Yellow Vests
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FRANCE YELLOW VESTS PROTEST: MACRON PROMISES WAGE RISE
The minimum wage will be increased by 7% – and the cost of this increase will be met by the government rather than employers.
Actually, Macron did not promise a wage rise. That’s what I thought he said when I was listening to him, as did those commenting on French international TV immediately afterwards. But what he actually said, and meant, was that those on the minimum wage would get an extra €100 a month (a Euro is worth about 90p and rising due to the Brexit farce), not that the wage itself would be increased.
What he meant was that the French equivalent of “tax credits”, as a monthly state payment to those on low wages (a subsidy to employers to allow them to go on paying low wages) would go up by €100. That’s the meaning of the increase being “met by the government rather than employers”. A gradual rise in this over the next 3 or 4 years was already planned. So, what the gilets jaunes have achieved here is to get the rise brought forward (and increased a bit). Something but not as impressive as a rise in the minimum wage by 7%. That would have been rather impressive as in France when the minimum wage goes up so, under trade union agreements, in order to maintain differentials do the wages of many other workers.
One of the other measures announced by Macron will amount to a wage increase for many workers: exonerating overtime payments from tax and social security contributions (as had been the case in the past). Which, again, won’t affect employers.
In fact Macron went out of his way not to add to the costs of employers. The only tax increase announced was on the ‘digital giants’ Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon (known as GAFA in France).
So, in so far as the protests were about money, the protesters did get some crumbs even a bit of baguette. I imagine that, with the christmas/new year break coming, the movement will now wind down.
British far right hi jack UK version. Long Twitter thread, worth the read
Check out @MikeStuchbery_’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/MikeStuchbery_/status/1073626644529729536?s=09
Another, rather disturbing “concession” is reported in today’s Times:
In the face of populist protests on each of the past five weekends by gilets jaunes, Mr Macron has pledged to review immigration policy, to the consternation of some in his La République en Marche party.
However, other La République en Marche MPs said immigration was of concern to the yellow-vest protesters, many of whom compared Mr Macron unfavourably to President Trump.
I’m not sure how true the last statement is, though integration of migrants and camps outside Europe for asylum-seekers were among one list of demands.
Canada’s yellow vests – anti-environment, anti-immigration
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/20/canada-yellow-vest-protests-gilets-jaunes
Nelson Wiseman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, said, “When you scratch the surface, it’s very shallow,” he said. “It’s a vehicle for people who are very conservative and anti-immigrant – and want to use anything they can against the current government.”
British Yellow Vests – Far Right Front
Getting tough with Yellow Vests
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/29/dutch-yellow-vest-protest-broken-up-by-mounted-police
Some Yellow Vests are preparing to contest the European elections in France in May:
A sensible way to test how much support they have but which will also show that they are essentially a protest group rather than a revolutionary movement as some have been imagining.
I found this article presented an interesting analysis
The Yellow Vests, the Crisis of the Welfare State and Socialism
“The yellow vest movement is essentially calling for a return to the welfare state, and their movement is born of the crisis of the European welfare state in its last strong bastion, France. But the welfare state is (was) an attempt to stabilize capitalism in the highly developed countries, and rather than trying to save it or bring it back, we should call for a new form of socialism.”
The disappointment is the author’s “new form of socialism” is a return to old nationalization.
“The only way to keep the results of economic activity inside the country and available for social services is to nationalize the industries, so that they become public goods, owned collectively and not by private individuals and stockholders. The only way to maintain and pay for the public programs that the population cherishes, is to finance them through state ownership of the means of production and distribution.”
Don’t know much about them and they may be a deliberate distraction but there now exists the foulards rouges – or Red Scarves.
France’s Yellow Vest protest movement on Tuesday joined ranks with a major union in a day of nationwide protests over taxes and buying power, a first for both. The Communist-backed CGT union marched from Paris City Hall to the Place de la Concorde side-by-side with protesters from the Yellow Vest movement
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