Yellow Words/Yellow Vests

In Quest of a New Political Imaginary
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-07064-1
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 232 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm

A collective endeavor to present the perspective of the grassroots movement the Yellow Vests, known as the Gilets Jaunes, this volume brings together the voices of the Yellow Vests along with scholarly analyses and literary works to evoke the excitement and originality of the demonstrations that came from the provinces and burst onto the streets of Paris.

Yellow Words/Yellow Vests demonstrates the variations in social composition, visions and ideology of the Yellow Vests, taking seriously the discordant, messy multivocality of participants immersed in protest movements. In contrast to the common assumption of a spontaneous and “populist” movement which has been largely associated with the Yellow Vests, these narratives call the origins of the initial movement into question. As the challenges of the current era have led to new coalitions and conditions that are not easily understood through traditional class politics, this book details the first-hand experience of the networks of how the Yellow Vests channelled their collective rage, how they established solidarity between the wounded, provided food for refugees, and created a shared vision of society.

This collection is essential for activists and researchers on contemporary protest movements, offering crucial insight into the formation of protests and popular resistance and how social movements generate their own political and ideological character as qualitatively new forms of mobilization.

Zielgruppe

Undergraduate Core

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hazzard, Benoit

Susser, Ida

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein Politische Studien zu einzelnen Ländern und Gebieten
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Demokratie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction
Benoit Hazard and Ida Susser

Section 1: The Rising of the Yellow Vests

1. Through the shattered streets of our lives
Cécile Carbonel and Alexandre Pierrepont

2. Happiness and misfortunes of the social
Pierre Bouvier

3. “From Carbon tax to the RIC”: BFM TV, prescriber or censor of the claims of the Yellow Vests?
Ludivine Preneron

4. Following the gilets jaunes on facebook
Agnes Verdurant

Section 2: Alienation in work, health and education

5. Why I joined the “Gilets Jaunes”
Marie-Christine

6. The gilets jaunes are not like us, they are us
Marjorie Keters

7. Anxiety about our futures: being shut out of education
Sophie

Section 3: The roundabout moment: the urban peripheries and the provinces

8. Descending from the mountains and joining the France of the roundabout
Fabienne

9. A trade unionist encounters a roundabout protest in La Lande Chasles, Maine et Loire
Yves Baunay

10. The “cabanes” of Camon
Pauline Liochon

11. The Yellow vests and the return of politics
Marc Moreigne

12. “Where have all the flowers gone”: Flashbacks
Jean Paul and Patricia

13. Yellow Vests in search of resonance
B: Kalaora

Section 4: Making the invisible visible: Saturdays in the city

14. The sleeplessness of Saturdays
Marjorie Keters

15. Every Saturday I go for a walk
Katia

Section 5: From the margins of everyday life to political imagination: Blocking the flow of the capital

16. The shift to People’s Assemblies
Benoit Hazard

17. The Commercy Appeal
Assemblée Populaire de Commercy

18. Beyond the Yellow rage
Assemblée Populaire d’Auxerre

19. From the “house of people” to the Assembly of Assemblies
Atelier des ronds-points (Benoit Hazard & Merlin Gauthier)

20. Yellow vest in the Loire estuary
Atelier des ronds-points (Benoit Hazard & Merlin Gauthier)

Section 6: Silencing a political movement: The wounding of the social through the violence of the state

21. We accuse!
Faculty Collective of Yellow Vests

22. Documents on the violence of the state: Justice against the people
Anonymous

23. Politics by violence/of violence
Mathieu Bortolin

Section 7: Making the Yellow vests intelligible: Time, space and politics?

24. Les gilets jaunes: a social movement
Patrick Farbiaz

25. Yellow vests and Maidan: Companion uprisings?
Yves Cohen

26. Intelligibility of the gilets jaunes magic lantern or cinema?
Sophie Wahnich

27. The swing of the pendulum and the Gilets Jaunes: what direction and political perspective can be traced over time
Ida Susser

28. Yellow vests on the “World after”
Richard Abauzit

Über Autor(innen)

Benoît Hazard is an anthropologist at the CNRS. He is conducting research on social and political movements in the Anthropocene. With the rise of the Yellow Vests movement, he organised the workshop “L’atelier des Ronds points”, bringing together activists and researchers at the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme of Paris Nord. He co-authored the book Les zones critiques d’une anthropologie du contemporain. He is currently the director of the French CNRS regional office in Nairobi in charge of implementing the roadmap for a new partnership between CNRS and Africa.

Ida Susser is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She published The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy: taking to the streets of Paris in the 21st Century (Routledge 2026) and has studied social movements in the US, Puerto Rico, Southern Africa, Spain and France.