FRANCE

RAMIN MAZAHERI—France claims to especially honor human rights… and yet how do we explain the the Yellow Vest repression? This was after we were told to believe that their bombs in Libya, their guns in the short-lived Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and their rapes in the Central African Republic are “humanitarian interventions”. We also were disgusted by the deification of the dangerous magazine Charlie Hebdo, which made millions by publishing Islamophobic pictures but never publish an anti-Jewish one.

SAKER FRANCOPHONE—Blind to this whole underground movement, the government and the media keep on pretending that nothing happened. Of course, the expected Macron’s defeat in the European elections did not happen, even if the RN of Marine le Pen came out on top, but by a mere 1%. Of course, a large part of the French no longer support the movement because the media propaganda has done its job well and has managed to make the remaining Gj look like a group of inept vandals thinking only of giving the birdie to society without proposing anything constructive.

OLLIE RICHARDSON—hen the words “Yellow Vests”/“Yellow Jackets”/“Gilets Jaunes” are heard or read by someone who is more inclined to read sources of information that cannot be described as mainstream/corporate media, they most likely will say “Ah yes, I know who they are/what it is!” and recount what they heard or saw in the past when this topic was popular… for about a month. Or more specifically, during November-December 2018 when images such as the one below (a still from this video) were being widely disseminated.

SAKER FRANCOPHONE—Not only does he sell the Nation’s family jewellery to the French oligarchs, he also allows them to benefit from “tax optimization” – a euphemism for “legal tax evasion, only for the rich”. Here is a video explaining, in figures, the extent of tax evasion in France and Europe. Fraud confirmed by this interview with a member of the opposition. These videos explain that the recovery of this fraud would be more than enough for France to continue to have a social policy. But Macron’s ultra-liberal government prefers to let the rich defraud so as not to share rather than using it for the sake of the people. It will therefore continue to close hospitals, crèches, schools and retirement homes in the name of budgetary discipline, but actually to allow the private ones to make more money. A l’américaine. But the GJ, and those who back them, do not want to live in such a system.

JULIEN ROGUE—A film created in the heart of act 18 of the Yellow Vests in Paris on March 16th 2019. I bring you with me on this totally incredible day, where chaos mixes with hope, witnessing extraordinary violence, immersion in the heart of Paris, but also, through the spectrum of my lens, to relive this day, which will go down in the history as one of the most violent of the Yellow Vests movement. I wanted to make a summary of what I experienced during act 18 in Paris, but then… I didn’t have the words.So, in the face of so many things to say and so much to describe, I preferred to leave room for images, showing all that I could film through this film.