Great to see that the French are not backing down. Enjoy Ruptly footage of four and a half hours of Gilets jaunes marching in the street. A few translations: On est là! On est là! (We are here! We are here!) The writing on the cross that the man is carrying says, "Hope", with the O as a peace sign. The man with the loud speaker addressing the crowd at the crossroads repeats, "We are citizens above all!" The message on the banner carried by four men reads, "Grève Générale" - General Strike. (Australians lost the right to a general strike years ago - although that should not stop us.) To wit, one of the signs early in the march reads, "La force de l'injustice vient de l'obéissance." "The strength of injustice comes from obedience." Another sign, with Macron's face, "Qu'ils viennent me chercher!" "Come and get me!" Australians should be marching like this against the overpopulation that is now being forced at the pace of a full invasion by our so-called leaders. But we have been infilled, dispersed and thus disorganised. Time to unite as Australians, as citizens.
See inside a videoed discussion on the question of Did the French police use excessive force against the Yellow Vests? Criminologist, Xavier Raufer, one of the guests, describes a situation where the French government allows the same violent saboteurs, known to the police, to continually attend Yellow Vest demonstrations and cause havoc. The police response has caused injuries, maimings and deaths, mostly through the use of rubber bullets. President Macron has been criticised by Human Rights organisations and the United Nations, but he persists in allowing career sociopaths to break shop windows and assault people, using this as an excuse for his own extreme violence. The discussion was on the amazing Frédéric Taddeï's show, Interdit d'interdire [Forbidden to forbid] on RT France.
Jérôme Rodrigues, a Yellow Vest, who lost an eye to one of those rubber bullets, also in the discussion, talked about "15,000 rubber bullets. More than in the last five years. It's pretty enormous." He described the unpleasant faces Macron makes when he is criticised for shooting at his own people, whilst he fancies himself encouraging democracy in lesser countries.
Did the [French] police use excessive force [against the Yellow Vests]?
XAVIER RAUFER, Criminologist : [Translation from French]: "You have asked quite a serious question. Everyone knows that there are violent elements. In sum, 300 young men from the extreme left, called the “Black Block”[2] and about 50 extreme right nationalists. Although measures to stop them could easily have been taken – because they are the violent elements – that is, if ever these individuals were withdrawn from the demonstrations, 90% of the violence would disappear. But never, at any moment, in any of these demonstrations, has anything been done to stop them, as the law permits, to arrest them in their homes, before the demonstrations.
You know, once I spoke to some of the upper management police in Paris. They have the entire list of every Black Block. They know who they are. They come from rotten suburbs full of drug addicts and police informers. Furthermore, the police don’t only know who the French ones are. There is a European police network, and when wide boys come from the Holland Black Block or the German Black Block, a list of their vehicules, with the registration numbers, and the road they are travelling on, are communicated. As for the extreme right nationalists, [at the time of] one of the most violent of all the demonstrations in December, those people gathered in front of their meeting place – the conspirators – in front of their meeting place. From there video-cameras followed them, without interruption, right to Place de l’Etoile [Paris square], where they were able to begin their violence. No-one stopped them. They were followed minute by minute via the police’s urban video cameras. Why were they allowed to go ahead?" [1]
People may have wondered why I have had almost nothing to say on candobetter about the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) when I have otherwise often commented on and translated French political material. It is not because I am not interested in what is happening; it is because I am too interested. As some people know, I specialise in comparing French and British land-tenure and inheritance systems and the effect they have on political organisation. I was not surprised that France was able to produce a movement like the Yellow Vests (which has many activities besides public demonstrations), when no other European or Anglosphere country has been able to.
For the last two years I have been working on a book about why the French were able to sustain a democratic republican revolution (1789-1871) but the British could not. I began it in 2007, but it was interrupted by dramatic life events, and I am not sure when I will finish it - but I am working hard on it. To my mind, France is probably the only country where ordinary people are still able to self-organise a response to economic liberalism, mass immigration, and constant overseas warring. That is because their land-tenure and planning system means that they are still viscously organised in families and clans in place - at least outside Paris. President Sarkozy made some of the first changes to inheritance law that would break this organic system down. Macron is using a sledge hammer.
The British (Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English) made many attempts to revolt against the system at the time of the French Revolution, but they were so disorganised and divided by constant population movement, that it was easy for the viscous elites to corrupt them with paid spies. This is the system that Australia, Canada and the United States imported.
