A Social Contract Under Pressure: Protest Movements in France and Beyond

Welcome to the new book's network. For the past several weeks, the streets of France have been filled with protesters, demanding better education, better wages, less unequal treatment across the racial gap. There have been many arrests and violence from both sides of the barricades has not been rare. The tens of thousands of protesters seem to be a mixture of activists and freelance troublemakers, and they may be helping to the pan right more than they're helping the left. Embodied these days by a party called France on board, La France on Sumis. My French is terrible, but that's more or less the pronunciation. And there are similar protests taking place elsewhere in Europe and even in Narendra Modi's India where a movement calling itself the cockroaches has mobilized thousands of people. So what's going on in the French protests and those elsewhere in the world? To discuss these issues, we're fortunate to have with us today not one but two colleagues right here at the CUNY Graduate Center who can give us in-depth analysis about these developments. Jean Beaman is professor of sociology, international migration studies, and black racial and ethnic studies at the Graduate Center. She's conducted ethnographic research in France for 15 years and is the author of citizen outsider, children of North African immigrants in France, published in 2017 by University of California Press. Professor Beaman is currently finishing her next book, Cess Suspect Citizenship, racism and state violence in France and the world to be published by Stanford University Press. And in addition to Professor Beaman, we have with us today I de Susser, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center and at Hunter College of CUNY, her recent book The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy, taking it to the streets of Paris in the 21st century, focuses on new movements and new visions for democracy in France. Her previous books include Norman Street, published by Oxford University Press in 2012, which is a study of working class opposition to cutbacks during the New York City fiscal crisis of the mid-70s and the transition of Greenpoint Williamsburg to a gentrified enclave and her other book, or another book, AIDS, sex and culture, global politics and survival in southern Africa, a history of the power of social movements to transform health. So thanks for joining us today, Jean Beaman. Give a shout out Jean Beaman. Hi. Hi. And I de Susser. Hi. Okay, I think you can tell the difference between those voices or we'll try to make that clear as we proceed. So let me just get started with the questions I have for you and let's start with France, which is what you're both mostly focused on, if not exclusively by any means, but you both both written extensively about France and its politics. So let me start with I de Susser. You've written a book about the yellow vests movement that started several years ago. Can you give us some background on what's happening in the streets of France today and how it connects to the yellow vests? And then Jean Beaman, I'll ask Jean Beaman to follow up with background on the more recent developments, okay? Okay. Well, the sudden movement started in the suburbs of Paris, in particularly the sort of what they call the urban periphery cratae. And then where I lived was Saint-Saint-Denis, sometimes called the 93, where it's a very mixed neighborhood. It's probably one of the poorest neighbors in France, but also 30% what the French classifies at migrant neighborhoods, so which doesn't mean they're all new immigrants. The French don't talk about exactly the categories that Americans talk about. But it's many immigrants historically from Algeria and Morocco. That's about a third, but there are also old French as well, but it's a poor neighborhood. And I've been living there off and on the past decade. So what I started studying in France was in 2016 was an Occupy movement called Nuit de Bouge, which was really students. And they were the first of this movement. Cascade, I call it a cascade of movements that started in 2016. And there was a union movement because the socialists decided to change the labor laws. And these labor laws had seniority, numbers of hours per week, very strong protections for workers. And the person behind changing those labor laws was Emmanuel Macron, who had been made finance minister in the socialist government. And the students and the unions came out against this very, very strongly. And the socialist president along brought the change in the labor laws without going through the normal, like we would congress assembly. He couldn't get a vote there. He just made it a kind of legal change without a vote. This is very not regarded as democratic in France. It's called 49.3. So that's what happened with the labor laws. So the socialists were seen as traitors. And their election results in 2017 went down to like 7%. But Macron, who had been the finance minister initiated these laws, created his own party where he wasn't associated with that. And the conservative Republican party also had problems with corruption. So Macron had the avenue between the socialist and the conservatives. And he won election in 2017. But from 2016, when he had been instrumental in changing the labor laws, people expected to have problems. Many, many people said to me, they were really going to have problems with Macron. And