Freedom of speech or another crackdown on uprising in France: Yellow Vest is back

The Yellow Vest movement, which emerged in France in the fall of 2018, has returned to the streets of Paris after two years of ‘imprisonment’ under the pretext of ‘an increase in the number of coronavirus cases.’ What to expect from the French government this time to stop the disgruntled people?

Report informs that recently the movement members have resorted to a demonstration in Paris against rising inflation and a rise in the cost of living. According to one of the participants of the demonstration, the situation is especially difficult for the poor population of France, as they are unable to get medical aid, pay their energy bills and purchase quality food.

Similar economic problems were the impetus for the emergence of the movement in 2018. One of the biggest uprisings in recent years, the Yellow Vest movement was a reaction to higher fuel prices and speed limits on provincial roads. Gradually, the slogans of the protesters turned into anti-government ones - in addition to economic demands and lower fuel prices, activists demanded the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron.

In turn, French President Emmanuel Macron resorted to the good old method - violence to suppress the protests. According to RFI, footage of police violence scattered around the world, featuring the law enforcement agencies using tear gas and rubber bullets against protesters. One of the informal leaders of the movement, Jérôme Rodrigues, lost his eye.

The ‘democratic’ attitude of the Paris administration to the protests was clearly expressed by the former head of the French Interior Ministry, Christophe Castaner. He compared the demonstrators to ‘monsters.’ Amazingly, the country that screams the loudest about human rights, ‘freedom, equality and fraternity,’ uses such a sonorous epithet for its own people, who stand for elementary rights.

The protesters managed to get serious concessions from the government. But what is amazing is that the protests stopped in 2020, when the whole world began to fight the pandemic. Of course, lockdowns played a role in this. But rumors emerged that the French government imposed particularly strict restrictions not only because of the pandemic, but also to limit the protesters' activeness.

The 2022 OSCE report “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Right to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly” also clearly demonstrates how the French government took various steps in this direction: “On 16 March 2020, the French government imposed a range of restrictions in response to the pandemic, including on the right to assembly. On 13 June 2020, the Council of State suspended these restrictions, saying they were disproportionate and noting that such restrictions did not apply to gatherings other than public assemblies.” But the government again found ways to tighten the screws.

Whether or not France really used the pandemic as a tool to stop the wave of angry demonstrators is unknown. However, given that the French president was re-elected in 2022, it remains to be seen whether new ‘waves of coronavirus’ should be expected in the country, or whether other measures will be taken this time to prevent the people from exercising their right to freedom of speech.