It began as anger against neoliberal climate policies, a revolt against unfair petrol taxes that pass on the cost to working people rather than the rich and the very multinationals most responsible for polluting our planet. Now four weeks later, it has become a popular uprising for dignity, a rebellion against the elite and their world,a cry for equality. It has evolved into a powerful refusal of representation, of spokes people, political parties and unions. We have all been overtaken by what has been happening, everyone has become more than themselves; because we are impossible to define, the only code we have is a colour code, all the other codes are broken. We are too diverse and decentralized to be called a movement, too different to be categorized, let’s simply say we are an uprising ! Some in Europe have tried to turn this into an emblem of ideas from the extreme right, attempting to instrumentalise our heterogeneity… The yellow vests was at first a piece of road safety equipment, now it becomes an unprecedented event which opens up the fault line that charts our future, a chasm we must bridge, between social and environmental justice. It invites us all to make a choice between the political classes and the people,between closing borders and opening possibilities, between despair and hope.
This Saturday 15th of December, will be a key moment, ACT 5. Each Saturday has been called an act, an acknowledgment that the most beautiful popular theatre takes place in the streets, when we are dressed in costumes of fluorescent yellow… from here