immediately, he changed the student admissions policies called Parkour Soup, which is one of the huge issues that the students came out now in September this September. Because Parkour Soup is about student admissions and particularly in the neighborhoods and algorithm. So people who live outside Paris, what part of that algorithm is that they cannot. They're not first in line for the the the university in Paris, which like here in America, those central ones, sort of like Columbia or NYU, you know, Harvard, they're in the center of Paris. So if you live in Sandini or Criteria, you're not going to have the same options as people. So people who thought they hadn't had equal options, if they did well, were told their first choices would be in these neighborhoods, these outside neighborhoods. So that's something that was initiated by Macron in 2017. And it's something that the students that saw born sat in in 2018. And then, of course, in 2018, after that, we had a union strike railroad. And following that, the yellow vests, who I studied in 2018, came into the streets because Macron put a tax on diesel. And all of these different movements followed by the pension movement when Macron tried to take away the age of pensions or just the pensions out of the union control. So the whole time that he's been in power, he's tried to make these, he has made these changes. And so basically, since he managed to push the pension through without any parliamentary or assembly and devote again, just the way they did the labor laws, people in France are pretty outraged. And he's had to have, he's had six different prime ministers since he put the pensions with because it's been a bumpy road. It's been a bumpy road for Macron. So let me turn it over to Jean now and get some of the more, I suppose, contemporary comment. And we'll come back to the pensions issue, which is clearly a major one in France and has been for a long time. Jean Beaton. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah. So just a piggy back on the context that I'd already provided us. So I mean, I think the student protests, we have to remember quite a few things. One is outside of just the passcode sort of, you know, contestation. There also are like very legitimate issues around the conditions of education and many of these fondue neighborhoods thinking about dilapidated buildings, future shortages, overcrowded classroom, etc. So, you know, it's not, therefore, surprising that this protest erupted in the moment that it did. I think, you know, what I broadly study, or whatever I'm probably writing about this moment, it's this question of state violence in France and more related, and more generally, the question of a denial of substantive citizenship. So I think what you're seeing both in terms of like a student protest and then the long history of the yellow best protest and other sorts of movements is the ways that people are abelling against the state that is continually reminding them they don't fully belong. And that's a very, you know, that's a very French thing. But I think, therefore, it's not at all surprising giving everything we're seeing and happy. in France in this moment. I think the demand for sort of better educational opportunities is really a demand for sort of the full benefits of a Republican kind of citizenship or a Republican kind of belonging. And so that's what I think at its core is that you're really seeing. The other thing I want to kind of bring to the discussion is the relevance or the ongoing relevance of France's colonial history. When we think about where these dilapidated schools are, they are as either gesture to mostly in these vineyard communities surrounding Paris, surrounding the other cities that historically have been places where migrants and former French colonies have settled. And so, you know, we're seeing I think also a sort of very intentional geographical, spatial colonial mapping of who has advantage in France and who does not. And so that's part of, I think, the protests are also making very visible for those of us. Well, I think part of what's weird for Americans about France is that the money is in town. Right. It's a play. I mean, obviously there's a lot of money in the, you're sitting, but most of the American cities have been emptied out at the center and the money has moved to the suburbs. And it's kind of the reverse in France and in Paris in particular. So tell me a little bit more about, you know, the social composition. I mean, we've already talked a lot about students, but, you know, the global, the yellow of estes are not students. I mean, who are, I have people and what are they? What are they concerned about? I mean, I just sort of painted it this, but I don't know who wants to take the question, but. Okay. Well, the yellow of us came from outside Paris. They're the group that they were initially seen as kind of in contrast to what Jane is talking about. They were seen as old France, as opposed to the immigrants, the word that they use often is new France. And they were seen by and portrayed in the news as possibly right wing, possibly left wing, which is why I studied them, because they were many people on the left, etc. We're very worried that this was the right way moving and it could have been anti-Islam anti-Semitic and race, racist. That was the question. And over time, as we see, first the, and they were also seen as anti-ecological, but over the last seven years since they