A French Anger
Yellow vests movement
Gulgun Gunal | 2020, Fontainebleau
The “Yellow Vests” movement was created as a result of the increase in fuel prices due to the government’s increase in the domestic consumption tax.
At the root of this movement is the search for another system that will provide an answer and solution to the increasing livelihood of the middle class, which has begun to disappear in the country, and the desire to establish a new government that will provide it.
Every Saturday from November 17, 2018, “Yellow Vests” took to the streets, occupying roundabouts and demonstrating across the country to protest rising fuel prices. According to the Statista Research Department, the number of participants in “Yellow Vests” demonstrations between November 2018 and June 2019.
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The cycle of repression and violence
The police used disproportionate force on an unprecedented scale against the “Yellow Vests” movement. Many yellow vests had never been demonstrated before. First of all, the discovery of the power of repression as a result of direct confrontation with the forces of order, which has become the object of hatred and the embodiment of state violence, was a surprise! Exposure to gas, being targeted by flash-balls/plastic bullets, caused a form of radicalization.
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* These are my personal observations and comments about the “Yellow Vests” movement, which I photographed almost every Saturday for a year since its inception.
