Hundreds of thousands of French people took to the streets over the weekend to protest the rising cost of living, and in particular the rise in diesel prices that resulted from a fuel tax increase. The protesters are known as “Yellow Vests”, based on the characteristic brightly-colored traffic safety vests they wear as a symbol of their movement.

Politicians and the media have denounced the Yellow Vests as “fascists”. In the following video, ordinary people among the street demonstrators are interviewed and asked their opinions about this derogatory characterization.

Many thanks to Ava Lon for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:

Note: This video is a composite of four separate clips, and the transcript reflects the times in the original footage.

Video transcript:

Part 1

00:00 So, Catherine and Stephanie, hello, what would you say

00:04 to answer people who say that the Yellow Vests movement

00:08 is a fascist movement of contemptible extreme-right people.

00:12 It’s not true, because we are people

00:16 from the middle class, modest,

00:20 and we are here to claim our housing benefits and other subsidies,

00:24 our pensions, the diesel, the taxes, everything.

00:28 For retired people, for everything. We fight for our future.

00:32 So we would also have a future. For the French people to have a future, because, in fact, we are

00:35 dying a lingering and ignominious death here! —And you personally, what difficulty

00:40 are you confronted with every day? Like everybody else: we [barely] survive! We [barely] survive.

00:44 We [barely] survive. We fight every day and we survive. It’s not with the people, with what

00:47 they give us, that we will make a trip worth €40 thousand. No. We aren’t Madame Macron.

00:52 We cannot afford that. Voilà.

Part 2

00:00 I’m angry about all the price increases in general.

00:04 Concerning retired people, concerning fuel,

00:08 concerning everything, everything, angry about everything!

00:12 The increases. In all the taxes. I feel that enough is enough. For everybody, for everybody.

00:16 Yes. It’s too much. It’s not only because of the fuel: it’s an aggregate.

00:20 All the price increases for the retired people.

00:24 We don’t live in Paris where they pay well. We get a small pension of €800 [$916/mo]. I’d like

00:27 to see if Monsieur Macron could live on €800 per month!

00:32 He can give us his salary and we will give him ours. Gladly.

00:36 WE don’t fuss.

00:40 Ladies, gentlemen, what is your reaction when you hear some people say

00:44 that the Yellow Vests movement is a movement of fascists

00:48 and of people of the extreme right? Nonsense! Not at all! Not at all!

00:52 It’s a non-political movement. There’s no politics in it!

00:57 It’s the ‘enough is enough’ of society. It’s the ‘enough is enough’ of everybody. Everybody

01:00 is affected! Small ones, big ones, medium ones, everybody is affected. Everybody is affected.

01:05 I’m saying: Macron is playing,

01:09 and he wants to play big boys, but there he has it all wrong with the people.

01:13 That I can tell you. What will happen to our grandchildren, above all?!

01:17 We are thinking especially about them, because things have gone too far.

01:24 So we already have almost nothing, and they, what are they going to have? Nothing at all.

01:28 Voilà. And we are forced to… well…

01:32 The salary we earn, it’s to [pay] for diesel. Is this normal? We will be working

01:36 [only] in order to pay for the diesel… We aren’t even able to go out,

01:40 we aren’t able to have to have any leisure any longer. This has to end. Macron,

01:44 who is he playing with? Is he playing with the people? He has it all wrong.

01:49 He lost with us. Oh, it doesn’t matter: HE is eating well.

Part 3

00:00 I lost my wife eleven years ago, and I was receiving €430 [US $492/mo],

00:04 and they took away €50 [US $57] on my reversion.

00:08 And now I get €380 [US $435].

00:12 And I was receiving ASS [type of welfare] for some time

00:16 because I was unemployed at that time,

00:20 and I had €500 plus my reversion, so I had €880 Euros [US $1000]

00:24 a month. To live on,

00:28 and to pay for my car so I could look for a job.

Part 4

00:00 I’m Fabrice, and I’m here because my grandfather did ’68 [1968 protests in France];

00:04 we used to have [purchasing] power, and ever since, with every president, they take away,

00:08 take away more, more, and one of these days we will all end up on the street.

00:12 So we need some purchasing power, we need money. They are saying that it’s only

00:16 a little movement, but it might very well grow! Because there, they need

00:20 to stop over-taxing the people, because we can’t have the purchasing power. We can’t have

00:24 the purchasing power because we pay too much in taxes. And they talk about electric vehicles —

00:28 Who’s going to buy electric vehicles? Those who earn at least €3000 a month. You need money!

00:32 And a guy with €1200, when he’s paid his bills, well, he doesn’t have anything any more.

00:36 Therefore that’s what they have to understand. That’s all.

00:40 You need the money it takes, me — like I wrote on my banner —

00:44 we are on the level of the May 2 1968. If they continue to tax people, well, people will

00:48 have enough and the all of France will be rallying.

00:52 So it’s cool to come to Charleville, play a handsome guy [Macron], and make his little politics,

00:56 but he should learn to live on €1200 a month and he’ll see how it is. Because as long as he isn’t

01:00 living the real [life] like we do, he won’t know how it is. Voilà. Once a banker always a banker.

01:04 My father got €1100 a month.

01:08 I lived like that, when we ate [only] potatoes, when my father was working for me, my mother,

01:12 my sister; we lived in poverty — when you eat potatoes every day. This, Macron has never known,

01:16 He doesn’t know that. They are paying the people to shut up. It’s a little of what’s happening.

01:20 It’s a little bit of what’s going on. There are many people who are in the class… at the very bottom,

01:25 but they are being given a minimum to live, and so they stay silent.

01:29 Nothing happens. But the day they take [that] away,

01:33 it will be May 1968, and that’s it. We’ll get there.