came out in 2018, they've been converging or joining in tangential ways with environmentalists. They changed their slogan to from the end of the month and the end of the world instead of just the end of the month and affordability. And so although they came from, many people did come from the, the urban peripheries as the cities in the south of France and north of France, not from Paris. They were civil service workers, they were pensioners, they were secretaries, they were truckers, they were nurses, they were teachers, they were not people that normally had ever demonstrated and nobody was sure which way they would go and they were. And as it has turned out over the years, they've joined the ecological movement, they've been very, very strong in the pension demonstrations. Then because they were not recognized by Macron's legitimate protesters, they were very subject to police violence. And there's a group now called Le Mutile, the Mutilated, because over 120 and more of these yellivists have been hit with these LBDs, they're like laser balls, they lost their eyes, they've lost their hands, a hand, they've lost their feet. So people have lost parts of their bodies in these violent, with the police shooting these LBDs at them, not just tear gas. And they were never recognized by the government as legitimate protesters. And then say the use of the university protesters. So they were suddenly aware, which they had not been aware in the country areas, outside Paris, that the police in Paris were like very brutal and would really come at them. And so now they've been since 2020 joining the Black Lives Matter movement against police violence. So what has happened is that many of these groups have come to recognize what's happening in the urban periphery as where the large immigrant populations, although they are much more mixed than in the US. And also the people from the schools in the center of Paris, which are the wealthier schools, those kids have come out, high school kids have joined the demonstrations in the outer suburbs in Sandini, in the place. So there's been a real shift. It's not, I think that there's been a lot of protests among the students in the Barnier, but usually often it's not supported from elsewhere. But this new movement has been supported from high school students throughout France, people in the central wealthy schools, as well as being led by the students in the suburbs, their parents and the left movement. And the parents and the representative La France Ansonese, Melanchon, the left group, they wear white bands to show that they're against violence and they're sort of helping organize. They also, the assembly members, they wear their satches, which are red, white, and glue to show that they're really political officials. And they are not involved in the violence. So I think it's a very important kind of collaboration that I don't think we've seen before. And I think that was absolutely right. This has not happened before. Okay. Do you want to expand on that a little bit, Jean? I mean, I'm curious about this because it seems to me, indeed, that this is a novel development and, I mean, it reminds me, this goes back a long way to the Solidarity Trade Union movement in Poland in 1979, 1980, where the question was, would the workers and the intellectuals manage to sort of connect with each other and work together? And it sort of sounds like that may be what's happening in France, but Jean-Bied, you know, more than I do about it. Yeah. No, that's an interesting comparison. I mean, yeah, I think what you are seeing is a bit of that. I mean, I think this sort of, you know, before September, before this current wave of protest, there has been a longstanding anti-racist movement in France, there has been a longstanding movement against state violence. And I think to sort of piggyback on some of what I'd have shared, it's important to keep in mind a sort of like, changing context of police repression at somebody's protest. So what's come up a lot in my own field work is people saying that, like, it's much more dangerous to be on the streets protesting today than it was, say, 10, 20 years ago. And so there's a very much a real sense that, you know, it's not so much the novelty of it is more about the sort of how police respond to people who are in the street. And so as I mentioned, a lot of examples of people who are brutalized, killed with attack with flashballs, other sort of really high sort of violent technologies by the police. And that's just as much as the case in earlier waves of protestors. I did, we have to also keep that in mind. The other thing I would say, though, is I think the question around sort of, you know, immigrants versus not. I think you are seeing, which I think is a little bit different, different than what you might see in the similar context in the United States. Much more of a sort of interracial kind of mobilization on the street, right. So you see people who are, you know, from somebody's volume communities, you know, immigrants and also more importantly, I think descendants of immigrants who are friends themselves. But you're also seeing a lot of people who are part of the quote unquote white left in France, so you're seeing much more of a broader coalition, which I think speaks to some of what you're saying down around the sort of connections between people who are intellectuals, quantum code, and sort of work traditional workers. I think you see that element as