The Yellow Vests: A New Kind of Movement

The Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement of 2018-2019 represented a radical departure from traditional French social movements. Beginning as protests against fuel taxes, it evolved into a broader uprising against inequality and elite disconnection. Unlike previous movements led by unions or political parties, the Yellow Vests emerged spontaneously through social media, drawing participants from rural and periurban France traditionally absent from strikes.

The movement's tactics—blocking roundabouts, occupying toll booths, and Saturday demonstrations in city centers—differed from workplace strikes. Participants included small business owners, unemployed workers, and retirees united more by economic precarity than workplace identity. Their demands ranged from tax justice to direct democracy through citizen-initiated referendums.

The Yellow Vests' relationship with traditional unions proved complex. While some unions supported the movement, many Yellow Vest participants expressed hostility toward union bureaucracies seen as part of the establishment. This tension revealed changing dynamics in French social movements as traditional working-class institutions struggled to represent new forms of precarity.