Hello, I've been reading you on Mélenchon these days and would be interested in your opinion on his treatment of the bonnets rouges movement. I find some appeal in his political views but am detered by his unequal interpretation of social movements. I credit it to his somewhat jacobin/nationalist upbringing, and would like to have your thoughts on what his legitimate or not to him. Thank you, have a good day.
Hi! Quite a good question, as I don’t think too many journalists have taken the time to scrutinise the similarities and differences between the ‘Red Caps’ of yesteryear and the current ‘Yellow Vests’, even after Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, during a ‘Questions to the Government’ panel at the Assembly, drew that parallel to promise that his government would not be intimidated by the protests—at that time, the movement was only three days old:
‘Let us remember the Red Caps. Confronted with social difficulty that collided directly with their engagements [during the presidential campaign], the previous government [P.M. Jean-Marc Ayrault’s] chose to step back. Our goal is entirely different: we would keep the line that we proposed during the presidential and legislative elections.’
Here, I have to make a long-ish pause to explain to whomever is reading this outside of us both and doesn’t know who the ‘Red Caps’ were, well, who the ‘Red Caps’ were, precisely.
So, back to 2013, in the north-west of France, in the Brittany region. On 18th June, a collective of thirty local company leaders call Bretons and the French for action against a special tax that is scheduled to be applied to all heavy goods vehicles circulating on some state-financed and locally financed roads in the country starting from 1st October, colloquially known as ‘HVG eco-tax’.
The thirty company leaders, who are gathered at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry at Pontivy, are asking for the eco-tax to be suppressed, for (employers’) taxes in general to diminish, and for ‘administrative constraints’ (for employers) to be reduced. Amongst them are notably: Jakez Bernard, president of certification label ‘Produced in Britanny’, Alain Glon, former food-processing industry honcho, now president of a regionalist think-tank, Olivier Bordais, who manages a local supermarket, Jean-Pierre Le Mat, president of a big employers union (C.G.P.M.E., aimed at small & smallish business owners), Jacques Jaouen, president of the Brittany Chamber of Agriculture.
Soon they are joined by two big union federations: the National Federation of Farmers Unions, Finistère (one of Britanny’s départements) branch (the F.D.S.E.A. is pretty right-oriented) and the Force Ouvrière (‘Workers Force’, a big Trotskyist union) union branches for the big slaughterhouses Doux (chicken) and Gad (pork). This changes everything, as it allows for a massive, noisy joint demonstration on 2nd August—during which the protesters infamously destroy a drive-through unit meant to detect eco-tax-ready lorries installed in Guiclan.
It doesn’t change much. Months pass. And then, in early October, the Rennes Commercial Court declares that the Gad Inc. slaughterhouse in Lampaul, in Finistère, which works pork meat, must be shut down, whereas others in the same group may remain active; Gad employs 900 people in Lampaul, but their branch has been hit hard by European concurrence. As a matter of fact, while production is being transferred from Lampaul to Josselin, a hundred of interim employees arrive from Romania, paid less than 600€ per month; fixed-term contracts at Josselin are no longer being renewed as a new European directive is about to pass on posted workers. On 21st October, 350 ex-employees from Lampaul invades the Josselin abattoir: according to police reports, 400 Josselin employees exit the factory to fight them.
This all happens during a three-week movement organised by agricultural syndicates on 14th, 21st and 28th October, the protesters aiming at another eco-tax drive-through unit in Pont-de-Buis. They are farmer unionists and the ‘Committee for Convergence of Breton Interests’ (C.C.I.B.), which was created in Pontivy on 18th June as an interprofessional organisation uniting business representatives and academics, aiming to make propositions concerning economy and employment in the region.
On Saturday 28th October, several hundreds of protesters destroy the unit at the Pont-de-Buis motorway toll. The rather heated crowd wear red caps inspired by the 1675 ‘révolte des bonnets rouges’, which under Louis XIV’s reign protested an increase in taxes, and which took place in the west of France but was fiercest in Lower Brittany. That same day the Pont-de-Buis unit is destroyed, F.D.S.E.A. Finistère president Thierry Merret calls the protesters to gather at a regional meet-up on 2nd November in Quimper, capital of the Finistère département.
There were two big demonstrations in November: the one in Quimper, and the one that took place on 30th November in Carhaix-Plouguer (former county town of Breton Cornwall). The latter was organised by left-wing collective ‘Live, Decide & Work in Brittany’, created by Carhaix mayor Christian Troadec, Thierry Merret, worker & union representative for Force Ouvrière at Gad, and Corinne Nicole, union representative for the General Confederation of Labour at big chicken abattoir Tilly-Sabco in Guerlesquin (a family business which provided lot of work in town but got hit hard by international concurrence). In Quimper, the demonstration gathered up to 15,000–30,000; in Carhaix, around 17,000–40,000 (numbers vary because unions and the police have had trouble agreeing on them, traditionally). The collective comes up with a ‘charter’ for the good bonnet rouge, in reaction to the worrisome, extreme-right additions to the Quimper crowd.
