Browsing: Gilets Jaunes

Gilets Jaunes is French for describing the ‘Yellow Vest/jackets’ grassroots movement who have been protesting against President Macron’s austerity measures.

They have mobilised themselves via social media and have been protesting every Saturday since November 2018.

The protestors also go by the name ‘Yellow Jackets’ or ‘Yellow Vest’, which is the translation of Gilets Jaunes in English. They are also known as ‘les gilets jaunes’.

The Yellow jackets movement is a populist, grassroots revolutionary political movement for economic justice that began in France in October 2018 following a petition which attracted millions of signatures.

What are the gilets Jaunes protesting?

The movement was triggered by the French government’s measures to keep increasing a direct tax on diesel as well as the carbon emissions tax. The protesters see these as disproportionately affecting those who use their cars to get to and from their jobs every day.

Originally, it started with an online petition that received millions of signatures but as the Government ignored the online protest the Yellow Vest mobilised into a huge demonstration on the streets of Paris, Bordouex and Lyon.

To add to this, French President Emmanuel Macron suppressed a tax on wealth, which only applied to people who possessed taxable net assets of more than €1,3 million. Macron’s economic reforms are seen as favouring the wealthy.

The ‘gilets jaunes’ are a very diverse group of people. And the supporters span across age, job, and geographical region and comprise unemployed youth, retired people with very low pensions, but most people have one thing in common most of them earn the minimum wage or very close to it.

You can get all the latest gilets jaunes news by searching for the Gilet Jaunes tag or Gilet Janes France on the WTX News website.