Are we witnessing the next major social movement of the five-year term? Some dream of it: inspired by the mobilization recently observed in North America, opponents of health restrictions would like to imitate the Canadian demonstrators. Since January 22, the country’s capital, Ottawa, has been partially blocked by honking heavyweights who call themselves the “freedom convoy”. In France, the protesters have drawn up their own calendar. They met on Friday February 11 in Paris in the evening, will take part in the anti-vaccine pass demonstrations in the capital the next day, before joining, the following Monday, other participants in Brussels.
This demonstration with cross-border ambition, however, seems to go beyond the simple framework of protests against health measures. On the multiple channels of organization of the “freedom convoy”, the members of its French branch, in full effervescence, protest almost as much against the vaccination pass as against the rise in prices, especially of fuel. Four years later, Internet users trying to resurrect the spirit of the yellow vests indeed seem to have found themselves on the pages of the “Freedom Convoy”. In the great mix between the protests against the vaccination pass and those on the decline in purchasing power, it is difficult to say, however, which will triumph… and will carry the movement over time, as its organizers seem to hope.
Facebook pages with thousands of subscribers
Difficult, observing the movement on social networks, not to compare the “Freedom Convoy” to the yellow vests. Although of international inspiration when the mobilization of 2018 was essentially French, the potential demonstrators seem to be inspired by their original organization, and to draw some resources from it. Launched on social networks at the end of January, mainly on Facebook and encrypted Telegram messaging, the “Freedom Convoy” was able to mobilize many Internet users in a short time. “This tells us something about another category of mass social movement: intermediate bodies, such as unions and parties, are largely exhausted, analyzes Aurélien Delpirou, geographer and one of the authors of the book The bottom of the air is yellow. Citizens are organizing themselves via social networks to orchestrate their mobilization”. on Facebook that the movement brings together the most interested parties: 6,200 members for “The freedom convoy FRANCE”, 12,000 for “The freedom convoy Hauts-de-France” and finally more than 317,000 people for the most important, soberly called “The convoy of freedom.” As for the yellow vests, the political parties seem for the moment excluded from the pure and hard organization of the movement.
A nice score, for a group created just over ten days ago, on January 26. Several factors explain this success: first, the Francophonie of the movement itself, which shares the language with some of the Canadian demonstrators and especially with the Belgian protesters. Then, and above all, the proximity of the organizing pages of the Convoy with very active pages at the time of the yellow vests. Among the ten administrators who manage the Facebook group, we find the Gilets Jaunes actu page, created in January 2020 and bringing together a little more than 3,000 people, the La nouvelle Citoyenne page, nearly 12,000 subscribers, which sports yellow vests on his profile, or “Support for citizens”, 29,000 subscribers, originally a support page for yellow vest lawyer François Boulo.
A makeover of the yellow vests pages
The old pages of the movement have also had a makeover to take part in the new mobilization. “Angry France – Map of Rallies”, one of the main groups relaying the action of yellow vests, and has more than 387,000 members, was thus renamed at the end of January in “Map of Rallies” and sports a photo cover a transparent inscription: “Convois.fr Direction Paris”. In recent days, the publications of the members of the group have almost exclusively focused on the organization of the convoy and the demands of its members. Various figures of yellow vests, such as Jérôme Rodrigues, for their part expressed their solidarity with the Freedom Convoy.
“The architecture of Facebook is quite interested in this percolation effect to promote interaction with pages of yellow vests, even sleeping”, note to the Express Olivier Ertzscheid, French researcher in information and communication sciences. communication. This strategy of appealing to the old yellow vest networks even seems a little articulated by certain emerging headliners of this movement. This is the case with Rémi Monde, 15,000 subscribers, who stages himself through Facebook videos, following the example of road driver Eric Drouet at the height of the movement. As Olivier Ertzscheid points out in a recent blog postRémi Monde also calls to seek out and reactivate the yellow vests networks in one of his most viewed videos to prepare for this weekend’s event.
The opposite of yellow vests?
If such closeness is possible, it is primarily because some of the demands of the “freedom convoy” find an echo in those of the yellow vests. On the main group, we thus find concerns relating to purchasing power: photos of receipts after a fill-up of petrol and prices at the pump thus rub shoulders with clichés of preparation for the mobilization. “On these groups, we can see references to transport, to the idea of refractory Gauls, to the rooster, to quotations from Coluche, lists Tristan Guerra, doctoral student in political science at the Pacte laboratory. It seems that the universe of the ‘freedom convoy’ is quite similar to that of the yellow vests”. We also find on the groups a strong distrust of one person, Emmanuel Macron, as well as of the media in general. “But to this distrust is also added that which they have for the scientific authorities, and which did not exist among the yellow vests”, continues Tristan Guerra. A difference linked to the context, but which obviously weighs in what separates the two movements.
Here also stops the game of seven resemblances between yellow vests and “freedom convoy”. “First, if only because even if the two movements were born on social networks, they have very different origins”, points out Tristan Mendès France, associate lecturer at the University of Paris-Diderot, specialized in digital culture. When the first was above all motivated by social demands, demanding above all more public services, the second has above all libertarian inclinations, protesting against the health pass. “The freedom convoy movement seems to me much more linked to a libertarian movement, points out Olivier Ertzscheid. In this sense, it is the opposite of the yellow vests, and is also much more vague in terms of claims.”
A proximity to conspiratorial ideas
Even if it means aggregating movements with sometimes dubious ideologies. “In Canada, the movement had a very strong resonance on the far right due to the support provided by figures like Donald Trump, and was quickly taken over by the Qanon conspiracy movement”, recalls Tristan Mendès France. In France, the “freedom convoy” is nevertheless frequented by figures not very far from the anti-pass and anti-vax movements of this summer. “We find figures who gravitate around conspiracy on the Covid”, continues the specialist. On his Facebook page, Rémi Monde shares photos of prices at the pump, but also of Louis Fouché, Professor Raoult and the conspiratorial documentary Hold-Up. Other figures in the movement, such as Marie-Elisabeth, known as “Marisa”, are also close to the “Reinfo Covid” collective, created by Louis Fouché. It is not surprising that these profiles find an echo in what remains of the groups of yellow vests. Those who are “the most active today (in any case online) are also the furthest from the initial demands of the movement and for many activists of the antivax and or antipass movement with a very present conspiracy fringe”, explains d’ elsewhere Olivier Ertzscheid on his blog.
“Figures like Florian Philippot gave their support to the movement very early on, which necessarily gives it an extreme right tone, even if it does not represent it entirely”, continues Tristan Mendès France. Other figures, such as Jean-Frédéric Poisson, support for Eric Zemmour, have also shown their support for the movement. But the political nature of the movement is much more elusive than an affiliation with the far right when it is also supported by rebellious France, interested in its claims linked to purchasing power.
Two political tendencies which he nevertheless rejects: the movement declares itself apolitical and seems to want to take advantage of various discontents to brew broadly. “For several years, there has been in France a horizon of expectation of the insurrection, which makes everyone watch for the moment when everything can explode – and somewhere hopes for it – by bringing it back to the yardstick of their own concerns. , analyzes Olivier Ertzscheid, part of the population put in difficulty by the rise in the cost of living is waiting for the big night. It remains to be seen whether the “freedom convoy” will manage to bring together all the discontent to mobilize as much as it wishes. “There is an aggregate of anger and frustration, so the breeding ground exists, slips Aurélien Delpirou. But to think that we can make demands for measures linked to social justice flourish on a libertarian movement…” To see if the transplant takes, we will have to wait until Saturday.