WFHB Bloomington Community Radio
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Our show is about the French Gilets jaunes Movement, or Yellow Vests Movement. For more than a year, protestors have donned yellow safety vests and taken to the streets to decry the police, centrist French President Emmanuel Macron, and his attempted austerity reforms.
The reflective vests worn by protesters are required for all French motorists to store in their cars in cases of emergency. The vest became the emblem of the movement back in November of 2018 when Macron announced a tax on gasoline. He proposed the measure as an environmentally friendly regulation but the French people saw through his rhetoric and identified the obvious neoliberal bid to shift the rising costs of climate change to consumers. Thousands marched. Paris descended into chaos, and Macron withdrew the gas tax a month later.
And then every Saturday for months, the yellow vests continued to rally and riot in cities across the country. During the workweek, they took over hundreds of the roundabouts, which are highway junctions that move traffic in one direction around a central island. These traffic circles are common in the French road system, and the yellow vests used them to slow, as opposed to stop, traffic between cities and spread their message. The roundabouts became a hub of activity.
And while the scenes of the gilets jaunes are familiar, brutalizing riot police, broken windows, cars and trash bins set ablaze, these demonstrations continue to evade political definition.
In “Memes with Force,” producer Bella Bravo, speaks with Adrian Wohlleben and Paul Torino, Americans who contributed to the gilets jaunes at its outset, about what they find distinctive and vitalizing about this movement: by facilitating widespread participation through memes it has increased collective force; and by generalizing sites of resistance in the roundabouts it has broadened public opportunities for protest communities to converge and experiment.
Examples of memes in protest include wearing a yellow vest, or singing Baby Shark throughout the streets and squares of Lebanon, or banging on a stovetop pot as people do now throughout Latin America in a form of protest called cacerolazo.
Instead of the public square, meeting hall, salon, or club, the yellow vests meet in the roundabouts – sites completely novel to class conflict though clearly linked to the capitalist command of the terrain.
Set this against the localized struggle of a factory strike or a reproductive justice campaign largely composed of a subset of women where a protest-specific identity limits participation; memes or memetic activities allow anyone to engage in the fight, to transcend individual interest.
Our opening song, “Gilet jaune” (or Yellow Vest) comes from Toulouse, France delivery driver Kopp Johnson. This simple, repetitive chant expresses support for the Yellow Vests and calls for the resignation of French President Emmanuel Macron. It has over 26 million YouTube views and has become the subject of a multitude of memes. We’ll stick with French Hip-hop throughout.
GUESTS
Adrian Wohlleben is a communist researcher and translator living in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]
Paul Torino lives in Atlanta and can be reached at [email protected]
RELATED
Memes with Force – Lessons from the Yellow Vests by By Paul Torino & Adrian Wohlleben
¡Chile despertó! – Chile Woke Up!
Making Claims from the Coca Fields: Women’s Autonomy and the Colombian National Strike
It’s Now or Never: Lessons On Protest from Hong Kong
The Transformative Act of Sharing and the ZAD
MUSIC
“Gilet Jaune” by Kopp Johnson
“Blocage (gilet jaune)” by Mr. Fabre
“Emmanuel Macron vs Gilets Jaunes” by Papy Sito
“Gilets Jaunes” by Kozi
CREDITS
Producer & Host: Doug Storm
Episode Producer: Bella Bravo
Audio Editor: Sean Milligan
Images provided by Adrian Wohlleben
Executive Producer: Kade Young
