The gilets jaunes believe, fantastically, that they can bring down representative government in France and replace it with a bottom-up government of the people. Such apocalyptic ambitions are normal enough for the gangs of young men of the ultra-left and ultra-right who wreaked most of the damage in a third weekend of rioting in Paris and other French cities on Saturday. They are bizarre and dangerous aims for the mainstream revolutionaries – garage mechanics, retired building contractors, home carers, small entrepreneurs – who make up the bulk of the officially leaderless yellow vest movement.

By my own observation, a different category of yellow vests invaded Paris last weekend. They were less violent than the men and women who poured into the capital from struggling towns in northern and western France the week before. They resembled the well-behaved people who have picketed roundabouts and motorway tollbooths all over France for three weeks. That may signal a calming of the mood and sweeping ambition of the hi-vis hordes, but I doubt it. The yellow vests have given their once-invisible wearers a visibility and a sense of power that they are reluctant to surrender.

A 25-point gilet jaune manifesto circulated last week. The manifesto is “unofficial” but mirrors the jumble of statist and non-statist ideas that win viral support on yellow vest “anger” groups on the internet.