From Yellow Vest to Anti-Green Pass Protest: Continuity, abeyance and Spin-off Movement in Pandemic Time

International audienceIn November 17th 2018, the Yellow Vests Movement challenged political representation and participation. The gilets jaunes protest movement was surprising in its scope, forms of organization, and duration from 2018 until today (2022). The French Ministry of Interior reports that 287,000 people participated in actions at one of 2,000 blockades or demonstrations that day. The mobilization went on for several weeks with a high level of intensity. Researchers estimate that nearly three million people took part, occasionally or regularly, in a Yellow Vests (YV) action (Dormagen, Michel, et Reungoat 2021). It challenges the established analyses of social movements, raising many questions about its composition, its characterization, and the methodology to be used to understand its complexity(Collectif d’enquête sur les Gilets Jaunes et al. 2019). From our data, it became clear that the majority of participants were from the working classes.The gilets jaunes’ demands—initially to pull-off the domestic tax on the consumption of energy products — gradually broadened to include demands relating to social justice, as well as to representation and democracy(Bedock et al. 2020; Alexandre et al. 2021). This (apparent) heterogeneity of demands has given rise to contradictory interpretations of the movement, which is seen sometimes as reactionary or populist, and sometimes as revolutionary. Rather, the YVM seems to be related to a broader cycle of contention, anti-austerity protest and global justice movement (Bertuzzi et al. 2022;Snow 2013, 12). Occupy Wall Street (2011), places occupations appeared in Mediterranean countries - the Tahrir Place (2011), Gehzi Park in Istambul, the Indignant citizens of Madrid or Athens, the Sicilian Forconi – raising the issue of the current phase of global capitalism and neo-liberal policies. Its French declination, “Nuit Debout” arose in 2016 against the reform of labor market, gathering urban, educated people in Paris and most French big cities (Baciocchi et al. 2020). The YV also shares with Anti-austerity movement its heterogeneous social base feature, bringing together precariat workers, employees and small business, but also “pink collars” – care-workers – and retirees.While the movement developed in terms of its demands, it was also characterized by unique and evolving set of collective actions, without a national coordination center, which is very peculiar for a national broad social movement in France. The continuous occupation of roundabouts was often coupled with free toll operations and blockades (of roads, hypermarkets, freight, and refineries) and was accompanied, from the end of November 2018, by weekly demonstrations that sometimes targeted places of political power. These Saturday gatherings, known as “Acts” question the established codes of the demonstration, as for a long time they had no pre-planned route, no organization, no police contingent, and none of the traditional symbolic attributes usually seen at demonstrations (a structured procession, banners, flags, and so on). YVM also challenged public policing order with coercive tactics and massive use of “on lethal weapons”. Citizens’ assemblies on roundabouts and in town centers, petitions, volunteer-led pop-up help points for disabled individuals, and farmers’ markets also added to the movement’s repertoire of collective action. The movement went on in 2020, facing COVID crisis and strategical dilemmas about municipal elections that took place in March and June 2020. Recently, our data show a renewed interest for legislative election among YVM and Anti-Green Pass participants. Did the pandemic favor legal and electoral tactics? How does it shape YVM, its demands, repertoires and frames? Some of our data suggest that freedom restrictions due to the pandemic made usual forms of protest impossible to cary out. Participation went on-line, bridging individuals to new networks. Pandemic, vaccine and surveillance became dominant issues for the YVM.Our paper will thus address the issue of continuity and discontinuity of social movement in pandemic time following though the lens of specific configuration. Our research design is based on comparisons within the YVSM participants and network, demands and frames, and reprertoire and sites of protest. The capacity of the YVM to continue during the COVID crisis could be explained by three hypothesis 1) the participation before COVID crisis and post-lock down is slighly different. We will examine according the context who stays, who comes back after the first lock-down and who is a new comer if so, agregating new networks to former ones. 2) Some analysis show two distinct groups and attitudes toward representation, the “populist” ones - new comers, less politicized yellow vests tend - to endorse more coercitive and suspicious views on representation, whereas former left-wing activist, more politicized tend to promote political participation. We will examine if the former will be more incline to participate into Anti-Green Pass demonstrations, whereas the later enter in abeyance and dropped off, reflecting different values; 3) As noted, the SMO evolves in different sites, suggesting differences in “collective action performances” and various appropriations of space. We make the hypothesis that space issues reveal continuity and discontinuity within the movement in time of the pandemic.Our paper will provide a new insight on key concepts of social movement analysis such as abeyance, spin-off movement by analyzing the YVM, a long-time protest that occurred in France mainland and oversea territories from autumn 2018 until now. In order to do so, we will rely on a case study (Trom & David A. Snow 2002). Indeed, the YVM offers a unique point of view to observe how social movement participant dealt with freedom restriction, new issues, framed new demands that replace or complete former demands. During the first lock-down (March 17th 2020-May 11th 2020), street protests went off the street – with few exceptions – and many activists went on line. In May, new protests occurred between the two rounds of the municipal elections, with a significant decrease in participation. After a declining phase, a new sequence began after the announce of the Green Pass. On July 14th 2021 the French national day, center-right wing President Emmanuel Macron, announced a new policy on COVID, provoking a new wave of contention. Some former YV participants went back in the streets, joined by newcomers who did not take part in the YV. Other YV refused to join the demonstrations to avoid collective action with supposed far-right wing activists, anti-vaccines or conspiracy adepts.We choose three site of mobilization: a national scene (Paris), a local context in a hotspot (Bordeaux) and a colonial context i.e. the French Island of La Réunion in the Indian Ocean. These three sites share different characteristics. In Paris, YV and Anti-Green Pass street protests did not follow the same paths, gathering participant in different points of the capital following tensions with the movement. In Bordeaux we could observe merging and spin-off movement, whereas in La Réunion, social and racialized dynamics gave rise to different kind of protest during the pandemic. Since 2018, we gathered different data set : 1) On-site survey (n=1477 questionnaires) in various sites of action from November 2018 until March 2019; Saturday “Acts” observations in Paris and Bordeaux, two hot-spots of the protest; 3) In-depth interviews with participants in Paris, Bordeaux, La Réunion.At organizational level, our paper brings some insight about on-site and on-line networks and activities. Multi-site observations allow us to identify specific configurations, networks, frames and repertoires of actions. At individual level, in-depth interviews with participants of the YVM and the Anti-Green Pass and Anti-Vaccine protests will give hints on the specific configuration – understood as participant, institution response, temporality and space -, continuity, abeyance and withdraw of protest