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ABSTRACT
Starting in mid-November 2018 and lasting well into 2019, people mobilised throughout France in what has been entitled by some the gilets jaunes movement. Drawn initially from mainly rural and semi-urban areas the protesters used a mixture of traditional and innovative action repertoires such as rallies, demonstrations, the occupation of public and private spaces, or on-line activism. With support for the protesters overwhelmingly positive, public authorities struggled to contain them despite deploying law-enforcement personnel on a massive scale, withdrawing some controversial policies, or initiating new social, economic and fiscal policy measures. In reviewing and analysing the events’ key phases and aspects, this article points to a theoretical perplexity—the gilets jaunes mobilised without institutional and third-party support—and draws attention to the ways that current research tools can help scholars to assess this puzzle.
RÉSUMÉ
À partir de novembre 2018, des « gilets jaunes » (personnes issues surtout de régions rurales et péri-urbaines) ont organisé des protestations aux quatre coins de la France. La contestation s’est bâtie autour d’un large répertoire d’actions – rassemblements, manifestations, occupations d’espaces publics et privés, ou activisme sur les réseaux sociaux entre autres. Les pouvoirs publics ont peiné à endiguer ces protestations de masse en dépit du déploiement massif des forces de l’ordre, du retrait de certaines des mesures les plus controversées, ou de la mise en place de nouvelles politiques sociales, fiscales ou économiques. Tout en évaluant et en analysant les phases clés de ce « mouvement des gilets jaunes », cet article met en évidence une énigme – les gilets jaunes se sont mobilisés sans l’intervention de tierces parties – et souligne les manières dont certains outils de recherche en sciences sociales nous permettent d’évaluer cette énigme.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Research for the article is based on participant observations and 35 semi-structured interviews in Paris, Tours and Nantes from December 2018 to April 2019. It is also based on the analysis of primary and secondary material. I would like to thank the two anonymous referees for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.
2. https://www.change.org/p/pour-une-baisse-des-prix-%C3%A0-la-pompe-essence-diesel (Accessed 16 April 2019).
3. https://www.change.org/p/pour-une-baisse-des-prix-%C3%A0-la-pompe-essence-diesel (Accessed 15 April 2019).
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ea7U_mzbus (Accessed 19 June 2019).
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOOUmDOJKAY (Accessed 19 June 2019).
6. The Gilets jaunes refer to the yellow vests that road users in France must have since the enactment of a 2008 law. The law stipulates that all vehicles must have information and safety equipment including a yellow vest, a warning triangle, and an alcohol-level test. The yellow vests were quickly adopted as symbols of the anti-petrol levy protests. I will use the French term in this article.
7. https://elabe.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/note-gilets-jaunes_vf_20-03.pdf (Accessed 20 June 2019).
8. https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/michel-pigenet/ce-qui-peut-fragiliser-le-mouvement-des-gilets-jaunes_a_23591515/(Accessed 16 June 2019).
9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOCGu3MtA9M (Accessed 7 June 2019).
10. https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/gilets-jaunes-une-jacquerie-moderne_2048798.html (Accessed 8 June 2019).
11. https://www.atlantico.fr/decryptage/3564536/christophe-guilluy–les-gilets-jaunes-ont-gagne-la-bataille-les-elites-ne-pourront-plus-faire-comme-si-cette-france-n-existait-pas- (Accessed 16 June 2019).
12. All quotations originally in French have been translated into English.
13. On 29 June 2019, several thousand demonstrators marched throughout France for the 33rd consecutive week. That same week-end over 700 gilets jaunes met in the town of Montceau-les-Mines (Saône-et-Loire Department) for the Third Gilets Jaunes National Assembly. Representing over 246 local groupings, the delegates met to discuss setting an action plan and ways to pursue the protests. The protests weakened significantly during the months of July and August but renewed attempts were made in early September 2019 to re-energise the protests.
14. Four sources are generally used to calculate weekly participant figures. The first is that of the Interior Ministry—usually criticised by gilets jaunes protesters for publishing far too low figures. Two other sources are those published by a dissident police trade union (Syndicat France police—Policiers en colère) and that of gilets jaunes sympathisers: Le Nombre jaune. The fourth is that of the consulting firm Occurrence. In April 2018 over 20 print and audio-visual media outlets—Libération, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Le Parisien, La Croix, AFP, France 2, France 3, Canal+, CNews, BFM-TV, Mediapart, etc.—have hired this firm to count the number of participants in demonstrations.
15. Journal de Dimanche, 1 June 2019.
16. The period from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s is generally referred to as ‘les trente glorieuses’. The expression refers to this approximately thirty-year period of strong economic growth and prosperity which followed the end of the Second World War.
17. https://en-marche.fr/emmanuel-macron/le-programme (Accessed 20 June 2019).
18. https://www.oxfamfrance.org/communiques-de-presse/dans-le-classement-mondial-de-la-lutte-contre-les-inegalites-la-france-emprunte-une-pente-glissante-2/(Accessed 25 June 2019).
19. https://francais.rt.com/opinions/53727-lettre-ouverte-president-manu-par-michel-onfray (Accessed 23 June 2019).
20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXqiaILueC4 (Accessed 16 June 2019).
21. https://reporterre.net/Appel-de-la-premiere-assemblee-des-assemblees-des-Gilets-jaunes (Accessed 9 June 2019).
