Yellow Words/Yellow Vests

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.