Europe and the USA are going through confusing times. The extremes and radicals of left and right come out of the corners of obsurity and manifest themselves in broad daylight. The old political establishments of center left and center right politicians don't appeal to the general public any more. In Central Europe the old general democratic power bastions of the center left Social Democrats and center right christian democrats tumbled down. Germany is an exception maybe, but the Netherlands and Belgium had hard time to form coalition governments due to the polarisation. It's like in the USA where people lost trust in the Bipartisan system and rejected the Democratic and Republican establishment and voted for the rightwing populist Trump movement which took over the Republican party.
From anti terorism and anti-Islamism to an anti-government tax stanceUnder influence of the September 11 attacks (also referred to as 9/11) in 2001 in New York, the assassination of Pim Fortuyn by the radical leftwing animal rights activist Volkert van der Graaf in Hilversum on May 6th 2002, North Holland on 6 May 2002 Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania, the 2004 Madrid train bombings, the murder of Theo van Gogh by Amsterdam-born jihadist Mohammed Bouyeri on November 2 2004, the 7 July 2005 London bombings, the March 29 2010 Moscow Metro bombings, the Toulouse and Montauban shootings on 11 – 22 March 2012, the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15 2013, the murder of Murder of British Army soldier, Fusilier Lee Rigby by the Islamist Jihadist terrorists by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale in southeast London in the afternoon of 22 May 2013, the 3 febriari 2015 Nice stabbing, the 14-15 February 2015 Copenhagen Sygagogue shootings (killing two civilians and injuring five others), the May 3 2015 gun attack on the Curtis Culwell Center 'Draw Muhammad' cartoon art exhibit in Garland, Texas (The event featured speeches by Pamela Geller, president of the AFDI, and Geert Wilders. 2 people were killed and 1 injured), the June 26 2015 Saint-Quentin-Fallavier attack (– Beheading in a factory near Lyon, head marked with Arabic writing and Islamist flags. Gas canisters planted provoked a fire. 1 dead, 11 injured.), the August 21 2015 Thalys train attack (Shooting and stabbing in train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris injures 5.), the September 17 2015 Berlin knife attack ( Rafik Y, an Islamist of Iraqi descent attacked and injured a police officer with a knife in Berlin. 1 injured, 1 dead (perpetrator)), the October 10 2015 Ankara bombings (In the 2015 Ankara bombings 102 people were killed and over 400 others injured. According to two high ranked sources in the Turkish security forces ISIL is most likely responsible.), November 13 2015 Paris terror attacks (A series of terrorist attacks in Paris kill 137, and wound 368. They involved a series of coordinated attacks which consisted of mass shootings and suicide bombings. This incident was the most fatal event on French soil since World War II.), the November 18 2015 Sarajevo terror attack (A lone wolf Islamist killed two soldiers and injured civilians in Sarajevo. 3 dead 5 wounded.), the December 2 2015 San Bernardino attack (In the 2015 San Bernardino attack, married couple Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik shot and killed 14 people and injured 22 others in a killing spree that the FBI was investigating as "act of terrorism".), the June 12 2016 mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida (in this mass shooting 49 people were killed and 53 injured. The shooter, Omar Mateen, pledged allegiance to ISIL by specifically calling police and journalists several times during the incident.), the July 14 2016 Bastille day (Quatorze-Juillet/la Fête nationale) attack in Nice in France (In the Bastille day attack a truck driving terrorist killed 86 people and the injured of 458 others), France. the July 26 attack on a church in Rouen and the brutal murder of a priest in that church (the priest's throat was slit and four nuns were taken hostage in a church in Rouen, France. The IS-linked Amaq news agency said "two soldiers of the Islamic State" had carried out the attack.), the November 28 2016 Ohio State University attack, the December 19 2016 Berlin Christmas market attack (a a truck was driven into the Christmas market next to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin, leaving 12 people dead and 56 others injured.), the March 22 2017 Westminster Bridge attack (4 dead and 49 people injured), the The 2017 Stockholm (Sweden) truck attack (Five people were killed and 14 others were seriously injured.), the June 6 2017 Notre Dame attack, the August 17–18 2017 Barcelona attacks (killed at least fifteen people and injured more than one hundred others.), the August 18 2017 Turku attack in Finland (by an eighteen-year-old Moroccan asylum seeker named Abderrahman Bouanane. According to the police he was a radicalized lone wolf influenced by ISIS. Two of the victims killed.), the August 31 2018 Amsterdam Central train station attack (A 19-year-old Afghan, with a German residence permit, stabbed two American tourists with a knife at Amsterdam’s central station. The victims remained in hospital with serious injuries. German police searched the man’s house at the request of their Dutch colleagues and seized several data carriers.) a large portion of the former Social Democratic Labour Party or Socialist party in France voters, center right liberal conservative voters and the christian democratic voters moved to the far right Nationalist Populist
National Rally (
RN) party in France, the far right Flemish Peoples Nationalist
Vlaams Belang (
Flemish Interest) and the Flemish nationalist and conservative
New Flemish Alliance (Dutch:
Nieuw-Vlaamse Alliantie,
N-VA) in the Flanders part of Belgium, the
PVV (
Freedom party) of
Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and
Alternative for Germany (
Alternative für Deutschland) in Germany.
