Post: 4/16/2020

This is going to function a little differently to the past updates on Yellow Vest protests. I want to focus a bit more on the background and underlying sentiment of the demonstrators: populism. Populism focuses on the betterment of “ the people” as its root would suggest, but it’s a particular sect of society: the poor. Populist movements assert that there is a growing, expansive divide between the lower and upper echelons of society that has become so great as to cause disaster for those not among the elite. This has been a growing political trend across the world, not just in France. Take the election of Matteo Salvini in Italy, resignation of Angela Merkal in Germany, Brexit, election of Donald Trump, and election of Victor Orban in Hungary as shining examples of populist rhetoric becoming mainstream today. The Yellow Vests do not claim to be affiliated with the left or right as a whole, but there are of course sects leaning to both sides. They are all united in a general belief that no matter their liberal or conservative swaying, the establishment does not operate in the interest of the majority of the population. They seem to have set aside most, if not all, party squabbles to create a united, centrist front founded on anti-elitism.