22. https://theconversation.com/conversation-avec-herve-le-bras-le-mouvement-des-gilets-jaunes-repose-sur-deux-clienteles-differentes-107851 (accessed 17 April 2019).
23. Figures here have been taken form the December 2018 and January 2019 quantitative and qualitative studies described above.
24. http://www.nousnesommespasdupes.fr/(Accessed 25 May 2019).
25. https://www.contretemps.eu/gilets-jaunes-macron/(Accessed 30 May 2019).
26. Xavier-Francaire Renou and Michel Rotfus, ‘Note sur les gilets jaunes’, Médiapart, https://blogs.mediapart.fr/michelrotfus/blog/091218/note-sur-les-gilets-jaunes (Accessed 30 May 2019).
27. In early December 2018, the government invited a number of gilets jaunes figure-heads to Paris to discuss issues. Those who agreed to attend were castigated on social media and some were threatened. The great majority subsequently declined the invitation. Only one gilets jaunes attended the meeting but withdrew in a short space of time. In another case, Ingrid Levavasseur, an early figure-head, was the target of sustained attacks on social media when she formed a party to contest European elections. She withdrew from the campaign shortly afterwards.
28. https://www.lautrequotidien.fr/articles/2019/3/19/la-rponse-de-maxime-nicolle-au-gouvernement-qui-tente-dintimider-les-gilets-jaunes (accessed 22 April 2019).
29. For a type of sociological profile of the people arrested on the first day of the demonstrations, see https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2018/11/26/2913687-gilets-jaunes-sont-personnes-arretees-apres-violences-paris.html (Accessed 30 June 2019).
30. http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/direct-violences-pendant-les-manifestations-castaner-et-le-maire-auditionnes-au-senat-19-03-2019-8035254.php (Accessed 24 June 2019).
31. https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/transports/gilets-jaunes/infographies-manifestants-blesses-interpellations-enquetes-quatre-mois-de-mouvement-des-gilets-jaunes-resumes-en-chiffres_3232747.html and https://harris-interactive.fr/opinion_polls/les-gilets-jaunes-quelle-perception-de-la-part-des-francais-au-lendemain-de-la-manifestation-du-1er-decembre-sur-les-champs-elysees/(both accessed 20 June 2019).
32. In an effort to counter-balance was what they felt was mainstream media’s bias, some gilets jaunes in Saint-Junien (near Limoges) set up their own free monthly publication—L’Avis en jaune—in April 2019. On the role of the media see Bougon, Piquard, and Berteau (Citation2019).
33. Some mainstream media became the target for gilets jaunes attacks. BFM-TV journalists, for example, were often forbidden to attend rallies or demonstrations and when they did were forcefully removed. In an open letter published on 15 January 2019, thirty-four news associations (Agence France Presse, Le Figaro, Le Monde, TF1, France 2, France 3, BFM-TV, etc.) denounced the insults and aggressions to which journalists had been subjected since the start of the protests (see also Lévrier Citation2019).
34. The term ‘Poujadist’ refers to a populist movement that erupted in 1950s France and was led by Pierre Poujade, a small shopkeeper from south-western France. Poujadists were typically classified as being anti-republican, anti-Semitic, and anti-tax.
35. In one well-publicised incident in February 2019, some gilets jaunes used anti-Semitic terms to insult philosopher Alain Finkielkraut. In another, a Jewish cemetery in Quatzenheim (Alsace) was targeted and about 80 tombs were defaced with swastikas. Both incidents were linked to rising levels of intolerance and attributed to the gilets jaunes.
36. http://www.lefigaro.fr/decideurs/emploi/un-francais-sur-cinq-ne-percoit-ni-le-sens-ni-l-utilite-de-son-emploi-20190429 (Accessed 29 May 2019).
37. https://reporterre.net/Appel-de-la-premiere-assemblee-des-assemblees-des-Gilets-jaunes (Accessed 23 May 2019).
38. https://www.franceinter.fr/societe/paroles-de-gilets-jaunes (Accessed 21 June 2019).
39. https://www.revolutionpermanente.fr/VIDEO-Panique-a-CNEWS-apres-qu-un-invite-ait-dit-comprendre-la-violence-des-GJ (Accessed 30 May 2019).
40. A Google Scholar search on 2 July 2019 using the term ‘gilets jaunes’ generated 805 results, 541 for ‘mouvement gilets jaunes’, 369 for ‘yellow vest movement’, and 169 for ‘gilets jaunes movement’.
41. On the issue of the protesters desire to have no leaders, see the ethnographic study of Jean-Baptiste Devaux et al. (Citation2019, 2) in which they argue that: ‘the gilets jaunes movement is not a leaderless movement. On the contrary, a struggle for leadership runs through it. The rules of the games are in a constant state of flux. This is a key but little studied fact’.
42. In late April 2019 Éric Drouet declared that he was stepping back temporarily from the protests. He explained that he and his family were coming under far too much pressure because of his high public profile: threats, insults, property destruction, etc.
43. Jennifer Earl (Citation2011) has argued convincingly that in certain situations repression can spur people to frame the repression as an additional grievance against authorities. In the case of the gilets jaunes, Act 12 on 2 February 2019 was entitled ‘the march of the wounded’ and organised on the theme of police violence. A number of demonstrations around the country were led by people who had been injured by the police.