Becoming political while avoiding politics: a study of Yellow Vests first-timers

Abstract

The French Yellow Vests movement offers a case study for examining the logics and effects of the avoidance of institutional politics. The movement brought together seasoned activists and a large share of first-time protesters, i.e. social actors with no prior experience in collective action or party politics. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic biographical interviews conducted with the latter, we argue that, paradoxically enough, avoiding politics was a condition of possibility for their entry and continuation in the mobilisation. Moreover, they became political insofar as they acquired a sense of entitlement to speak out publicly as citizens, and a new appetence for current affairs. Even though first-timers’ interest in politics and their forms of knowledge remained very unequal, we urge to study the avoidance of institutional politics as political tactics that might, under certain circumstances, foster politicisation among the most disenfranchised groups.