The eco-tax was imagined in 2007 during a ‘Grenelle’ for environment, and unanimously voted in 2009, which had already ired many business owners in Brittany, over a thousand of whom had manifested on motorways; united in a ‘Collective of Breton Actors of Economy’, representatives for the National Federation of Agricultural Holders’ Union(F.N.S.E.A.), the National Federation of Road Transport (F.N.T.R.), the Chamber of Commerce and Industry… as well as ‘le Médef’, the largest employer federation in France, to which adheres the richest business leaders in the country, very powerful, and not very friendly to labour rights in general. The collective obtained a 50% tax allowance on the eco-tax from the government.
By taxing 800,000 heavy goods vehicles that circulate on the free portion of French motorways, the government aims to collect public transport and railway freight, amongst other things—since they won’t tax the rich. Except since 2012, too many businesses have gone bankrupt in Brittany. Liquidations follow ‘restructuring plans’ and hundreds are getting fired. The eco-tax would mean a drastic rise in the prices of goods.
By spring 2013, all has been made ready for the system to start on the first day of 2014: 200 units equipped with cameras have been installed, a lucrative contract has been concluded with Ecomouv’, a private company charged with the task to collect the tax, which it is already doing on Italian and Austrian motorways. The French government hopes to collect one billion euros per year with the eco-tax.
On 16th October, after two days of heated protests, Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault launches meetings to ‘dialogue’ with the population for a ‘Pact on the Future of Brittany’, announces financial measures and a special aide for the food-processing business. All along November, the revolt is reaching the rest of the country, where dozens of road blocks are organised, speed cameras are destroyed, as well as a few other eco-tax drive-through frames. The Prime Minister arrives in Brittany on 13th December to sign his Pact for Brittany—two billion euros.
There still are 140 units left almost intact in French tolls, since, as the Minister for Transports remarked, once the electronic equipment removed, regular check-ups to make sure they won’t crumble cost much less than actually taking them to pieces. This is what is left of the ‘eco-tax’. As for the Red Caps, well, they evolved into a bunch of collectives, some of which still exist to this day to promote various operations, including demonstrations, that concern Brittany. They never forget the gwenn-ha-du, the ‘Black & White’, the flag of Brittany… Yes, Brittany has a flag. Brittany has a language. Brittany thinks it’s Wales, which is a little silly considering Breton is a Brittonic language like Cornish, not a Gaelic one, like Welsh. Anyhow, Breizh dreams of independence. One day, it will throw bombs at the government, when it has discovered how to make them from cow dung. (I actually, genuinely love Bretons. They’re utterly fruitcake, but they protest like nobody’s business.)
All of this to provide some cultural context to what I am about to translate. So, this is Jean-Luc Mélenchon fulminating back in 2013, before his current La France Insoumise movement was created, when he was co-president of its predecessor the Front de Gauche, a coalition of radical left parties: socialists, and communists who shared anti-capitalistic, anti-liberal, Euro-sceptic views. The FdG was created in 2009 as alliance between the French Communist Party and Parti de Gauche, which Jean-Luc Mélenchon co-founded with people who, like him, quit François Mitterrand’s Parti Socialiste which was veering more and more towards (neo-)liberalism. The alliance aimed to ‘constitute a left-wing front engaged for another Europe, social and democratic, against the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty and other current European treaties.’
Yes, it wasone tasteless farce, that bonnet rouge affair. For sure, the eco-tax reallywasn’t the panacea of any good ecological politics! It’s actually, mostly, alure, as it’s not really targeting the motives behind massive livestock transportationvia road transport. It will always be more profitable to transport 45,000 pigsa year on European roads in appalling conditions rather than kill them here,for as long as Europe will allow for dumping social to take place, which forinstance permits to take advantage of profit with German abattoirs. Thegovernment doesn’t give a damn about this. Anyhow, it doesn’t care for anythingthat can be planned ahead, because of ideology and of self-delusion both. See.The eco-tax was supposed to encourage road transport to convert to fluvialtransport and railway freight. Yes, except no plan for freight development wasset in motion to regulate the ever-increasing flow of lorries on the roads.Quite the opposite, I’d say. The government is at the disposal of the EuropeanCommission, very slavishly indeed, and the Commission was very demanding onthat point. In exchange for two years delay at best, so as to reach theobjectives of deficit reduction, the Commission demanded that the liberalisationof the network increase. The liberal reform, consequently, was presented duringthe Ministers’ Council on 16th October. As for fluvial transport,one of the very first measures of the Ayrault government was to abandon the Seine-Nordcanal project. In other words, it was half-assed, as always with thisgovernment.
