Text by the collective Gilets jaunes Rungis Île-de-France on the European elections. To be distributed on paper and in social networks from the PDF and images available in this article.
On Friday, May 17th, Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic, talked about us again.
As usual, he talks about us to shut us up.
But we’ve been around for six months.
We emerged from the backwoods; we overcame our sense of resignation.
The president has wanted us to go home for six months, to calm down, to fall in line.
But despite our differences, despite our heterogeneity (or perhaps thanks to it, to a certain extent?), we are still there.
He said he had “provided answers to the French on what had led to this movement”.
Two possibilities, one answer:
A- Macron is stupid.
B- Macron thinks we’re jerks.
Answer B of course. Macron is not stupid, he is simply greedy for power and as any good leader, as any bourgeois, he seeks above all to preserve his privileges, those of the possessing class.
However, our main demand has been clear from the beginning: MACRON RESIGN.
Macron adds that for “those who continue today [to protest], there is no longer any political outlet”. He calls for “calm”, encourages everyone to “return to normality” and “to express their differences of opinion (…) in the times provided for by democracy, those of elections”. If we no longer have any “political outlet”, why should we vote? Hmm?
We have been saying it since the beginning of the movement: we do not want a change of political staff, we do not want to replace Macron with Le Pen or Mélenchon or anyone else. We want something else. We do not need a boss, a leader; we do not want representatives, opportunistic careerist puppets to set up a new party. It has been said since the beginning: our movement stands outside institutional politics, outside the parties, outside the trade unions; we do not want to become “social partners” of the power that only serve to strengthen the democratic image of the system and preserve the established order.
The lists labelled “Gilets jaunes” for the European elections are only pure political manipulation. These are attempts to kick us into line, just like the so-called representatives of the Yellow vests who declare demonstrations to the prefecture. All this is aimed at a return to normality through something else than the police method: what is being sought is the maintenance of public order by simply changing a few heads.
But we do not want a few crumbs reluctantly dropped by the political power, we want a social revolution. Radical change, which is beyond us as much as Macron (he who would like us to limit ourselves to dialogue with his subordinates, to create electoral lists, to perpetuate the system against which we are struggling…).
Exploited and dominated here and on the other side of the world by the same politicians, the same capitalists, our prospects for social change are not “simple”, because everything has to be overthrown, here and elsewhere. Our solutions do not fit into the legal boxes of the system and we understood that the government would put obstacles in our way at each autonomous initiative, at each moment that comes out of its control. But we will not give up: assemblies, occupation of roundabouts, construction of huts, demonstrations, actions of all kinds, we are now living through the struggle against this system based on social inequalities, but we are also living through mutual aid, self-organization and social experimentation.
We are the present and the future.
On May 26th, we’re not gonna vote.
We have much better things to do!
May 2019, Paris,
Collectif Gilets jaunes Rungis Île-de-France
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