[Peace-discuss] Gilets jaunes: a pioneering study of the ‘low earners’ revolt

[David Green]

Motives: in defence of living standards and against policies favourable to
the rich

*Excerpt: **https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4180-gilets-jaunes-a-pioneering-study-of-the-low-earners-revolt
<https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4180-gilets-jaunes-a-pioneering-study-of-the-low-earners-revolt>*


For our respondents this was less a revolt against a particular tax, or in
defence of car use, than a revolt against a tax and benefit system
considered unfair. A revolt against inequalities, but also against
political speech that despised them and devalued them symbolically. It was
a question of defending their purchasing power and their access to a
certain standard of living (particularly leisure, seen as increasingly
inaccessible), as well as a demand for respect and recognition of their
dignity on the part of political figures (the government and the president).

We invited participants to express their motivations through an open-ended
question at the start of the questionnaire (‘Why are you demonstrating
today?’). The first reason given was inadequate purchasing power (more than
half of the respondents). Many people complained that they could no longer
afford the least luxury (‘I’m in my twenties and I don’t have any money. If
I want to go out, I have to go to the country.’). Mothers told us about
their difficulties in making ends meet (‘I want my children to have food on
their plates in the last two weeks of the month, not just potatoes’), which
sometimes led to housing difficulties, as testified by many young students
(‘I can’t afford housing, I live in a friend’s outbuilding’) as well as
this mother (‘We had to go down south to live with my mother-in-law’).

Next in the list of motivations was the excessive tax burden (69
respondents, 18 of whom explicitly indicated high fuel prices). Nearly one
in five said they were there to protest against the current government and
call for Emmanuel Macron’s resignation, citing the ‘arrogance’ of the
executive. The terms ‘monarchy’, ‘oligarchy’ or ‘dictatorship’ were often
used to emphasize its illegitimacy. The demand for institutional reforms
appeared on 24 November and was confirmed on 1 December. A tenth of the
respondents called for institutional reforms. This trend seems to have
strengthened among the participants in the 8 December demonstrations.

A second open-ended question was what the government should do to address
the demands of the *gilets jaunes*. The most frequent answer, not
surprisingly, was a tax cut, spontaneously mentioned by a third of
respondents. For 48 respondents, measures to increase purchasing power were
also needed. Among these, 28 wanted an increase in the minimum wage, or
even wages in general, 14 a general increase in purchasing power, and 8 an
increase in pensions. Demands for the redistribution of wealth occurred in
the responses of 36 participants: 19 spontaneously called for the
reintroduction of the wealth tax, and 5 for a fairer distribution of taxes.

More than a fifth of the respondents simply wanted the government to listen
to citizens, ‘put itself in their place’. This was one of the main concerns
of the people we spoke to. Finally, one of the specific features of this
movement was the presence of institutional demands in addition to social
demands. Thus, 26 people stated that it would take major institutional
reforms for them to see the movement as a success: 18 called for changes
that were sometimes fundamental (for example, a ‘total reform of the
state’, ‘a different political system’), 8 wanted an end to the privileges
of parliamentarians, and 4 expressed their belief in the need for a Sixth
Republic.

It should be noted that only 2 of the 166 people interviewed mentioned the
management of immigration in their responses to the two questions
presented. This suggests that analyses that view the movement as an
expression of the far right should be reconsidered.

The two main motivations of the *gilets jaunes* therefore appear to be
greater social justice (whether a tax system bearing more on the
better-off, a better redistribution of wealth, or the maintenance of public
services) and the demand to be heard by the government. Nationalist
demands, on the contrary, such as those emphasizing identity or
immigration, were very marginal, contradicting the idea of a movement
infused by supporters or activists of the Rassemblement National. As
sociologist Alexis Spire (author of *Résistances à l'impôt, attachement à
l'État*) points out, what explains this mobilization is above all the
sentiment of fiscal injustice, particularly marked among the working class.

In short, this is indeed a revolt of the ‘people’ – as many of those
interviewed claimed – in the sense of the working class and the
lower-middle class, people on modest incomes. Consequently, in several ways
the *gilets jaunes *movement presents a different kind of challenge from
the social movements of recent decades. In addition to its size, the strong
presence of employees, people of modest educational qualifications and
first-time demonstrators, and, above all, the diversity of their
relationship to politics and their declared party preferences, have made
roundabouts and tollbooths meeting places for a France that is not used to
taking over public spaces and speaking out, as well as places for the
exchange of ideas and the construction of collectives in forms rarely seen
in previous mobilizations.

*Camille Bedock, Centre Émile-Durkheim, Sciences Po Bordeaux, CNRS; Antoine
Bernard de Raymond, Irisso, Université Paris-Dauphine, INRA; Magali Della
Sudda, Centre Émile-Durkheim, Sciences Po Bordeaux, CNRS; Théo Grémion,
master’s degrees in geopolitics and urban planning; Emmanuelle Reungoat,
Centre d’études politiques de l’Europe latine, Université de Montpellier;
Tinette Schnatterer, Centre Émile-Durkheim, Sciences Po Bordeaux, CNRS*
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