This takesnothing from the fact that the government’s climb-down on this point is a giftto the bosses. Under the guise of defending employment, it is in fact the freedomto go on producing further and further away from wherever the goods are to beconsumed that is being protected. Bruno Gentil, president of federation FranceNature Environnement, said something very right about this: ‘This isdeplorable, there’s no political courage here. A measure that was voted by theleft as well as the right is called into question as soon as a bunch of peoplebreak some public equipment. Unfortunately, I don’t think this will solve breeders’problems… Environment has become the scapegoat for economic issues. We are gettingthe financing of the energy turnaround very wrong’.Indeed, afew hundreds of bosses and militants from the FNSEA farmers’ union manifestingsome violence were enough for the Ayrault government to back down. Those whoordinarily have no complacency for a worker’s teensiest egg throw weren’tremotely scandalised to see FNSEA and MEDEF throw stones at the CRS. We’restill awaiting the ground-shattering swagger of the immense Manuel Valls, kingof the braggarts! Sure, even when he’s from the right, a Breton boss is atougher customer than a Roma kid on a school bus! The anti-poor warfare isill-equipped to force those who are used to be obeyed to respect public order.
The wholeaffair was a farce through and through. All the while they’re firing workers indroves in Brittany, the bosses have found a dream opportunity to pose as defendersof employment. That might have impressed a couple answering machines inmainstream media. But over there, it’s a whole other story! Employees’ unions wereno dupes. CGT, Sud and FSU in Brittany released a joint statement to distance themselvesfrom the event. In it they denounce ‘the hijacking of the authentic discontentof a large part of the population to political ends, which questions theingenuousness and the independence of the employees who get enlisted in a fightthat isn’t theirs.’ For these unions, ‘the torturers are leading the manoeuvreand they are using their victims as shield and battering ram at once. They wouldemployees to forget that they have always supported the neoliberal politicsthat caused the current crisis, and that their ‘Breton agricultural model’today is an economic, social and environmental failure. The manipulations rundeep, as the old lords are now wearing the red cap against the people.’ It can’tbe said better.
The statementaims right. Particularly where the denunciation of productivism is concerned.It calls employees for refusing to participate in the demonstration organisedin Quimper on 2nd November around the bosses, productivist farmers and someBreton regionalists from the extreme right. The employees will demonstrate withtheir own demands!What arelief! That call to a separate protest sheds some light on a really confusesituation. The alliance of some farmers with the same large-scale foodretailing that chokes them continuously, for example, never ceases to surprise.Politically, it’s even worse. The right, which had proposed the eco-tax in thefirst place, is now demanding that it be suppressed. The PS, which also votedits implementation, now decides to suspend it… As for Le Pen, she’s calling todemonstrate with the red caps! Maybe she didn’t see the colour?
I don’t particularly want to be known on Tumblr as the Mélenchon defence committee but… well, he had a point. A couple, actually.
The chief particularity of the Yellow Vests movement is that even if it was started as a protest against a significant rise in gas prices and one could draw a parallel in theory between this and the anti-eco-tax movement, its basis was always popular, and focused not on production and profit, but standard living conditions for poor and impoverished people.
I don’t like the term ‘legitimate’ very much, me. Every protest is legitimate, inasmuch as demonstrating is (yet) a constitutional right. The legality of things is not what should concern us, and evidently, not what concerned Jean-Luc Mélenchon back in 2013. If there is one illegitimate element here, it would be the current government: elected with only 10% of the electorate, the most hated president in the history of the Fifth Republic is ending armed forces every week to mutilate tens of thousands who are still supported, according to the least favourable estimates, by over 60% of the population—and who still show up for the next protest, week after week.
Speaking of things I’m not too comfy with, there’s also the terms ‘jacobin’ and ‘nationalist’. I suspect you are Canadian, as you seem to conflate the two (?) and the nationalist-versus-federalist opposition is, I believe, uniquely Canadian. Over here, when talking about jacobin things, one is usually referring to a radical approach to politics, unless one would be referring to the historic opposition between the Jacobins, who ended up supporting deeper financial and political reforms, and the Girondins, mostly wealthy bourgeois, who were more moderate, and remained so throughout the revolutionary period—they won, in the end. The People didn’t—although both branches initially were a part of the Jacobin Club and in favour of constitutional monarchy.
Where nationalism goes… Well, Marine Le Pen is a nationalist. Us leftists are souverainistes, my dear. Quite frankly, I don’t get how you can support democracy without defending a nation’s right to govern itself. Only, if we can call this nationalism in the case of colonised countries aiming to free themselves from imperialism, and in the case of certain regions that promote autonomy within a given State, this is not what is at stake here. More often than not, ‘nationalism’ refers to an ideology, and it is synonymous to chauvinism, with considerably less amusing undertones. Again: it is not nationalist to favour, for instance, local employment, when displacing foreign populations leads to systematic exploitation of their work force. Environmentally, it is also much more responsible to prevent goods from being carried across great distances. And, last but not least… supranational institutions are designed to remove as much power as possible from the populations that could unite and reject locally what was decided globally. Getting democracy, literally, on a smaller scale is about gaining back control; it can’t be decided remotely. If we call this ‘nationalism’, not only do we lose our way to denounce actual xenophobia, but we lose sight of other types of opposition as well. Europe is not a country, and the way the European Union is designed, it is essentially a bank, and it aims to make entire countries its debtors… So, yes, yay for souverainism!
