Yellow Vest Protests Still Active in France

Photos: Leon Kunstenaar / Pro Bono Photo

If you drive in France, the law requires your car to contain a yellow emergency vest. This is a safety measure to make you more visible in case you need to exit your car on the side of the road.

The vest, now a national political symbol of risk and danger to working people, was established in a 2018 post that went viral by a woman called Jacline Mouraud.

It is now worn by working class protesters to express the economic threat they see from the pro- corporate policies of president Emanuel Macron. Originally a reaction to a gas tax increase, the Yellow Vest movement is now a generalized working class opponent of the French corporate establishment and its supporter, President Macron.

Their focus of economic survival is embedded in their message to environmentalists, "you may worry about the end of the world but we worry about the end of the month."

Massive Yellow Vest protests have rocked the country since 2018. On May 6, there were scattered small yellow vest protests throughout the country. They remain a committed presence calling out a revolutionary anti-capitalist message.

This May 6, their song "on est la" (we are here) reverberated in the Bastille square, site of the event that triggered the 1789 revolution.

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