From terrorist attacks to gas prizesThis continued
terrorist Islamist Jihadist Salafist Islamic State (
ISIS/
Daesh/
ISIL) activity in
Europe ad to the growth of
the rightwing Nationalist Populist movements and
National conservative political parties. From one side native Europeans became increasingly distrustful of their fellow citizens, the Muslim migrants (especially if they had and have North-African Maghreb Berber and Arabic Moroccan, Algerian, Tunesian, Libiyan or Egytpian backgrounds or Middle eastern Syrian, Iraqi, Palestinian, Lebanese, Jordan, Saoudi, Yemneite, Qatari, Emirati (United Arab Emirates) or Muslim African (Sudanese, Somali, Eritrean, Nigerian or Malinese backgrounds). People also became fed up by Nationalist and conservative Sunni Muslim Turks who support the
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's
Justice and Development Party (Turkish:
Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) government.). On the other side
the rightwing Populist Nationalist far right has integrated old fashionate
leftwing socialist,
Social-democratic and even
Marxist paroles.
The rightwing Nationalist Populists of today represent
the native European working class and
lower middle class. They stand for
social security for native Europeans, and support in the sense of
the Rassemblement national, the political party of
Marine Le Pen this
Yellow Jackets movement (French:
Mouvement des gilets jaunes) in
France, receiving critics for that from the government side.
French (native European)
workers who came from old
Red (=
socialist)
working class families who supported
the French Parti socialiste (
Socialist Party,
PS) or
Parti communiste français (
PCF) today support
Marine Le Pen's
Right-wing populist,
Hard Eurosceptic,
French nationalist,
National conservative,
Economic nationalist,
Anti-immigration,
Souverainist,
far right National Rally (
RN).
Souverainism (from the French word "
souverainisme", i.e. the ideology of sovereignty) or
sovereigntism is a doctrine which supports acquiring or preserving political independence of a nation or a region.
It opposes federalism and can be associated with certain
independentist movements.
Supporters of
the doctrine regard themselves as
Euro-realists, opposed to
the Euro-federalists, and call for
a confederal Europe.
Souverainism is thus
opposed to federalism, and it typically involves
nationalism, particularly in
France where the parties lean on it.
National Rally (Rassemblement National)National Rally (or
RN, which was formerly known as
the National Front) President
Marine Le Pen was one of the first politicians to show support for
the Yellow Vest movement. In late-October she began calling for her party’s officials and representatives to join the protest, and party activists have been distributing leaflets for the movement.
Le Pen, however, will refrain from joining the rallies herself. She justified her stance in a radio interview with
France Inter: “
The place of a party leader is not at demonstrations.” That position allows her
to denounce the attempts of her political rivals to capitalise on the movement.
Although "
a good part of the elected RN” are expected to participate in the road blockages, according to
Wallerand de Saint-Just,
the RN’s regional councilor for the
Ile-de-France region, activists and party officials have been asked not to wear party logos, so that the movement isn’t equated with the far right. But
Le Pen is already
being accused of taking advantage of it.
“
The November 17 demonstration is being completely exploited by Marine Le Pen and [Stand Up the Republic leader] Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, who are hugely irresponsible on this subject," said government spokesman
Benjamin Griveaux.
New phenomenon in EuropeThis
Yellow vests movement (French:
Mouvement des gilets jaunes) is
a new phenomenon in Europe.
Diesel prices in
France have increased by
16% in
2018, with
taxes on both
petrol and
diesel increasing at the same time and
a further tax increase planned in
2019. Those increases made the
diesel as expensive as
petrol. French President
Emmanuel Macron is bearing the brunt of the protestors' anger for his extension of policies implemented under
François Hollande's government. The protests began on
17 November 2018, and attracted over
300,000 people across France, with
protestors constructing barricades and
blocking roads.
The yellow jacket movement is not associated with a specific political party or trade union and has spread largely by social media.
Polls show that the movement has widespread support in France (ranging from
73% to
84%).
There are signs that
the Yellow vests movement has
copy cats in
other European countries.
Belgium,
the Netherlands,
Germany and
Italy. In Belgium, in the French speaking Brussel part of the country protesters clashed violently with the riot police as you can see in the video above here.
The Gilets jaunes protests have also had an impact in
Italy. According to
the Italian gilet jaunes, "
We are inspired by the French gilet jaunes, (...) But we are motivated by other issues. We, unlike the French, support our government. What we protest against is Europe. We want Europe to no longer interfere with Italian politics."
In
Belgium a non political gilets jaunes protest considers creating a political list to run for
federal elections in
2019 under the name
Mouvement citoyen belge.
The Yellow Jackets movement (French: Mouvement des gilets jaunes, lit. 'yellow vests' movement) in France attracts the attention and participation of the 2 extremes of the French political spectrum. From one side the anti-government far left Trotskist and Parti Communiste (Communist Party of France) and from the other side the b]National Rally[/b] (
RN). Both sides will try to attract the attention, the sympathy and the support of the discontented French workers who can hardly pay the diesel and petrol prises and their car insurance, and the French freelancers and small entrepreneurs for whom the high diesel and petrol taxes and prises are damaging their businesses.
www.foxnews.com/world/police-brace-for-driver-protests-in-paris-around-francenews.sky.com/story/paris-fuel-protests-activists-arrested-as-yellow-vest-demonstrations-turn-violent-11568555www.nytimes.com/2018/12/01/world/europe/france-yellow-vests-protests-macron.htmlwww.jacobinmag.com/2018/11/yellow-vests-france-gilets-jaunes-fuel-macronwww.france24.com/en/20181116-france-yellowww.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46411699edition.cnn.com/2018/11/17/europe/macron-france-fuel-protests-intl/index.htmledition.cnn.com/2018/12/01/europe/france-fuel-protests-intl/index.html