It was not at all an easy year, and I recall being quite exhausted by the summer. It wasn't just the obvious stress caused by walking into a "near war zone" every Saturday - why on earth did the Vesters insist on marching 10-15 kilometers every Saturday? And so fast, too!
But, as they have shown, their endurance and determination are beyond remarkable. I'm glad the facts are on the record in one place, if only as an expression of admiration for them.
France Year in Review: The rise and rise of the Yellow Vests into a General Strike
2019 in France obviously has to be remembered as the year of the Yellow Vest rebellion.
It began in November 2018, and President Emmanuel Macron thought he had pacified it in December with a pittance of so-called "concessions", but the rebellion continued.
Why, because as I wrote back then: "It's just one protest" which has lasted 8 years". They want you to view the Yellow Vests in isolation instead of as a historical continuum.
In early December every single person I asked agreed that they are a Yellow Vest. Biased, misleading and above all a lack of polling would attempt to hide the Yellow Vests amazing popularity the entire year. By September I was explaining Why France's 20- and 30-somethings hate the Yellow Vests (foolishly, of course). However, no poll ever showed the Yellow Vests with an approval rating lower than 49%, and they are generally around 60% - this makes them by far the most popular political movement in France, even if not everyone joins their club. And above all: that is a simply enormous score for any protest movement, anywhere.
Many assumed the Vesters would stop protesting over Christmas because that's what every political/social/union/labor movement had done for decades, no matter how much political momentum they had. Not the Vesters. Right then I knew that this was serious - they had different priorities.
By January it became clear that the French government was going to treat political protesters like football hooligans.
Jan 2 - Start by arresting their leaders for eating dinner
On December 20, 2019, the justice department would admit that France's top police hierarchy were wrong to order the "disguised arrests" of key Yellow Vest leader Eric Drouet along with 42 others back on January 2nd. They were eating in a restaurant.
A "disguised arrest" is a euphemism for an arrest ordered by the Deep State: one is arrested without any true justification or reason, but simply because security agents have been ordered to do so.
Drouet immediately denied being a "leader", because organizationally the Yellow Vests are indeed a grassroots, leaderless, "Latin anarchy-style" protest movement and not a political party. I eventually began referring to Drouet and others as "organizers". Drouet does admit to eating nearly three times a day.
A column I wrote that week pointed out that, like the Vietcong, the Yellow Vests absolutely will not have the early demise which the Mainstream Media hopes for" because they have nowhere to go.
Jan 5 - Vesters surprisingly march after New Year's Day
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