Returning to the tactic of a general strike will hopefully show France that the only solution is economically hurting the 1% whom the Western liberal model seeks to protect from any possible economic losses.
Of course these failed bets - on "independent" unions, on the "independent" private media, on emotional and unsteady youth, on protests which lack the basic knowledge of the class struggle and the majority's embrace of neo-imperialism in the French culture - all help explain why nearly no socio-economic movements have won since 1995.
What is different this time around?
Nobody can really tell, because it all depends on the willingness of workers to sacrifice their pay checks to win something they won't touch for decades in the future. Every society has immediate needs to satisfy, but does France have a culture which encourages thinking about the far, unknowable future?
Everybody is making the comparison with 1995, but there is no doubt that the economic and democratic condition of the average citizen is far, far worse since then.
Anti-austerity feeling has routinely been sky-high during the Eurozone's Lost Decade, and the French keep losing their purchasing power, government services, working conditions and the social rights it has taken a century to wrest from most decidedly un-Islamic high finance. Maybe this will tip the scales?
Is France willing to walk to work for just 3 weeks, like in 1995? If not, they should be prepared to work two extra years in their old age, and for a monthly stipend which is far less than what the elderly get now.
Footnote: Two weeks after the 1995 "victory" the far-right nature of the aristocratic/bourgeois Western model asserted itself - parliament voted to allow the social security reform via executive order. In such a model the 1% is guaranteed to win and is always the primary beneficiary of government policies and tax dollars. If the French weren't confronted by this reality before, the Yellow Vests have changed that.
Or maybe they haven't changed that? If the strike fails, the way the Western aristocratic model inevitably betrays the lower and middle classes - and the apathy, alienation and selfishness it necessary provokes among the mass of the citizenry- will be the primary reason for failure, although this reason is never cited in the West.
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