There is something eerily familiar about the strikes and demonstrations paralyzing France over the past several weeks. Precipitated by rising income inequality and deeply unpopular economic policies, the "Yellow-Vest" protests seem to be just one more iteration of the strikes and demonstrations that erupt in France semi-regularly, one facet of a demand for greater equality and a culturally-specific expression of democratic will.

In some ways these weekly Saturday strikes and demonstrations bear similarities with other French protest movements, from the 2005 riots to the strikes of May 1968. But the targeted use of violence against both businesses and the state, and an expressed desire to overthrow a democratically elected government distinguish the Yellow-Vest movement. Arguably, not since the revolutions of the 19th century has widespread national action sought to topple a legitimate French government. Not even the actions of May 1968, which ultimately brought down Charles de Gaulle, had regime change as a specific objective.

If the current actions in France are like previous French political demonstrations, they also bear a resemblance to events in Maïdan, Ukraine, in 2014. There are, in fact, whispers to that effect, and fears that France is on the verge of an anti-democratic revolution, whose ultimate goal is the overthrow of democracy and its replacement by nationalist autocracy. While these fears might seem overblown to Americans, who often regard Western democracy as a settled question, they are less so to many in France. The continued call for protests and demonstrations even after the concessions from the Macron government on Dec. 10,link them to both the French far-right and Russia, both of which are anti-democratic at their core.

While the leadership of France's far-right have publicly denied involvement in the Gilet jaune movement, they have also openly applauded it. As with Brexit, the U.S. presidential and midterm elections, there are allegations of Russian interference and Russian attempts to manipulate events in France. The French government announced several days ago that it was investigating Russian social-media agitation of the protests. There is also clear evidence that predates the current crisis, that Russian interest in France is on the uptick. The Russians opened a French RT (Russian propaganda station) on YouTube a little more than a year ago, and the relationship between Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far right, and Vladimir Putin, is known to be both open and warm.

To be clear, the anger that fueled the protests and the policies that sparked it are both home-grown. Macron himself has acknowledged that the anger directed at his government is real, and in his words "just." But what is also true is this just anger is being manipulated by actors adept at appropriating the tropes and trappings of democracy, and using them to turn democracy on its head.

Both the Russian government and the French far right see themselves as counter-revolutionary: the one, intent on undoing the effects of the Russian Revolution; and the other intent on undoing the effects of the French Revolution. This is, perhaps unsurprising, given that the terms "right" and "left" in the political world come from the context of the French Revolution, and those on the right were anti-Republicans, opposed to democracy and seeking a return to an older order. The 200-some years that have elapsed since the revolution have not entirely erased that opposition, as evidenced by the tendency of those of the far right, among them Marine Le Pen's father, to evoke the memory of the Vendée, the last region in France to resist the Revolution.

History tends to move in circles — and trends and events in France often later cycle through to the United States. The American Revolution was rooted, in many ways, in French democratic thought. France's colonial war in Indochina turned into the American Vietnam War, and, most recently, the rise of right-wing nationalism in the United States has followed the patterns it took in France several decades prior.

Americans, like the French, find themselves in a country where the income gap is widening, where distrust of the government runs very deep, and where people increasingly feel both politically and economically marginalized. So, it is not a stretch to imagine the same violent and destructive reactions playing out in France soon impacting the U.S. We should also expect, since we have seen it before, that internal and external forces will try to harness domestic anger and insecurity in order to persuade Americans that democracy is less important than prosperity or stability.

Are the American public and the French public shrewd enough to resist such rhetoric? In an age of guerilla politics fed by insecurity, it is difficult to know. I do know, however, that we should not assume that institutions will protect us. Rather, we should remember the warning of French historian Ernest Renan, who once famously wrote that a nation is an every day referendum.

American and French citizens must be vigilant. If we don't wake up every day and affirm our commitment to democracy, if we don't daily remind ourselves that nothing — not money, not security, not party — is more important than the freedoms democracy guarantees, we may soon find ourselves in the counter-revolution, living out the twilight of the democratic age.

Dayna Oscherwitz is an associate professor of French and Francophone studies at Southern Methodist University. She wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.

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