From CrimethInc.
Against all odds, the yellow vest movement is still alive more than four months after it erupted onto the French political stage. To the surprise of many, it drew a breath of fresh air last weekend in a new outbreak of rioting in Paris, proving that it has lost neither its fierce determination nor its unpredictable and unruly power. Anarchists and other anti-authoritarian participants seem to have outlasted every effort by police to crush the movement by brute force, by politicians to co-opt it into fruitless “dialogue,” by “leaders” to pacify and dominate it, by fascists to use it as a recruiting platform. It remains to be seen whether the developments in France will spread elsewhere around the world and whether the far right or other actors will be able to capitalize on the disorder to impose a new and even more repressive order in France. But the trajectory of the movement up to March 16 shows that the conflicts that generated it cannot easily be suppressed and offers a model for how to outlast repression and co-optation.