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Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA)
Oral Presentation Session
Winnie Lem
Trent University
This paper is a reflection on the relationship between the conjunctural forces that prevail in contemporary France and the emergence of the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Jackets) protests. Alternatively claimed by the left as a citizen’s revolution, the right as a patriotic revolution, while repudiated by the centrist Foulards Rouges (Red Scarves) and repressed by the forces of order, this eruption, so some have argued, is the most recent manifestation of the militant tradition of the notoriously contentious French. By asking how the current climate of economic austerity combined with ecological neoliberalism has conditioned the rise of a movement that not only cuts across political/ ideological differences but also social divisions, I argue that the Gilets Jaunes both continues and breaks with this tradition. Based on observation, but not participation, in the mobilizations in Paris in 2019, my exploration focuses on how the contradictions and cleavages in contemporary capitalism are mirrored in the disparate political aims and varied social composition of a movement of populist militancy