From ‘dégage!’ to ‘dégagisme’: the travel of the political thinking of the Arab uprisings between Tunisia and France

Abstract

The shout of the slogan ‘dégage!’–‘to clear’, ‘to release’–was central to the language of the 2010-11 Tunisian revolution. In 2017, the word was appropriated and reinterpreted by the French presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and transformed into the political phenomenon of ‘dégagisme’. In following the travel of dégage from Tunisia to France, this article demonstrates how the political thinking of the Arab uprisings intersects with spatio-historical differentiations and orderings. I argue that the meaning of dégage was made in the connections and constitutive differences between metropole and colony, West and non-West. As dégage rubbed against historical representations, it both worked to reinforce and contest such distinctions. In turn, such travel recapitulates our understanding of the Arab uprisings in the present, connecting struggles and presenting openings onto transnational solidarities.