Is "Let's block everything" really season 2 of the yellow vests?
Social unrest and political crisis. Between echoes of recent struggles and persistent political tensions, "Bloquons tout" reveals the fragility of a representative system faced with multiple social grievances.
François Buton, ENS Lyon and Emmanuelle Reungoat, University of Montpellier
Launched in July, the "September 10 movement" or "Bloquons tout" (Let's block everything) is the focus of attention from society, the government, politicians, the media, and local intelligence services. Several elements of this movement clearly echo those of the yellow vests movement that emerged in November 2018. It is a grassroots mobilization, launched by various already organized groups but amplified by social media (especially Telegram), with no leadership but structured by websites (Indignons-nous and Les essentiels ), which immediately reveal a strong heterogeneity between protesters who are more sovereignist and defenders of a Christian France and others who claim to be radical leftists.
Opposition to the draft budget
While the protests involve numerous demands, some more elaborate than others, they appear to be primarily motivated by purchasing power and the condemnation of inequality: opposition to Prime Minister François Bayrou's budget proposal, which has been criticized for placing the burden of deficit reduction (€40 billion in savings) on workers, the unemployed, employees, those in precarious employment, and the sick, echoes the sense of injustice felt by the yellow vests when a new fuel tax was announced. The draft finance bill has been criticized by all the political forces opposed to the government and seems to have been poorly received by the population, which supports the upcoming movement, according to a widely cited poll conducted on August 20 and 21 (Toluna Harris Interactive for RTL).
Thus, 59% of French people support the goal of reducing public spending, but 63% support the movement (70% say they are in favor of demonstrations, 58% in favor of blockades), 75% oppose the elimination of two public holidays, and 71% are in favor of a "solidarity contribution paid by the wealthiest French citizens." For several weeks now, the organization of local assemblies, the production of maps of upcoming gatherings, and the variety of actions planned (from civil disobedience to blockades of production sites) have also been reminiscent of the 2018 mobilization.
The yellow vests and other struggles
The comparison with the yellow vests therefore makes sense, and is frequently made in comments: the yellow vests are on everyone's minds, as positive or negative role models, as sources of hope or concern. For those of us who have been working on this movement for a long time, the comparison is relevant but delicate to handle. A direct comparison should not obscure the historic nature of the struggles: the yellow vests are a precedent, and the potential protesters of September 10 were able to participate in them, acquire protest skills, and learn lessons about the effectiveness of the movement's actions, its limitations or dead ends, its duration, and the repression it suffered.
But the history of protests is rich with other demonstrations, both prior (Nuit debout) and, above all, after 2018: massive demonstrations against pension reform, farmers' demonstrations (some wearing "yellow vests"), occupations against highway projects (A 69) or agricultural projects (Sainte-Soline), various strikes, the movement opposing the health pass, and even a massive petition (with more than 2 million signatories) against the Duplomb law last July. It is therefore necessary to take into account the lessons learned from all these mobilizations in the preparations for September 10 in different parts of the country.
Comparing the "profiles" of the yellow vests and potential "blockaders" is no easier to do, not only because, by definition, we do not yet know who the blockaders are, but at best only some of those who are active on social media and agree to answer questionnaires, or those who meet in assemblies, but also because it remains to be defined who has been a Yellow Vest before presenting their profiles.
The Gilets are here, but not all of them
In our own investigations, we chose to focus on "super Gilets," who were mostly first-time protesters, intensely committed (sometimes to the point of self-sacrifice) and long-standing members (some of whom still are!) of a local group. These Gilets are not representative of the movement as a whole, where others were more experienced activists, and the vast majority of whom only participated in a few actions or assemblies: surveys estimate that 3 million citizens participated in at least one yellow vest action in 2018-2019.
When we contact them to ask what they think of "Bloquons tout" (Let's block everything), what they are doing and what they plan to do, the answers vary greatly. Some, decked out in their vests, have taken over local assemblies or Telegram loops, as they have done in most protests over the past seven years; Others, on the contrary, are following the movement from near or far, waiting to see what happens, disgusted by the supposed political "co-opting" of the movement, skeptical about the chances of success of yet another street protest, or discouraged by the lack of public support and the harshness of the repression, including judicial repression, during the 2018 movement ("let the others get their hands dirty")..
