Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Yellow Vests Block Airbus, Amazon, and Louis Vuitton Factories

Earlier this week, yellow vests (#GilletsJaunes) blocked the entrance to three large factories and stores.

Left Voice

December 15, 2018
Facebook Twitter Share

The yellow vests in France call each of their actions an “act” (of a play); the first one was on November 17, and the fifth one has been called for this Saturday. However, the fact that their acts are held on Saturdays does not mean the yellow vests sit by doing nothing the rest of the week. Every day, France experiences waves of roadblocks and demonstrations all over the country.
In the last few weeks the entrances of several factories and stores were blocked, and companies including Airbus, Amazon, and Louis Vuitton were targeted.

In Toulouse, where demonstrations on weekends are at a crescendo, yellow vests, along with high school and university students, blocked Airbus’s logistics plant and later headed to the Amazon warehouse to stop the flow of delivery trucks.

Warehouses located in the outskirts of the city were blocked by a couple hundred protestors, and the government immediately sent helicopters and riot police to repress them.

At the door of the Airbus airplane factory, police gave demonstrators a 10-minute ultimatum to raise their block.

This is how the government has been acting. With the minimal concessions it announced on Monday, the government has been unable to convince the protestors to stop mobilising. Given this inability to stop the movement, repression has increased, as last week’s operation demonstrated with a brutal display of 90,000 police from all over the country and armoured vehicles from the Gendarmerie in Paris.
In opposition to the police’s ultimatum, the yellow vests held their blockade as long as they could and later cut all access to the Amazon warehouse. In both factories, protesters prevented the flow of delivery trucks in and out of the plant.
On Tuesday morning, the yellow vests blocked the entrance of the Louis Vuitton factory with tires and wooden pallets. One of the protestors said: “Vuitton is extremely wealthy, and yet the workers who make their expensive products have to make an enormous effort to reach the minimum living standard.”

Protestors demanded an increase in the mínimum wage, but also taxing of the rich (in the case of Amazon, they demanded that the company pay its taxes in France). They also demanded the institutional democratization of a system they deem rotten, which would include a “Citizen Initiative Referendum” (RIC). This and other demands show that Macron’s announcement did not have the desired effect and that the movement still goes on.

The yellow vests’ block of important factories is a critical force. It is an action that could expand even further if road blockages on the outside, which stop the flow of merchandise and slow production down, collaborated with workers strikes on the inside.

On Friday, several trade unions called for a day of strikes, which could produce the desired unity between the yellow vests and the orange vests (a sign of unionized workers). In spite of the role played by the union leadership, which attempt to maintain “social peace” with the government and prevent the workers from uniting with the yellow vests, it is possible that on Friday we will see a glimpse of this desired unity of vests and a preview of what is to come on Saturday for the fifth Yellow Vest Act.

This article was published on La Izquierda Diario on Wednesday, December 12

Translated by Oscar Fernandez

Facebook Twitter Share

Left Voice

Militant journalism, revolutionary politics.

Europe

Migrants from Northern Africa sit in lines on the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Crisis in Lampedusa: Down with Fortress Europe, Open the Borders!

The way out of the immigration crisis is through the struggle against imperialism. This is a declaration from the European organizations of the Trotskyist Fraction - Fourth International.

Germany Is Threatening to Deport Palestinian Refugees for Their Activism

#StandWithZaid: Zaid Abdulnasser, the coordinator of the Palestine solidarity network Samidoun Germany, is a Palestinian refugee from Syria. The German are threatening to revoke his residence permit due to his political activism.

Tom Krüger

September 18, 2023

Stellantis Workers in France Walk Out to Demand Breaks amid Heat Wave

Workers at a Stellantis plant in France walked out to force management to address their health concerns amid the suffocating heatwave.

Sam Carliner

September 14, 2023

FT-CI Summer Schools in Europe: More than 1,000 Young People and Workers Discuss the Challenges of Building Revolutionary Currents

The Trotskyist Fraction is moving forward with renewed strength toward our task of converging with the most advanced sectors of the working class and the youth who are looking for a real alternative to the madness and injustice of the capitalist system. 

Josefina L. Martínez

September 14, 2023

MOST RECENT

Neither Trump nor Biden Represent the Interests of the Striking Workers

Donald Trump skipped the second GOP debate to go to Michigan to speak on the UAW strike. This, one day after Biden became the first U.S. president to walk a picket line, represents the on-going fight between the parties to win influence over the working class.

Enid Brain

September 29, 2023

The Deadliest Year for U.S.-Mexico Border Crossings Occurred during Biden’s Administration

The humanitarian crisis at the border was created by capitalism. Voting for a lesser evil won’t save the Latin American working class; it will take international, political and strategic solidarity across borders to build a combative immigrants’ rights movement.

Paul Ginestá

September 28, 2023

The Big Three Are Using Layoffs to Punish the UAW and Undermine the Strike

The Big Three are retaliating against the UAW by laying off thousands of its members at plants across the country. Defeating these attacks will require the self organization and mobilization of all the workers.

James Dennis Hoff

September 28, 2023
President Biden visits striking UAW workers in Michigan.

Biden’s Picket Line Visit Doesn’t Mean He Is On Our Side

President Biden’s visit to the UAW picket line shows the strength of the strike — and why it should remain independent from him and the Democrats.

Tatiana Cozzarelli

September 27, 2023