well. Right. I mean, yes, I mean, the sort of image that I think is one of, you know, cross-class coalition cooperation, which, you know, signals trouble. It seems to me for the authorities and for the powers that be. And I mean, I tell I'm not paying maybe close enough attention to be able to say this, but it seems like they haven't lost steam yet, which I think it's been really remarkable how long it's lasted and how different coalitions, different groups have, have gleaned onto it. Some of the collectives that I've been working with for my work around that are specifically targeting police violence, have also joined this mobilization as a way to sort of rebel against the state and really hold a state account to account for the way that it's failed to serve all its members. So it's not surprising to me that this sort of broad coalition has been able to absorb some of the different kinds of groups. And I think the fact that for me, one of the, you know, people said that the elements were right wing and that they were racist. And I think it's extremely significant that these people from really the rural towns where I'm sure that they grew up with some kind of racism. I'm sure they had never met a lot of, you know, poor people of the suburbs before, but that they've actually come out and been so active in these new movements. I think that's what Melanchon is talking about, that's what the left has been talking about. [BLANK_AUDIO] working in that direction, but the fact that the Yellowvests joined them is quite significant, considering the way the Yellowvests were viewed back in 2018. And the other thing is that I was in Sandini when Bali Bagayoko, who's Marley and Origin and he's Muslim and he was from Sandini, he was elected mayor of Sandini in this very summer, June 2026, in the municipal elections, and he was elected with more than the majority he needed, so they didn't have the second runoff, you know, they usually have runoffs of all the different parties. And he was elected in the first round, which means that he must have been supported by a lot of also what you might call the old friend to live in in those suburbs. So I think that it's quite significant that Melanchon's party, won that suburb of Sandini. And Bali Bagayoko has been very much defending the students, walking around with his sash, showing his inner fit, showing also with a white arm band and speaking to the news, and he's a very significant figure in tying these different groups together. I was at the celebrations when he was elected and it was so mixed, it was amazing. People couldn't actually believe it. This was, I think it was June this year, I think it was June this year. So I think it's the fact that he's out there now is very significant for what these movements represent. So insofar as a lot of this has been built with student by students, educational spending basically has been a central part of the discussion. But tell me a little bit more about the goals that these groups have and what would satisfy them to sort of lay down their trunctions or lay down their arms. I don't mean to put arms in their hands, but what would satisfy them as far as the demands that they have? Well, I think in terms of the students, I mean, there have been already a couple of concessions around the parks program, for example. They're going to like dismantle it and sort of build it anew in 20 create or something like that. But I mean, I think yeah, I think there's like, you know, I think that's actually really kind of another interesting question about it's being pointed around this movement. It's around like there are like tangible ask in terms of like improving the actual physical conditions of schools, you know, changing the size of classrooms, having more teachers, having more classes. So I mean, I think there's like actual tangible ask that, you know, can be addressed that would at least mitigate it some of what we're seeing now. I mean, you know, I don't think that would prevent, I don't think that would prevent, you know, the sort of continuation or the sort of these projects, because I think there are outside of this sort of specific educational related issues, there's some underlying broader social concerns, which I think are sort of relates to, you know, the lead up to be upcoming elections, but there are sort of tangible things around improving school and a lot of these community that could be addressed very, very easily, great, great, great, great. I think my husband has in fact tried to address them in the last week or so, but people have really accepted his announcement. And one reason is because in 2024, the prime minister, they had a lot of unrest in these areas. And the prime minister said, yes, we're going to put millions into education, but nothing has been done, even though it was promised. So the students are not accepting this fix and the same happened with the other verse that, immediately after the the other verse rushed into Paris in 2018, Macron finally said, I'm going to take away the diesel tax. But by then, people were so angry about questions like affordability. They are angry at what the student, whatever you call stealing the state, privatization of health services, privatization of education, not putting money into education, which might increase middle-class kids going to private education. So it's an abandonment that they see of public education, which will most affect the subject. And it's the same with healthcare, the