International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 161

International Journal on Criminology
France has had a long history of revolts caused by the ignorance or disdain
of the aristocracy, whether it be a monarchy or a government. The trigger of
resentment was always taxation. The taille land tax, the gabelle salt tax, the
assembly of the Estates General of 1789 to increase the revenue of the kingdom,
but also the Poujadist movement of 1953 and the bonnets rouges against ecotaxes,
all lead up to the gilets jaunes (yellow vests).
As always, the gathering of angry crowds is mechanically translated into
symbolic destruction. Fishermen, farmers, and truck drivers have never failed to
destroy street furniture, the railings of police stations, speed cameras, porticos ...
even the Parliament of Brittany, albeit through clumsiness. Gustave Le Bon explained
as early as 1895 that: “Little adapted to reasoning, crowds, on the contrary,
are quick to act.” While the first part of this dictum could be revisited, the second
part is easily and regularly demonstrated.
Festive, organized, or chaotic crowd movements adore symbolic and redemptive
fires, from pyramids of tires to the stationary, but flaming, barricades
erected on the Champs Élysées when the goal was to march on the presidential
palace.
Of course, some instigators are more organized than others (it is not that
easy to un-pave a street by hand, and equipment is needed to prevent immediate
burns and the long-term effects of tear gas ... ). There is no need for the ultra-left
or ultra-right in order to bring together thousands of yellow vests who are not, or
not yet, a Yellow Bloc, the diesel version of the Black Bloc.
In this group of frustrated retirees, stifled low-wage earners, and the peripheral
“left behind,” confirming the hypotheses of Guilluy, there was certainly a
place for the professionals of violent protest and confrontation. Yet much less than
on May 1 or during the demonstrations against the labor law. And many more
prime-protesters who are in the process of building a new political generation, like
in 1968, 1986, ... but not in 2005, when the riots that required a state of emergency
did not lead to a structured movement. And it is regrettable, since this disorganizational
disorder causes damage and victims in unexpected proportions.
However, it is probably the episode in 1995 that saw Alain Juppé get swept
away by a coldly rational and hotly contested retirement reform that we must focus
on in order to try to understand the irresistible impulse of most governments to
pass by force what previous governments failed to accomplish.
After all, was it not to an extent symbolic posturing that drove a political
heir to show that he could succeed where his predecessors had twice failed?
What should we think of this truly incendiary desire to add a heavy goods
vehicle tax here, a toll for entering the city there, an increase in student registration
fees (just foreign students, to start), without forgetting the justice reforms that
eliminated juries for the most part, and therefore jurors, or the attempt to organize
mining reforms?
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