NOTES
[1] Original French, transcribed by Sheila Newman: La Police fait-elle un usage excessif de la force? XAVIER RAUFER, Criminologist : Vous posez une question qui est tout de même grave. Tout le monde sait qui sont les éléments violents. En gros, 300 garçons issue de l'extrême gauche, qu’on appelle les 'Black Blocs', et une cinquantaine issue de l'extrême droite identitaire. A aucun moment, les mesures qu'on pouvait aisément prendre - c'est eux les éléments violents - c'est à dire que si jamais ces individus sont retirés de l'ensemble des manifestations, 90% des violences disparaissent. Et jamais, a aucun moment, dans aucune des manifestations, rien n'a été entreprit, comme la loi de permettait, pour les arrêter le matin chez eux, avant les manifestations. Vous savez, une fois j'ai parlé à des grands patrons de la direction de renseignements de la préfecture de police de Paris. Ils ont la liste intégrale de tous les Black Blocs. Ils savent qui c'est. Ce sont des milieux qui sont pourris de toxicomanes, d'indicateurs de police. Et, non seulement, ils connaissent les français, mais l'Europe de la police existe, et quand des gaillards arrivent d'Hollande ou arrivent d'Allemagne Black Blocs, la liste des véhicules, avec les numéros des véhicules, l'autoroute par laquelle ils vont arriver, est communique. Quant à l'extrême droite identitaire, un des manifestations les plus violentes du mois de décembre, ces gens-là se sont réunis devant leur locale, - les conspirateurs - devant leur locale. De là les cameras les ont suivi, sans discontinuer, jusqu'à la place de l’Etoile, ou ils ont pu commencer à casser. Personne ne les a interrompus. Ils étaient suivis de minute en minute par les cameras urbaines a la préfecture de police. Pourquoi laisse-t-on faire?
[2] Black Block or Black Bloc refers to violent people who wear black and disguise themselves with scarves etc in political demonstrations.
A constitutional cap on taxes - at 25%
Increase of 40% in the basic pension and social welfare
Increase hiring in public sector to re-establish public services
Massive construction projects to house 5 million homeless, and severe penalties for mayors/prefectures that leave people on the streets
Break up the 'too-big-to-fail' banks, re-separate regular banking from investment banking
Cancel debts accrued through usurious rates of interest
Politics
Constitutional amendments to protect the people's interests, including binding referenda
The barring of lobby groups and vested interests from political decision-making
Frexit: Leave the EU to regain our economic, monetary and political sovereignty (In other words, respect the 2005 referendum result, when France voted against the EU Constitution Treaty, which was then renamed the Lisbon Treaty, and the French people ignored)
Clampdown on tax evasion by the ultra-rich
The immediate cessation of privatization, and the re-nationalization of public goods like motorways, airports, rail, etc
Remove all ideology from the ministry of education, ending all destructive education techniques
Quadruple the budget for law and order and put time-limits on judicial procedures. Make access to the justice system available for all
Break up media monopolies and end their interference in politics. Make media accessible to citizens and guarantee a plurality of opinions. End editorial propaganda
Guarantee citizens' liberty by including in the constitution a complete prohibition on state interference in their decisions concerning education, health and family matters
Health/Environment
No more 'planned obsolescence' - Mandate guarantee from producers that their products will last 10 years, and that spare parts will be available during that period
Ban plastic bottles and other polluting packaging
Weaken the influence of big pharma on health in general and hospitals in particular
Ban on GMO crops, carcinogenic pesticides, endocrine disruptors and monocrops
Reindustrialize France (thereby reducing imports and thus pollution)
Foreign Affairs
End France's participation in foreign wars of aggression, and exit from NATO
Cease pillaging and interfering - politically and militarily - in 'Francafrique', which keeps Africa poor. Immediately repatriate all French soldiers. Establish relations with African states on an equal peer-to-peer basis
Prevent migratory flows that cannot be accommodated or integrated, given the profound civilizational crisis we are experiencing
Scrupulously respect international law and the treaties we have signed
See inside a videoed discussion on the question of Did the French police use excessive force against the Yellow Vests? Criminologist, Xavier Raufer, one of the guests, describes a situation where the French government allows the same violent saboteurs, known to the police, to continually attend Yellow Vest demonstrations and cause havoc. The police response has caused injuries, maimings and deaths, mostly through the use of rubber bullets. President Macron has been criticised by Human Rights organisations and the United Nations, but he persists in allowing career sociopaths to break shop windows and assault people, using this as an excuse for his own extreme violence. The 
XAVIER RAUFER, Criminologist : [Translation from French]: "You have asked quite a serious question. Everyone knows that there are violent elements. In sum, 300 young men from the extreme left, called the “Black Block”[2] and about 50 extreme right nationalists. Although measures to stop them could easily have been taken – because they are the violent elements – that is, if ever these individuals were withdrawn from the demonstrations, 90% of the violence would disappear. But never, at any moment, in any of these demonstrations, has anything been done to stop them, as the law permits, to arrest them in their homes, before the demonstrations.
Inside is an English translation of the French Yellow Vests' manifesto 
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