers and services and later it just burst, rendering the Greek people an orphan and the Greek nation decapitated, this time more than ever before.
In fact, this is what the Yellow Vests do now; unintentionally and acting spontaneously on their collective political instincts, they bring into life one of the most significant social and political experiments in history by building their own social and national front – without even meaning to call it this way. It is the French lower classes themselves which do it, which try, by their own initiative, to build the socio-political subject they so badly need for their salvation – and until now at least, they do it very well. It is the workers, the unemployed, the pensioners and the lower middle classes causing enormous confusion and uneasiness not only to the Power, but to all of the country’s political elites, its parties and its intellectuals. All of them seem to throw their arms up before History which all of a sudden has waken up and now is moving so fast that it barely has time, maybe, to throw just a glance back at them…
The painter tells me that Jean d’Arc was born here. Another one jumps in adding, as if he felt necessary to give me this information, “Here is also where she saw her visions”. There is no trace of any suggestion or proudness in their words. Just passing on information.
Jeanne d’Arc however, is not a random person, nor is the information as unimportant as it seems at first glance. Also known as Joan of Lorraine, she saw, while still a teenager, visions instructing her to save France from English domination. And she played a significant role in changing the course of the Hundred Years’ War in favour of the French. She didn’t live to see the results of her work, as in May of 1430 she got captured by the Duke of Burgundy, Philip and was handed over to the English. She was put in trial at the city of Rouen before a religious court, which was appointed by the University of Paris and commanded by the English, and she was sentenced to execution by burning; while they were burning her alive an English soldier was heard shouting, “We are lost, we have burned a Saint”. Twenty years later her name was rehabilitated and her contribution to the liberation of France recognised.
Jeanne d’Arc emerged in the history of France from the depths of the country almost fully occupied at that time and dominated by England, because its King and nobility could not and did not want to defend their country. Of course today France is not threatened by an English invasion. What this day threatens the French people and their country, along with all other peoples and nations of Europe, is the imposition of a relentless Financial Totalitarianism.
As far as its current “King” is concerned, the institutionally all-powerful and politically powerless President Emmanuel Macron, Rothschilds’ young banker, not only has no intention to defend his people and his country from the “invasion” of the Finance, but, on the contrary, until recently he presented himself as its primary instrument, by definition the best weapon of the Finance Elite, of the Bankers, the only man capable of ending the “French exception”, crushing any resistance and subjugating the country of the French revolution, of the Paris Commune and of May ‘68, to the power of neoliberal Totalitarianism.
Things have proven to be more complicated. Now, the European, not only the French political elite, is scared to death by what is happening in the country of Robespierre, even if they try to hide it as best as they can. And they seem to have no idea what to do, except resorting to violence.
But as Napoleon (the First, not the Third!) has once said, you can do whatever you want with bayonets, except one. Sit on them.
The main results of the Commercy meeting
We will need to return to what happened to the Commercy meeting and what it means. What we want now to underline are its two main achievements.
First, the movement has acquired its first national coordination structure, as rudimentary as it is still. From the organization and communication throught Facebook it is moving to a more “soviet” like type of organization (in the original sense of this word, not on the bureaucratic form they acquired).
Second, the movement has now a document somehow summarizing its main demands, the Appeal of Commercy. In that, the Yellow Vests are asking in particular for
– The resignation of President Macron
– A complete reversal of neoliberal social policies
– The right of the people to control political power, throught the right of citizens to provoke referendums (on introducing or rejecting bills and on revoking elected representatives), through the convening of a Constitutional Assembly and the abolition of privileges of elected representatives.
Needless to say, such demands are already in frontal opposition to the Neoliberal regime already imposed in France and in Europe.
Next Tuesday, February 5th, the Yellow Vests will try to make a second huge leap forward by the general strike they are calling along with one of the main French trade unions, the CGT. They try to get with them the French working class and to show their force not only disturbing transportation, but also production of goods. The success or not of this strike will represent a crucial test for the direction and the pace events will take in France.
In our next article, we hope to be able to focus on the various obstacles and limits which are in front of the movement.
[3] ANEL: Independent Greeks – National Patriotic Alliance is a conservative right-wing political party in Greece, which together with SYRIZA formed the governing coalition, which has been in power since 2015. Recently left from the government coalition over the Macedonia naming dispute.