Or, as Karel writes:. The gilets jaunes are, I believe, a different creature from the Nuit debout or Occupy movements. Nuit debout and Occupy started with tech savvy students and young professionals, and was centered in urban areas. The gilets jaunes started with middle aged, middle class workers from rural areas and the suburbs.
It has to do with the structural changes in French society imposed by globalization and neo-liberalism over the last 30 years. In most small towns and villages the traditional baker, butcher and small shop keeper no longer exist.
They have been destroyed by shopping centers, much like in the rural US. In order to hold a job, go to school, purchase the basic necessities of life, French paysans cannot get by without a car, because the jobs, schools and necessities are in the shopping centers and urban agglomerations 20 to 30 km from where most rural French live.
In addition to this the EU has imposed on the French austerity programs, championed by the French president Emmanuel Macron and his ruling party, La Republique en Marche LREM , which have led to unprofitable rural hospitals and clinics being closed, to the suppression of support for public transport and to increased fees and charges for everything from water and electricity to permits and the like. Macron has also proposed privatizing the state rail company SNCF; even the hydroelectric dams are scheduled to be privatized.
This is coupled with tax cuts for the wealthy, along with a refusal to prosecute wealthy tax dodgers with income hidden in tax paradises like Luxembourg or the Caribbean Islands. So they started organizing three weeks ago, blocking traffic circles and major transport arteries. Gilets jaunes , or yellow vests, are worn because of a recently proposed law that would have required all owners of a motor vehicle, even a scooter, to carry a yellow vest with them at all times, and to wear it when outside of their vehicle on the motorway.
