Paris, January 31 (RHC)-- The Yellow Vest movement in France continues to gather steam as the nation’s springtime elections grow nearer.  Just as they do every Saturday, the anti-government but civic-minded Yellow Vests took to the streets across France. 

The presidential election is less than three months away, and in a race dominated by essentially far-right ideas President Emmanuel Macron appears likely, at this point, to win re-election.  That idea seems unbearable to the Yellow Vests, who have long-predicted that a return of Macron will push the country into social uproar even worse than in 2018 and 2019. 

Despite poor weather, over 500 people gathered at the Bastille in Paris to remind voters that five years of Macron’s self-professed neoliberal “Revolution” has translated into soaring economic inequality, worsened public services and reductions to the long-standing rights of retirees, the unemployed, workers and others. 

Another Yellow Vest protest in Paris is one which opposes a recent government decision to look the other way on an open den of crack cocaine.  That protest’s slogan is “No to crack in Paris.”

Last week’s change of the highly controversial anti-coronavirus sanitation smart pass into an even more controversial vaccination pass has reinvigorated weekly protests led by the far-right.  Yellow Vests said they resented the inaccurate efforts of many mainstream media to try and conflate the two groups, which the media appear to have done ever since the Yellow Vest protests began.

As the election nears, many believe the social climate in France will only grow more cloudy.  Worsening inflation, an election campaign dominated by Islamophobia and xenophobia, looming record abstention and possibly increased Yellow Vest marches all appear increasingly certain.