France: Gilets Jaunes assembly calls for national week of action

Source: https://roarmag.org/2019/04/12/gilets-jaunes-assembly-calls-for-national-week-of-action/

Gilets Jaunes assembly calls for national week of action

April 12, 2019

Photo: M G White / Shutterstock.com

The Gilets Jaunes are calling for a national week of action starting from May 1 and for the creation of a socio-ecological popular movement.

Call of the second Assembly of Assemblies of the Gilets Jaunes, St. Nazaire, April 5-7, 2019

We, the Gilets Jaunes, organized in local assemblies […], are addressing the general public.

Following the first Assembly of Assemblies in Commercy, some 200 delegations continue the struggle against extreme liberalism and for liberté, égalité and fraternité.

Despite the government’s increasing repression and an accumulation of laws that worsen living conditions for us all and destroy our rights and liberties, the people’s mobilization has taken root to change the system represented by president Macron.

The sole response from the government to the Gilets Jaunes and other movements in the struggle has been to panic and act in an increasingly authoritarian manner.

Since five months, everywhere in France — on the roundabouts, parking lots, squares, highway toll booths, at demonstrations and within our assemblies — we continue to debate and to fight against all forms of inequality and injustice, and for solidarity and dignity.

We are calling for a general increase in wages, pensions and all basic social benefits, as well as in public services for each and everyone.

Our solidarity goes out to the nine million people in France who are living under the poverty line in particular.

Aware of the environmental urgency, we claim: “End of the world, end of the month, same logic, same fight.”

Opposing the charade of great debates and a non-representative government serving the privileged few, we are putting into action new forms of direct democracy.

Concretely, we recognize that the Assembly of Assemblies can receive proposals from local assemblies and make proposals as already done by the first Assembly of Assemblies of Commercy. Those proposals are then submitted for approval to local assemblies and groups.

The Assembly of Assemblies reaffirms its complete independence from all political parties, trade unions and does not recognize any self-proclaimed leader.

Over the course of three days, gathered in plenary sessions and thematic groups, we debated and amended proposals for our demands, actions, means of communication and coordination.

We are here to stay and have decided to organize the next Assembly of Assemblies in June.

To reinforce the balance of power and to prepare citizens for the battle against the system, the Assembly of Assemblies is calling for people to partake in direct actions, the schedule of which will soon be described via a digital platform.

The Assembly of Assemblies is calling for the spread and empowerment of sovereign citizen assemblies, and for the creation of new ones.

We call to all Gilets Jaunes to disseminate this call and the conclusions of our assembly’s work.

The results of the work achieved in plenary sessions will enrich the reflections and the actions of the local assemblies.

We are launching a few calls: on Europeans, on the local people’s assemblies, against repression and for the cancellation of penalties, jail sentences and cases against the movement.

It seems necessary for us to take three weeks time to mobilize the entire force of the Gilets Jaune and to convince the people who are not yet with us. We are calling for a “yellow week of action” starting on May 1.

We invite everyone who is willing to put an end to the appropriation of life to take a stance against the current system, to create together, by all means necessary, a new socio-ecological popular movement.

The increase in struggles is moving us to seek a means to unify our actions.

We are calling on all sectors of society to fight collectively to achieve our social, fiscal, ecological and democratic demands.

Aware that we have to fight a global system, we believe it is necessary to leave capitalism behind.

Thus we will collectively build the famous “all together” which we have been chanting and which makes everything possible. We’ll build all together, at all levels of society.

The power of the people, by the people and for the people! Don’t watch us, join us!

The Yellow Vests Assembly of Assemblies

April 7, 2019

This call was translated from French by Resistance 71. The original version in French can be found here and here.