Many attitudes are possible, which we can explain in detail in each case, but we know that they do not represent all of the "yellow vests." One thing is certain: some yellow vests are there, and others are ready to join in.
But one major difference with the yellow vests, precisely because of their precedence, lies in the intense media attention that has been focused on the "Bloquons tout" movement in recent weeks. While failing to mention the protesters' immense mistrust of the media (we can bet that this theme will return with the first demonstrations), the media are providing massive coverage of the preparations, asking the usual questions: who are the blockaders, who can embody the movement or even be its leaders, who is "behind" it, what do they want, what can we expect, or even fear? However, the intense media attention has undoubtedly had the effect of unsettling politicians and union leaders of all stripes, when they had not already taken the lead.
Beyond "recovery"
Another major difference with 2018, when parties and unions ignored or even condemned November 17, lies in the early politicization of the coming protests. The term, which has several meanings, does not refer to the "co-opting" of the movement by any particular political force—an expression that is widely used but belongs to a stigmatizing political category. It refers to the idea that all political forces, regardless of their differences, agree to redefine the movement and its demands as political, i.e., as falling within the realm of "political" democracy (elected officials and parties) and "social" democracy (unions). On the one hand, the confederations are calling for another "mass mobilization" on September 18, amplifying the strikes announced here and there; on the other hand, since the "political return" from the summer universities in mid-August, party leaders have been speaking out in support of or against the movement and discussing the legitimacy of its demands and methods of action.
The most spectacular political move was undoubtedly made by Prime Minister François Bayrou, who announced on August 25 that he would call his government to account by requesting a vote of confidence in the National Assembly on September 8 on his controversial finance bill. This spectacular decision brought the political agenda back to the forefront, with praise and criticism of the move (a return to parliamentary democracy for Jean-Luc Mélenchon), various consultations, and statements on specific points of the bill (notably the elimination of two public holidays). The rejection of confidence, which is a foregone conclusion, will plunge the country into a political and even institutional crisis that is likely to dominate the media agenda at the expense of the social "crisis."
So today, it seems as though elected officials are taking back control at the expense of ordinary citizens. François Hollande's latest remark ( "I cannot associate myself with something I have no control over" reveals a kind of unconsciousness on the part of the political class, which says it "hears the exasperation" but only wants to engage in what it controls, namely political and institutional games, and only give the people a voice in the form of electoral suffrage.
Social movements as forces for change
In doing so, elected officials are demonstrating a surprising degree of blindness. Another lesson from the yellow vest movement is that is that it has profoundly transformed its initial protesters, if not into activists, then at least into citizens who feel that they are finally worthy of being heard, capable of debating and expressing their opinions on political and even institutional issues (the RIC) that affect the country, and refusing to be content with simply slipping a ballot into the ballot box every five years.
What we read today on Telegram loops or hear in the first local assemblies attests to the same determination not to be infantilized and sent back to one's daily grind because of a supposed lack of "credentials to speak" (Jacques Rancière). The mistrust of national elected officials, which was strong in 2018, is even stronger today: the famous "popularity ratings," for what they are worth, indicate that the most "popular" opponents have the confidence of at best one in three citizens.
It is doubtful that the French are fascinated by the petty games of an institutional and political crisis, since those in power do not listen to them when they protest en masse (against pension reforms) or when they vote against the majority (in 2024, which is reminiscent of the 2005 referendum), responding instead with citizens' conferences or grand debates whose results they ignore, and with increasingly violent repression.
In this context, "block everything" can mean many things: for some, it means throwing a country that is already "blocked" into chaos; for others, the problem is rather the blocking or closing of the political arena, which seeks to reserve decisions solely for representatives (unions and parties). The yellow vests did not just protest against a tax, they also learned along the way to propose another form of democracy; perhaps it is time to recognize that social movements bring solutions, not just problems.
François Buton, Director of Research at CNRS, ENS Lyon and Emmanuelle Reungoat, Senior Lecturer in Political Science, University of Montpellier
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.