The revolt in France is fundamentally directed against the neoliberalism that has caused social inequality to reach alarming levels throughout the world, including in France.

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CAUSES OF THE PEOPLE'S REVOLT IN FRANCE
Fernando Alcoforado *
The newspaper Le Monde of December 8th presents the headline following: France is in
the midst of another day of protests with hundreds of prisoners. Paris closes shops,
museums and monuments for fear of new acts of vandalism. The newspaper reports that
Paris, the City of Light, the capital of museums, theaters, the city of great avenues and
boulevards, became on Saturday a ghost town, fortified by sandbags and maximum
security and covered in tear gas in half to a new day of violence during another
manifestation of the "yellow vests". About the yellow vests, it´s important to note that in
France, the use of these vests by drivers is mandatory for safety reasons.
This was the fourth act of popular protest that headed towards the French capital,
symbol of the central power. Throughout last Friday, the shops of some avenues in the
"most risky region" - virtually the entire center, from the Arc de Triomphe to the
Republic Square, the traditional arrival point of the demonstrations - covered their
windows with wood or even metal. Not only were luxury stores and banks protected, a
favorite target of last Saturday's riots, but also supermarkets and cafes. Public
transportation was almost halted. Most of the museums and monuments, from the Eiffel
Tower to Notre Dame Cathedral to the Pantheon, also remained closed in a preventive
manner and many theaters also canceled their shows. The city officials also worked
hard. By order of Mayor Anne Hidalgo, until Saturday morning it was necessary to
remove more than 2,000 items of urban furniture susceptible of being used as
"weapons" by the rebels.
Despite calls for calm from the government, deputies, local authorities and even trade
unions, the tension is enormous and security forces have been ordered to introduce
themselves en masse. Around 8,000 police and guards in Paris, 89,000 across France,
were mobilized to prevent "Act IV", as protesters called the last Saturday of protests, re-
generate scenes of chaos, burning cars and incendiary barricades, vandalized
monuments like the Arc de Triomphe on the previous Saturday. About 12 armored
vehicles of the municipal guard have been displaced since early morning in Paris, an
unprecedented gesture that demonstrates the seriousness with which the situation is seen
by the Macron government attacked by the population revolt, which was not appeased
either by the announcement of the suspension until the end of 2019 of the tax on the fuel
that was what triggered the movement. More than 1,000 demonstrators were detained,
651 in Paris. More than 50 people were injured in the act.
According to Brice Teinturier, vice president of the Ipsos Research Institute,
the "yellow vests" movement is driven by a strong sense of social injustice (See the
website https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2018/12/08/les-gilets-jaunes-se-sont-
feel-ignores_5394523_823448.html # xtor = AL-32280270). Brice Teinturier says that
the movement of the "yellow vests" is part of another logic that is not totally reducible
to any political or social category. On the contrary, many categories, several and even a
priori contradictory, can be identified with the "yellow vests". This is your strength,
your power of support in opinion and its novelty. To this is added a second singularity:
if they are obviously unifying and concrete, protest against rising diesel prices or
purchasing power claims are only the superficial part of the current revolt. This sets in
motion a more immaterial component, an imaginary mobilizing myth and much deeper.

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That is why the only cancellation of fuel rates will not be enough to calm this
movement if there is no response to the submerged part of the iceberg.
Another comment by Brice Teinturier is that the "yellow vests" refuse a world they
consider to be deeply unfair. Teinturier asserts that this colossal feeling of injustice and
contempt is the rejection of a world shaped by social, salary or statutory inequalities, in
a society increasingly divided between "protected" and "exposed" - generally at risk,
unemployment, precariousness or globalization. But they also reject a coldly rational
and disembodied worldview, where everything is based on efficiency, effectiveness,
productivity, as if a country or a life could be summed up in an Excel spreadsheet. They
cultivate the expectation of fraternity, coexistence and a demand: the human first. And it
does not matter the rationality considered technocratic.
Brice Teinturier says that the "yellow vests" refuse to bipolarise the labor market
between very high-value-added jobs and other increasingly precarious and low-paid
jobs. They did not have to read Patrick Artus's latest book, What if the officials
revolted? (Fayard, 176 pages), to understand that the job-creation-destroying model
theorized by economist Joseph Schumpeter no longer works for lack of powerful
productivity gains in a person-service economy where intermediate jobs become scarce.
They, the "yellow vests," are thus prisoners of this bipolarization, without hope of being
able, themselves or their children, to escape this social dismantling. It is not a feeling,
but a deep reality that they experience daily.
Teinturier presents the determining causes of the unleashing of the "yellow vests"
revolt. He says the revolt happened because the "yellow vests" not only felt ignored in
an unjust, but encircled, society. Teinturier recalls a Chinese proverb quoted by Mao:
"You should never completely surround the tiger, otherwise you irritate him, and he
attacks you." In the current crisis, this has caused the breaking point: the increase in
diesel taxes that affected the majority of the population, both in terms of purchasing
power and mobility. This made them go from disengagement, repulsion or withdrawal
to revolt. Despite the Macron administration's failed attempt to appease, this goal has
not been achieved because the leadership of the movement is diffuse. The main problem
remains the morphology of a movement that lacks clear and uncontested leaders and
which do not respond to any of the traditional characteristics of social protest. Macron,
the main target of the wrath of the population, holds a silence that has not been broken
since his return from Argentina at the G20 meeting.
The perceived injustice and bipolarisation of the labor market make President Macron
the center of the crisis. Neoliberal policies adopted by it have activated perceived
injustice such as reforming the labor code, raising taxes, etc. But also by a method of
decision-making that is judged to be very technocratic, rational, cold and resulting from
a diagnosis that is objective and not subject to debate. Finally, by a form of
intellectualism, in the concepts and words used, they accentuated the distance and fed
the process of arrogance. To this must be added an initial error: the idea that, since the
French Revolution, a monarchical figure would have wanted to dominate the French.
When the president gives the impression he wants to impose his will on the French, it is
because he is convinced that he has correctly diagnosed the situation in the country and
is trying to convince them. But all of a sudden the French say that it is he who does not
understand them. All this, the president and the government understood with the
outbreak of the revolt.

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The revolt in France is fundamentally directed against the neoliberalism that has caused
social inequality to reach alarming levels throughout the world, including in France.
Thomas Piketty has shown in his Capital in the twenty-first century that there has been
continuous growth in wealth inequality since the 1970s, contrary to the trend of the
previous 60 years and much more pronounced and socially relevant than rent inequality.
The IMF itself states that neoliberal policies have increased social inequalities. Article
under the title FMI diz que políticas neoliberais aumentaram desigualdade (IMF says
neoliberal policies have increased inequality), published in 2016 on the website
<http://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2016/05/fmi-diz-que-politicas-neoliberais-
increased-equality, reports that neoliberalism was criticized by one of its biggest
advocates, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), in an article published by three
economists at the institution. Besides not generating economic growth, some neoliberal
policies have increased inequality, putting at risk a lasting expansion. The austerity
policies, which often reduce the size of the state, not only generate substantial social
costs, but also undermine demand and deepen unemployment. To end the popular revolt
in France, Macron must abandon his policy of neoliberal rule. This scenario may occur in
Brazil with the anti-national and antisocial neoliberal policy to be put into practice by the
Bolsonaro government from 2019.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 78, holder of the CONFEA / CREA System Medal of Merit, member of the Bahia
Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the
University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business
planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 14 books addressing issues
such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and Climate Change, The
Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and The Great Scientific,
Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.