From left to right, the woman in white, has been collecting garbage, the mother of six children, has been left with a retirement of 1.013 euros: “I live in bread and milk, bread and milk… My daughter is in Troyes, in business management studies, they have cut her student scholarship, but they have made her rent more expensive! Even though he had promised that he would make them cheaper. And I can’t help, I’m at zero, just go and see it in gasoline and tolls 100 euros…”.

I'm an itinerant jockey of grievances this morning, I'm told, "Aim," "tell it in Paris." I try. “I can’t get the EUR 200 gas oil, and now they want me to change my bank.” “My neighbour has had to undergo a technical examination, the one now, with a repair of EUR 1,500. The car couldn't move. I cried.” “I was in school as an assistant and this course took me seven hours. I’m talking about EUR 400 a month, without hesitation, even though I’ve been around for twenty years.” They
were all crashing around, pushing. “Don’t pass the yellow line! Everyone has their turn as in the post office!” They laughed, me too. I'm completely drenched with people. This is my place, my duty, among people.

At first, I was fascinated by Facebook messages. Such as: "You don't tell me about 17. Not with those facets.” They belonged to the leaders of the CGT or SUD. “Where were those jackets in times of demonstrations contrary to the labor law? In favour of pensioners, in favour of wages… where? If the only thing that matters is gas oil.” Woe, woe, woe... that smell of Esnobism on the left, that knowledge more than people without people...

I, with my method, be the first. Listen. Look at it. At least, understand. Before judging, from the tabled or closed study Over the past twenty years we have endeavoured not to listen or look, systematically disqualifying that France, which is far from the periphery, from power and from the media: “astapoto”, “racist”, “populist”. Now also, “anti-ecolo”. And what have I heard
and seen visiting the seven barricades in the area where I am a Member? Here's my notes.

08:00 Amiens-Norte Crossing

It's still dark. They also serve roundabout locking motors. Coming down from mine, hastily, I asked two of an age: “Why are you here?” “We came from Flessellest.” “Yes, but why?” “Ah, it’s not just gas oil. It’s a general disgust.” Here's the expression I'll have to hear all day [C'est a general ras-le-bol].

09:00 Flixecourt

When I got to the barricade, I tried to pass a big car like Laguna, Scenic, with 76 license plates (Seine-Maritime). A yellow jacket, when she jumped over the hood, tore her windshield. A well-dressed young man approached and bravely said: “We have to do the part.” “You knew you couldn’t pass! It was enough not to leave today.” “To me five.” “You have money.” “You had a lot to study!” It's heated the corners with this.

I've remembered the other survey. Who supports the movement? As for workers and workers, 78%. In senior positions, 44%. The same as in the yes and no referendum on the European Treaty held in 2005.

10:00 Abbeville

In the first roundabout, at the exit, you have the music up in the trucks, with the patriotic songs: nothing bad but nothing clean at the Front National. They bring their hair cut shorter than other times, this is the only place where I haven't been warmly welcomed.

One woman: “This is the first time I have left for the demonstration in my life, at 62 years old. I arrived until 15 years ago with the disability pension. But now I can't."

A man: “I would also like to move around here in search of work, but I can’t, I’m 30 kilometers away, back and forth 60 km. And also to collect Smica [minimum wage], 1,200 euros, isn’t it embarrassing?”

One woman: “My partner wants to change a car, the bank doesn’t give it to him because he earns 1,000 a month. On the contrary, those of Cofidis do agree. What are they doing to us? What do they not want to leave money to the worker by 2% but by 20% yes?”

Nolan, 24, father of the family: “I was in a friendship contract, in a college, and I was interrupted overnight. I have been told that it is a government, that it does not want it. It has made me angry, because they have abandoned me, and so we are twelve young people, twelve without much training, the school was not for me, and I believed blindly in the Republic… That trade, I loved it… And now they have left me without strength, precarious, lost. Or you have friends, crime is there.”

(Leftist journalist and parliamentarian François Ruffin has also visited Jaca from the department of Gard and Herault in southern France, as shown by this video from French television France-3 Occitanie)

11:00 Flixecourt

In every corner, I have forgotten to say, there are banners “Macron, démission!” or in the vests there is a finger that marks ‘Izorra’i’. That's what everybody has, more than gas oil.

“We, if we want to work, are asked for five years of experience. They would have to live five years in a small apartment in Etouvien [a poor neighborhood of Amiens], charging Smica and working turnoka before being a minister…” “Macron, when he won the first round of the elections, jumped all the red lights he was going to hold in
a luxury restaurant. And he was not yet lehendakari...” “Edouard Philipe, back from Le Havre, was going to 180 on the freeway.” “But how many ministers have an electric car?”

I've started immigrants twice. “In Calais they pay the permit, I’ve heard a retired person.” “That’s not true,” I directed. “I have been told by a representative of an association.” I said: “These are people who live in misery and know it well within you. It's not about the poor fighting each other. They're not the ones that cost us billions. Look at the top.”

13:00 Camon: Los Angeles

The Roquette fries of Daours have barrels: “I’ve started it – I’ve been told by a young man with a very little bit of red pant – I’ve warmed my peers. It is not just petrol, but ours salarios.Me seems very
symbolic: instead of striking, the social conflict within the factory has brought the conflict over the asphalt.
Of course, there is everything in this movement. It's not a revolutionary purity. What will it become tomorrow?

But today, that has already existed and I never thought that as a Member I had to see such a day, this nearby adventure, riding on the empty roads of the department of Somme (not always for 80 km/h), its hills, its autumn color, its golden painted trees…

Perhaps that is what motivated the people of the barricades: that something should happen, at last, in this sleeping France.

(Original article in French on the blog of François Ruffin: "Mon samedi jaune")