The publication depicts law enforcement at dusk, facing a jet of explosives. In the background, the Eiffel Tower indicates that the scene – and the message – are about Paris. A text is written in capital letters: “Thursday March 23: after the demonstration, let’s meet all around the device! From 7 p.m., place de la Concorde, les Halles, Saint-Augustin”. The goal is clear: published ahead of the ninth day of mobilization organized by the inter-union, this message wanted to encourage participants from the procession against the pension reform to extend the action in a “spontaneous” way.
What happened: the same evening, clashes broke out, a game of cat and mouse prevailing between the police and the demonstrators. The wise, well-ordered parades that were hailed at the start of the action against the executive’s text in January are now accompanied by strong actions. Which happen again and again: on the eve of the tenth day of mobilization against the pension reform, this March 28, the mayors said they feared the route of the Parisian demonstration. Overflows similar to those observed for more than a week in the capital are feared.
Since the use of 49.3 in the Assembly on Thursday March 16, the protest has broken up into a multitude of small actions. The garbage collectors’ strike in multiple cities, which began in early March, continues, with blockages of sites magnified by outside protesters. Isolated initiatives by groups of activists are taking place, such as those carried out by Alternatiba Paris, which tied bins together to support the garbage collectors’ movement. Spontaneous demonstrations took place in several cities in France, marred by violence, every evening of the past week. Other “punch” actions continue to be carried out throughout France: strikes and blockades in the collection of garbage cans and in refineries, “dead port” operations in Bordeaux, Marseille, or even in Le Havre… part of the mobilization changes face: more radical, more atomized, it is organized in parallel with the unions. Often located to the left of the left, linked to climate activists, these actions benefit from the mechanisms put in place during the yellow vests. The embers of a movement which, four years later, have still not gone out.
Remnants of yellow vests
To understand it, just follow the accounts that relayed the publication of March 23. Among them, “Cerveaux non disponible” (CND), an aggregator which offers its subscribers to experience “the news of social and climate struggles via content (texts, photos, videos), alternative and independent”. Its pages have nearly 545,000 subscribers on Facebook, more than 239,000 subscribers on Instagram, and 83,000 followers on Twitter. Very committed to the mobilization against the pension reform, the aggregator has published calls for spontaneous demonstrations since the use of 49.3, such as Friday March 17 at Place de la Concorde, or Tuesday, “in front of the National Assembly”.
However, CND is neither a collective nor a guru. It is part of the myriad of pages sharing these calls, like Acta Zone (8,500 subscribers on Instagram, 11,400 on Twitter, which defines itself as “autonomous and partisan media”), or “Counter-Attack ” (former “Nantes Révoltée”, 100,000 Instagram followers, 52,400 on Twitter). “There are now accounts on any social movement aggregating a large community of Internet users, which allows them to operate in a detached way from traditional trade union organizations, observes Olivier Ertzscheid, lecturer in information and communication sciences. communication at the University of Nantes. The audience they have allows them to be relayed very quickly”.
Prior to March 16, these accounts were generally confined to sector share shares, like the targeted cuts made by the CGT Mines Energies. But the use of 49.3 caused a change of method. “Hello Acta Zone, what is the source of the call please? Is the rally declared?”, commented a young woman March 23. “No gathering like last night! End of the declared demonstrations which are useless, this evening 6 p.m. Concorde!”, Answers a surfer. “The situation of deadlock between the executive and the unions accredits the idea that overly moderate union actions do not weaken anything, observes Baptiste Giraud. Forms of protest outside their movements therefore seem to be resurfacing, like the yellow vests “.
Collaborative tools
The announcement made by Emmanuel Macron to concede 17 billion euros to respond to demands for social justice in the wake of Act 1 marked the spirits. The mobilization in the small towns against the reform could bring back memories of roundabouts: Friday, March 17, demonstrators blocked the prefecture of Orne, in Alençon, throwing toilet paper on its building. Citizens have again donned the yellow chasuble in recent days, sometimes at the places of blockage. But beyond the clothes, the imaginary yellow vest has infused the minds of opponents of pension reform. “They have become a mythological figure of mobilizations in France: they represent ‘the person who is fed up’, who is neither politically framed nor activist”, analyzes Albert Ogien, sociologist, director of research at the CNRS, member emeritus of the Center for the Study of Social Movements.
The tools invented during the various Saturdays are also taken in hand. The website mediamanif.org, a “citizen media” created during the yellow vests, deployed on Thursday March 23 a map of the capital including the route of the demonstration, an alternative route, and, above all, the “various dangers to avoid (fires, violence)” as well as the “presence of tear gas or other gas”. The site, also available in Toulouse, Nantes, Lille, Rennes or Lyon, works collaboratively: those who have received the invitation code can post messages there. “Once a mobilization has existed online, it “sediments”. The networks reactivate with each social movement, whatever it is, and this is particularly the case for that of the yellow vests, details Olivier Ertzscheid. Sometimes it’s just upheavals, as we saw during the freedom convoy. Sometimes more.”
Especially when the action of these atomized individuals is supported by small groups and well-established organizations, especially on the ultra-left. The Trostkist organization Révolution Permanente is present alongside the striking garbage collectors and in the general assemblies of the universities, as in Paris 1 last week. This is also the case of the anti-fascist action Paris-Banlieue, which, unlike Révolution Permanente, widely relayed on social networks the calls to continue the demonstration outside the union procession on March 23. The website Paris-luttes.info, another “collaborative tool”, which defines itself as “anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian and revolutionary”, is responsible for its part of identifying all the initiatives, union or not, in connection with the pension reform. Its goal: “to be a sounding board for ongoing struggles, resistance and conflicts”, without distinction.
Windfall effect
The latter has also found a new echo with organizations that one could think until now only mobilized on sectoral subjects. The Parisian branch of Alternatiba, an environmental movement created in the wake of the Copenhagen summit in 2009 – considered a failure -, for example, has multiplied its actions in recent days. In an operation nicknamed “Christophe Maé” in reference to the title We get attached, the activists linked trash cans together to prevent them from being handled by the agents. On one of the Telegram loops where they communicate, made up of just over 530 people, the members of the organization have been very active in their support for the blockages of waste treatment sites by garbage collectors in Romainville or Ivry .
“The environmental movement makes the link between climate justice and social justice. It is not surprising that it seeks to join the protest against pension reform”, notes Albert Ogien. All cross-cutting subjects are material for cohesion. “A kind of ‘windfall effect’ is created with activists, who will take advantage of the social movement to talk about the climate, and vice versa, observes Olivier Ertzscheid. The aggregation of anger leads to a multiplication of means of action “. The violent clashes that took place in Sainte-Soline, this Saturday, March 25, between anti-basin activists and the police are proof of this.
All weekend long, pages and groups usually concerned with reform have turned their gaze to Deux-Sèvres, chronicling their struggle against what they believe to be the culprit – the capitalist system as a whole. “The groups of Parisian demonstrators accustomed to clashes in the streets of the capital and those of Sainte-Soline are not necessarily the same, because they do not move en masse across France, notes Anthony Cortes, co-author of The coming confrontation: from eco-resistance and eco-terrorism. But an outstretched hand was notably accepted, the ultra-left being known for its opportunism. With only one condition: to benefit from a playground where to challenge the State and the symbols of capitalism”. Next deadline this Tuesday, March 28.