Neither For nor Against, Quite the Opposite

Metapolitics of the Yellow Vests and the Recolonial Situation

Abstract

What does the movement of the Yellow Vests (« Gilets jaunes »), which has been defying the power in France for more than a year, mean? This « revolt of the roundabouts » can already be considered the most important social movement in France since 1968, and even maybe 1936, but it can hardly be defined. Indeed, its participants are protesters from the right and the left, from all genders and places in the country, all ages and socio-professional categories. In this article, I argue that such revolt cannot be considered equivalent to the one that happened in Brazil in 2013 and that gradually evolved towards extreme right. In fact, even if the Yellow vests movement did begin with claims concerning the cost of living (gas, taxes, etc.), it rapidly evolved towards a more diverse type of awareness, to the point of defining itself as a constitutional movement, whose ambition is to reformulate the social contract at the root of the French nation. It is therefore not exaggerate to speak of a revolutionary event, even if it remains unclear what is being rejected in order to create a new world. I will try to show that the French people is trying to get rid of a quasi-colonial situation imposed by the European Union on their country.