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> Of course if you watch TV or read mainstream newspaper they won't give you an idea; you would have to go to the protest yourself to escape the propaganda.

So you can fall victim to the protester's propaganda instead of the mainstream news propaganda?

That's a common argument for many things, and I don't consider it valid.

It is like saying that you can't understand a cult unless you become part of that cult. Some people took on the advise and become brainwashed like everyone else, it is hard to keep a neutral point of view under the peer pressure such meetings usually entail. "seeing for yourself" to get an unbiased opinion is easier said than done.

You mentioned fascists. Did you go see fascists? I did, and they are probably much friendlier than you imagine, and they have convincing arguments. It requires some amount of detachment to see the flaws in their ideas.

Now back to the yellow vests. I've seen protests, my father was part of the movement, I met many people with different ideas. And from my experience, that's a mess. My father joined the movement because of a dislike in the banking system and Macron's administration, and found like-minded individuals. He left a few weeks later when another groups pushed ideas about unions he didn't share at all. I know one self-employed nurse who was booed at a protest when other people from the same movement claim they support self-employment and better medical support... go figure. The things is: individual groups know why they are upset, but the movement itself is all over the place. There are some common themes like taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor but as the movement progresses, it becomes broader and broader, covering immigration (more immigration control, but treat refugees better...), organic food, etc...

> So you can fall victim to the protester's propaganda instead of the mainstream news propaganda?

Placing personal experiences and sufferings in the same basket as state/capital-sponsored propaganda and smear campaigns tells a lot about your worldview.

> It requires some amount of detachment to see the flaws in their ideas.

Or enough privilege to not feel directly threatened by their genocidal agenda.

> The things is: individual groups know why they are upset, but the movement itself is all over the place.

Agreed. Though i'm not sure it's a bad thing. That's the essence of a popular movement, compared to a top-down mobilization with a clear agenda imposed by a restricted group of people.

> more immigration control

WTF? I've never met people in yellow vests protests arguing for more immigration control.

If anything, there is convergence with anti-racist initiatives such as sans-papiers collectives, the gilets noirs, the Justice & Truth for Adama collective..

Sure, there's fringe groups of royalist/fascist movements trying to infiltrate the gilets jaunes with such agenda, but claiming the movement as a whole is even considering this is highly misguided.

  This is so pedantic! Of course
  people know why they're angry.

Let's the gilets jaunes protests were so fantastically successful that Macron decided to completely concede.

Is there a set of policies he could adopt that would mean every protester agreed all their demands had been met?

> Is there a set of policies he could adopt that would mean every protester agreed all their demands had been met?

Well everybody's got more or less specific demands. But for sure, if everybody in France could have housing and food on the table, there wouldn't be mass protests/riots as we have had for over a decade now.

I'm not even saying "decent" housing or "organic" food although it is important to me. People would be happy with basic services they don't have at the moment.

Everybody sees on the TV or in the streets rich people spending hundreds or thousands of euros in fancy restaurants and clubs while ~10% of the population lives in extreme poverty and struggles to feed the children.

There's 3 million ABANDONED housing units (not counting secondary housing) for 150K homeless people, yet the government and landowners pretend there is a housing crisis.

These are just two examples that would satisfy everyone within and without the gilets jaunes movement. That's not enough to build a fair society, but that would arguably make life more bearable.

> This is so pedantic! Of course people know why they're angry.

I've yet to see a single yellow vest giving an articulated speech about why things are bad and how to fix them. You don't go far by screaming "this thing is broken I'll burn things until someone fixes it"

> And the climate crisis. And education reforms promising even more brainless indoctrination. And the National Universal Service which is a nicer name for militarist/fascist propaganda aimed at children. And racist anti-immigration laws in which Macron doubled the maximum retention time for undocumented people (45->90 days). And police violence destroying the sense of community in whole districts. And health care workers slowly being pushed to suicide by an administration that wants to close down public hospitals to ensure a new economy for private health.

Welcome to capitalism, have a seat while we fuck the world up.

> Burning rich people's shit is literally the most peaceful we can do in times like these, given the pace at which they're killing us.

What's the real plan though ? What happens after "burning rich peoples' shit" ? Nothing, because yellow vests don't want to get into politics, and not getting into politics means they're just screaming and burning shit until they're bored of doing that. The 60s were much better in that regard because thinkers still existed back then with people like Vaneigem or Debord.

> yet has ~10% extreme poverty,

The difference is that if you're poor in the US you live in a tent in skidrow [0] or the like, if you're poor in France you get a (shitty) flat and enough money to eat and dress yourself, you can still go to school and get medical treatments, &c. And btw most EU country have higher poverty % than France. [1] The question isn't really how many people are poor but how do you treat them.

> very similar in some regards to the USA.

I don't think you're being fair here. Public pensions and public healthcare puts France miles ahead of the US (and most other countries) for the average citizen. And that's not even taking into account vacations days, min wages, mandatory holidays, working hours, unions, parental leaves, retirement age, police brutality, &c. The US is only a better place if you're in the top 10%.

> Representative democracy is the structure that failed us in the first place. Never again: we won't stop fighting until we have a direct democracy without a ruling oligarchy.

Tell me how the US is better again ?

Sure we can do better, we always can, but look around, besides maybe Switzerland and a few northern countries, which are doing slightly better in some aspects, I don't think France as anything to complain about.

[0] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-containment-plan/

[1] http://www.lefigaro.fr/economie/le-scan-eco/dessous-chiffres...

This reads like outrageous satire...

Edit:

"And we still do! Nobody can represent anybody else. Representative democracy is the structure that failed us in the first place."

"The truth is France is far behind much of the world in terms of social advances."

"Burning rich people's shit is literally the most peaceful we can do in times like these, given the pace at which they're killing us."

Not saying that there's no issue in France, far from that. Not saying either the yellow vests protests is unwarranted, far from that. But going to the point of those 3 excerpts is ridiculous in the context of France and a typical case for dismissal of the whole.