Certainly!
How time flies: we are already in 2069 – which Serge Gainsbourg would have called the erotic year – and the yellow vests have reached their 714th weekend of protest.
Since the beginning of this movement, the law enforcement agencies have been quite busy: according to the Interior Ministry, three and a half million people have been arrested over fifty years, with 275,486 facing charges.
According to the Chancellery, 31,254 have been sentenced to prison.
According to the organizers, these figures should be multiplied by ten, but that seems very exaggerated to us…
Relative to the population – 82 million inhabitants, according to the 2065 Insee census – we are quite within international standards: the ratio of free people to imprisoned people is the same as in Russia, North Korea, and the United States, the three major democracies of reference, ever since Europe succumbed to a protectionist wave and is now reduced to the “Franco-German couple” following the withdrawals of the British, Italians, Hungarians, Poles…
There is therefore no need to worry, and while half a century ago we lamented serious injuries in protests, everything is now in order thanks to artificial intelligence.
The CNIL has – finally and fortunately – allowed facial recognition paired with preventive brain inspection, including in minors under five. Thanks to these technological advances, prefects no longer need to issue prohibition orders as part of the obsolete “anti-riot” law of 2019.
Similarly, the latest generation of intelligent and autonomous robots – the famous Benallators – can gently apprehend those who break windows, burn cars, or – more seriously – shout disapproving slogans at our good leaders, so enlightened, so attentive, who have tolerated for so long the exhibition of those unsightly garments at every intersection.
We must objectively acknowledge all the positives this movement has brought to the country’s economy: thanks to it, we have become world champions in the manufacturing of yellow vests, red scarves, green hats (when the environmentalists got involved), dunce caps too, batons, tear gas, and eye drops. Thanks to the rioters who boosted viewership over these 714 weekends, our televisions have earned record revenues, which allow the development of cultural programs, where muscular contestants strut under palm trees trying to charm a neighbor’s girlfriend. Glaziers have also become a prosperous guild.
Hardly any except for the small shopkeepers whose storefronts were smashed and merchandise looted, and the café owners with ravaged terraces, have disappeared from city centers. They could complain, but for them it is too late: they did not manage to adapt to the modern world in time, and the last of them have just pulled down their shutters…
That is why all presidents since Emmanuel Macron have not wanted to challenge the successive episodes of the yellow vests. Which now, in 2069, attract millions of tourists from around the world, to take selfies with them. This is good for the country’s image, its tourism activity, and to cultivate that “French exception” to which we are so attached.
Jean-Michel Chevalier, Les Petites Affiches
