{"id":41188,"date":"2018-12-03T06:10:32","date_gmt":"2018-12-03T11:10:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41188"},"modified":"2018-12-03T06:10:32","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T11:10:32","slug":"explaining-frances-grassroots-yellow-vest-movement-and-why-its-spreading-across-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=41188","title":{"rendered":"Explaining France’s Grassroots “Yellow Vest” Movement – And Why\u00a0It’s Spreading Across Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Explaining France’s Grassroots “Yellow Vest” Movement – And Why\u00a0It’s Spreading Across Europe<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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For three weeks,\u00a0tens-of-thousands<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0French protesters have donned yellow vests and marched throughout Paris. While the “yellow vest” movement began on November 17 as a grassroots protest against president Emmanuel Macron’s gas tax – levied in the name of climate change,\u00a0it has morphed into a general rage against the French government in general<\/strong>\u00a0at a time when Macron’s approval rating is at an all time low.<\/p>\n

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What’s more, the movement is\u00a0spreading<\/strong>\u00a0– with yellow vest\u00a0demonstrations seen in Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands by those expressing frustration over similar issues. The protests have\u00a0turned violent,<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0as disaffected rioters have been setting cars on fire, causing structural damage, and assaulting the police.<\/p>\n

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Riot cops in Brussels, for example, were\u00a0pelted with billiard balls, cobblestones and other hard objects<\/strong>\u00a0last week, while the yellow vest movement\u00a0is now working to form a Belgian political party under the name Mouvement citoyen belge<\/i><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

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What’s behind the movement?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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French authorities have predictably blamed the right-wing for the protests – with interior minister Christophe Castaner denouncing National Rally (*formerly National Front) leader Marine Le Pen of encouraging the violence.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“Marine Le Pen urged people to come to the Champs Elysees, and there are members of the ultra-right putting up barriers,” said Castaner, adding\u00a0“They have responded to Marine Le Pen’s call and want to take the institutions of state. We want people to be responsible.”<\/p>\n

The real cause, however, may be quite a bit more nuanced and a long time coming. As political commentator Kark Sharro suggests in a seven-part tweetstorm, the Yellow Vest movement is “about marginalsation and the impotence felt by ordinary people.”<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Explaining France’s Grassroots “Yellow Vest” Movement – And Why\u00a0It’s Spreading Across Europe For three weeks,\u00a0tens-of-thousands\u00a0of\u00a0French protesters have donned yellow vests and marched throughout Paris. While the “yellow vest” movement began on November 17 as a grassroots protest against president Emmanuel Macron’s gas tax – levied in the name of climate change,\u00a0it has morphed into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15342,281,333,18002,657,23287],"class_list":["post-41188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-marine-le-pen","tag-protests","tag-yellow-vest-protests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41189,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41188\/revisions\/41189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}