Others will know how accurate this is better than me, but I was struck by this section of the article:
“An extreme wing of the
gilets jaunes has turned towards the nihilist detestation of democratic institutions and symbols of success and wealth. But while Saturday’s crowd was mostly white (there are many black and brown
gilets jaunes) this movement shows, so far, few outward signs of racism or extreme nationalism. The great bulk of the movement represents genuine
economic and social distress in a peripheral and middle France which, with some reason, says that it is despised and fiscally exploited by the country’s thriving cities. Part of the French media suggests that Saturday’s protests were hijacked by ultra-violent sects of the hard right and hard left. This is also misleading.
There were groups of masked, young men among the 5,000 or so people on the Etoile and its radiating avenues but they were a minority. The great majority of the rioters were, by my reckoning, men and some women in their 30s and 40s from suffering rural towns in northern or western France and the hardscrabble outer suburbs of greater
Paris. They came dressed and armed for combat”
The article counterposes the movement with 2005 and 1968. As I say others on the ground will be able to assess if this characterisation is accurate better than me but the suggestion of a ‘faux Maoist’ uprising and a suggestion that civil war has effectively broken out, from the Guardian, is astonishing:
Never before have I seen blind anger like this on the streets of Paris | John Lichfield
