France is at a crossroad. A fairly benign bread-and-butter protest
has turned into a major popular dissent putting in question France’s
political system. It is new, unheard of, and because we live in the
digital age, with immediate communication, the world is not only
watching, but there is a contagious factor to it, which in the
Anglo-Saxon world is called “Yellow Vests Movement”. In what could be a
healthy contagion of a social yellow fever of dissent, this polymorphic
movement has already spread to 25 countries and counting. In the
immediate vicinity of France, of course, in countries such as Belgium,
The Netherlands, Germany, Spain, but also while not clearly identified
as Gilets Jaunes
chapters in Hungary, Bulgaria and Serbia. It has reached the Middle
East with activities in Israel and Iraq, and the Americas with startup
movements, still trying to structure themselves, in the United States
and Canada. Is this explosion of dissent merely some short lived copycat
effects or is a deeper systemic change in process or, in another word,
the catalyst of a historical paradigm shift in real time. France is, for now, the main social battle ground, and critical test of the movement.
