They've really rejected anyone who claims 'I know what the Yellow Vests are and what they represent and I'm going to represent them.' That's been something almost unanimously rejected everytime somebody tries to do that... There's this profound dissatisfaction with the status quo, and this desire for a new kind of politics - the Yellow Vests show that quite clearly - but when anyone stands up and says 'I represent that alternative,' it's very easy to shoot them down.
Journalist Jacob Hamburger examines the new nature of France's civil unrest - as the French public mobilizes against the social cuts of Emmanuel Macron, the year-old Yellow Vest movement coalesces in opposition to the neoliberal order, but without a clear alternative economic and environmental vision.
Jacob wrote the opinion piece The Fury in France for the New York Times.