Decentralization of power is essential to improve democracy. Assume when a dictator governs a country, decisions are made in top-down without respecting public opinions. Even though democracy is more respecting citizens’ opinions, it is not working enough.

In the case of recent Okinawan referendum, even though “72%” of Okinawan people voted was against the landfill in Henoko[1], the government is continuing to stick to their plan. The government doesn’t reflect the public opinion enough.

In order to reflect citizens’ opinions, we need to introduce systems which enables us to make a proposition, gathers the voices, and be authorized to reflect in public. For example, the citizens’ initiative referendum (= le referendum d’initiative citoyenne whose acronym is RIC) which the Yellow vests demonstrators claims in their movement is an option (I am thinking about writing this type of referendum in another article). I think this is decentralization in a way that it allows people to have chance to reflect their opinions based on their opinions.

At present, people can express their voice on the Internet. The scale of influence depends on each person, but the capacity of spreading one’s own voice is not just limited to the government or the media, each citizen have the power.

Like above, the power is decentralized, or in some cases generated among citizens after the emergence of the Internet.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/japanese/47366904 Accessed 27 May 2019

On 16 March 2019, there was a big manifestation called “March of the century” which “more than 350 000 persons” participated based on a post on Facebook page of “Il est encore temps”[1]. It was on the same day of Act 18 of the Yellow vests movement and some of them joined as well[2]. The day before, students went on strike[3].

I think this movement as well as other movements happened before shows the higher consciousness for climate issues and citizen’s power to speak up to problems they see.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/notes/il-est-encore-temps/marche-du-si%C3%A8cle-rendez-vous-r%C3%A9ussi-avec-lhistoire-/454868488585605/ Accessed 20 May 2019

[2] https://www.lemonde.fr/climat/article/2019/03/16/marche-pour-le-climat-des-centaines-de-milliers-de-manifestants-partout-en-france_5437162_1652612.html?xtmc=marche_climat&xtcr=120 Accessed 16 May 2019

[3] http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/2019/03/13/01016-20190313ARTFIG00052-affaire-du-siecle-manifestations-une-semaine-chargee-pour-la-mobilisation-climatique.php Accessed 17 May 2019

Upload:13 May 2019, Last update: 28 May 2019

Media distrust of citizens is one of the topics often talked in French society. This aspect can be seen in the Yellow vests movement. In my impression, more French people do care the influence of media.

Some Yellow vests demonstrators participated in “marche sur les médias” on 27 April[1] which comes from the media distrust among French people.

Especially BFMTV whose reporters were attacked before boycotted on 7 January[2]. Before that, the reporters of BFMTV were attacked for example, in Rouen on 5 January[3].

The violences of demonstrators is not acceptable.

But in terms of media literacy of its citizens, people in French society is not obedient to mainstream media, they try to analyze information.

Mainstream media is useful to get dairy information, but it is not wise to completely trust them. The severe eyes of citizens to media facilitates the media to think about themselves. Even some TV programs of France Télévisions themselves have fact-checking parts. Many French people care the media problems like independency or arbitrariness. Among Japanese, it feels like that more people are obedient to media and just receiving information as it is. Being obedient to information is risky and easily manipulated when it happens.

More citizens in French society tend to think about the information from media, not receiving it as it is.

[1] https://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2019/04/27/deux-jours-apres-les-annonces-de-macron-les-gilets-jaunes-mobilises-a-paris-et-strasbourg_5455740_3224.html Accessed 13 May 2019

[2] http://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/tv/pourquoi-les-journalistes-de-bfmtv-boycottent-les-gilets-jaunes-ce-lundi-07-01-2019-7982478.php Accessed 13 May 2019

[3] http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/journalistes-agresses-par-des-gilets-jaunes-a-rouen-j-ai-eu-l-impression-qu-ils-voulaient-en-decoudre-06-01-2019-7982001.php Accessed 13 May 2019

Upload: 6 May 2019, Last update: 14 May 2019

The pictures or the videos of violences are impressive for audiences. Media often covered those scenes. In fact, those violences of “casseur” happened during the demonstrations. In order to maintain the public order, police ,for example, used the LBD (le lanceur de balles de défense), then the UN requested the French government to investigate “excessive use of force”[1].

But it doesn’t mean that the Yellow vests movement consists of only the violences.

There is a civil power to speak up to the government.

The violences are not acceptable, but I don’t think it is a great idea to have negative image on demonstrations just watching the violence scenes of the demonstration.

The violences actually happened in the Yellow vests movement and I’m not saying that the violence can be justified. But when people especially far from France watch those scenes, since the scenes are impactful, people tend to have just the image of violences on the Yellow vests movement. Or even non-French media report more on the violent scenes and not assign time so much time on the context of the movement (I think this is closely related to limited time of the news part).

[1] http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/gilets-jaunes-l-onu-reclame-a-la-france-une-enquete-sur-l-usage-excessif-de-la-force-06-03-2019-8025750.php Accessed 6 May 2019