[LUM#19] The fuel behind the yellow vests
For over a year, every day at roundabouts and almost every Saturday in the streets, yellow vests gathered to voice their desire for social justice. Beneath the vests were men and women from all walks of life, ignited by the spark of a carbon tax denounced as unfair.
On November 17, 2018, to everyone's astonishment, Act 1 of a social conflict that would eventually number 65 broke out, destabilizing the government for many months (Le Monde 11/17/2018). In the streets and at roundabouts, thousands of protesters wearing yellow vests shouted their anger following the announcement of the carbon tax, as evidenced by the slogans brandished at the demonstrations: "Stop taxes"; "The drop of gasoline that breaks the camel's back"; "Stop pumping us"; "Jo the taxed"...
Based on the polluter pays principle, the carbon tax, which aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, is perceived by a significant portion of the population as an unfair tax in a context where the rising cost of living is already weighing heavily on the middle and working classes. "Movements related to energy issues always call into question models of society, " explains Emmanuelle Reungoat, a political science researcher at the Center for Political and Social Studies (Cepel)*. The yellow vests initially mobilized around the issue of fuel, but within a few weeks the movement began to denounce fiscal injustice, social inequalities, and then institutions, because energy issues affect mobility, purchasing power, and political and social organization."
Challenged mobility
The spontaneity of this revolt surprised observers. "It was a difficult movement to understand, as it did not correspond to the usual audience or modes of protest," recalls the researcher, who was urgently involved in developing a questionnaire that would serve as the basis for a major national study, the only one conducted in situ on the yellow vests. Despite their great diversity, "talking about the yellow vests is almost a misnomer," points out Emmanuelle Reungoat, but it is possible to identify a few common features: they are often drawn from certain sections of the working and middle classes, often living in peri-urban areas, small towns or rural communities, with diverse and sometimes conflicting electoral preferences, tending to hold the most polarized positions on the political spectrum, and fairly distant from trade unions and political parties, hence their open mistrust of the latter.
Certain professions such as healthcare workers are also overrepresented, including home helpers, nursing assistants, and nurses who have seen the public service deteriorate... "People who work a lot with their cars and whose travel expenses are not taken into account in their salaries but weigh heavily on their wallets." The least protected categories of employees, temporary workers and those on fixed-term contracts, and workers and employees in general, are also overrepresented in the protests. So they gather at the familiar and accessible roundabouts to draw attention, at the crossroads of major roads, to the mobility they feel is under threat. "The carbon tax was seen as an obstacle to their mobility, so they blocked everyone's mobility. In all major strike movements, mobility and energy supplies are blocked," the researcher points out.
End of the world or end of the month
Another unique feature of the movement is that many of the protesters are first-time demonstrators who were mobilized via social media and are expressing their anger in the streets and at general assemblies for the first time. They are becoming politicized, discussing issues, and sharing their life experiences. "Many of them are for the first time attributing their life experiences of failure and guilt to collective trajectories and a system that produces inequality. We are moving from shame to injustice," summarizes Emmanuelle Reungoat.
The awareness of class belonging, which goes beyond social issues, will shape the discourse of some of the yellow vests, who will adopt a "classist" stance on environmental and energy issues, denouncing "a policy that penalizes the little guys by taxing gasoline rather than jet fuel." There is the emergence of a "we," but it is the "we" of the little people against the big people who pollute much more, the bigwigs, the political elites who do not take responsibility for climate change. " While it is established that the environmental footprint of the wealthiest classes is greater than that of the working classes, the researcher also sees this as a challenge to public policies that are most often modeled on the practices of the urban middle classes: "Riding a bike is all well and good, but you still have to be able to afford an electric bike, live close enough to your workplace, and have suitable bike lanes..."
"Rednecks who drive diesel cars"?
A discourse often suspected in the media of masking, at best, a lack of interest in environmental issues and, at worst, climate skepticism, all fueled by the common belief that the working classes are not environmentally conscious. Emmanuelle Reungoat and her colleagues at CEPEL, Jean-Yves Dormagen and Laura Michel, wanted to explore this idea by launching a study on the relationship between the yellow vests and ecology in Occitanie. "We needed to see if, as we often heard, we were dealing with climate skeptics or rednecks who drive diesel cars," the researcher jokes. Unsurprisingly, the study highlights the great heterogeneity of the group, with very divided views on ecology and many other issues. Nevertheless, 88% of the yellow vests surveyed recognize the reality of climate change and 75% said they were aware of the impact of human activities on the climate, figures equivalent to those of the rest of the French population surveyed. Similarly, their carbon footprint, sometimes constrained by their standard of living, remains limited.
Without necessarily calling themselves environmentalists, many of them have a vegetable garden, compost, and an appreciation for nature. Reading the study, we learn that the yellow vests are ultimately no more or less environmentally conscious than the rest of the population. "Even if there are individuals with more assertive positions, with more pros and cons," confirms Emmanuelle Reungoat, before concluding: " The management of resources, water, and energy will continue to be a major issue, with the question of conflicts, diverging interests, and the obligation for a democracy to learn to manage these disagreements. And there is room for improvement, to put it mildly."
* CEPEL (UM, CNRS)
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