Repressing the Protests through Law, Police and Discourse

The Example of the Yellow Vests’ Movement in France

Bibliographic Data

ID12736683
AuthorsPauline Trouillard (corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume30
Issue3
Pages506-520
Publication date2021-04-14
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Contemporary European Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1478-2790 • E-ISSN: 1478-2804
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14782804.2021.1915257
OpenAlexW3153659753
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited23

The yellow vests movement dominated the French political debate and agenda from October 2018 and throughout 2019, exposing the difficult living conditions of many French people – especially those living on the outskirts of cities and in the countryside. Overwhelmed by the protests and bothered by the public support they garnered, the government was unwilling to meet the yellow vests’ political demands, given its chosen financial strategy and taxation policies. It therefore used different tools in order to contain demonstrations and repress demonstrators, in the hope of discouraging people from protesting. This article presents the different strategies of control and repression that were used by the government and the President in order to do so. It focuses in particular on police violence, and the political discourse surrounding it; as well as on the judicial strategies that allowed for the arrest of many protesters, while police officers went uncondemned. These strategies raise deep democratic and legal issues, and illustrate, I argue, the potential link between ordo-liberalism and authoritarianism that has already been highlighted by numerous authors

Authoritarianism · Democracy · Economics · Government (linguistics · Order (exchange · Political science · Politics · Social movement · Sociology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Historical and Scientific Studies · Law · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Public Administration

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