abandonment of people have tremendous respect for the government health care system, the government education system, the government transportation system. And with the withdrawal of funds, they see the students say, the government is stealing our futures. They're stealing the taxes that we put into them. And the same with the pensions, they're stealing our taxes. And by taking that money away from our services, they're stealing our futures. And that's really why it's such a broad movement. Right. I mean, I have seen intimations about the kind of no-future motto, returning to the playing field, so to speak. I mean, the slogan that I associate with the birth of punk rock, no-future in 1977, and the verse, "Pistols," and all that. But it seems as though you're hearing that kind of talk again, and it revolves around AI. It seems to me fundamentally. I mean, there's also issues about the budget in France and the budget deficit, and that sort of thing that France is in a difficult position to spend its way out of these problems, because it's got a big hole in the budget already. But I mean, do you see this kind of sense that people are protesting because they, you know, don't see a future. I mean, obviously, this is for young people, primarily, and Gene Beaman is nodding her head, so we'll give the Lord to you. Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's a big issue. I mean, I think it's, you know, the youth in France, high schools in France, people about to finish high school are wondering, what does the next 20, 30 years look like, and it's really unclear. And I think part of it is around the economic issues that you outline, John, but also just the sort of like, you know, where is their place within French society? I mean, I just think it's like they're not a vision that's been articulated for them, that they can really attach themselves to. And so like, I think that that sort of, you know, so that's I think the sort of, there's the sort of kind of more, some of the concerns and grievances around this protest, but they're also with a sort of more fundamental question of like this crisis of the future of France and them being sort of at the precipice of it. I think that's exactly right. I think that in France, people have always had less salaries and wages than say we have in the US, but they've had more security. They felt that there was going to be education, you know, and that there was going to be healthcare. So the, and I think that the idea that they're still in state has been around for ever since the first breaking of the labor laws in 2017. And it's the idea that all the things that young people counted on, including the old forms of job security, and including the pensions, so that they all believed that they had, they didn't complain about so much the low incomes, because if you have those things covered, which we don't in the US, if those things are covered by the government, then you're not so desperate about having not enough salary. So I think it goes, the coalitions that we're seeing between the Barnier, the suburbs, and the rest of France, are around a general recognition of the destruction of expectations of their futures for all. I don't think it was really focused originally on AI. I think it was before AI, and it's the destruction of the social contract that was accepted and built on since World War II, the total. And the French have fought for that more than any other state in Europe, and more than any other, more than the US. And this is why they had been marching about pensions since the 1990s. But, you know, 1995, I think, but then it was, nobody touched it, the government didn't touch it. Again, till Macron came in with an axe. I know that Macron has recognized internationally as important in the EU. But in France, he's seen as destroying people's options. I think his, shall we say, self-confidence also has an off-putting way in the French context. But I mean, I don't want to sort of put AI into a position that it doesn't deserve, so to speak, but I guess I'm also interested in trying to figure out why they were seeing this wave of protests, you know, not just in France, but in India, for example, that again is really around educational spending, basically. And, you know, this kind of sense that people are very concerned about the young people, especially. I'm not so concerned about it because I'm old, and I won't be around that much longer. But if you're 20 or 25 and looks like, you know, AI is taking your job that could understandably upset you. And I wonder, you know, how much you see that as a kind of connecting link to other protest movements, you know, elsewhere in Europe and beyond. As I said, For me, I have not heard it from the French students, but it may be that a more international view might bring it up, but look at the, um, so I mean, I think the youth are out there. I'm not sure that unless it's kind of in the zeitgeist that it's, they're not talking about AI as far as I've been. Yeah, I haven't heard as much specifically about AI, but I do think there is a broader conversation to be had around sort of how youth in general, not just in France, but thinking about the changing nature of work and sort of what that foretends for their future. So I could see it kind of folded into that sort of outside of the French culture. Well, and I think I just comments about the fracturing of the welfare state, you know, also exacerbate this kind of sense that, you know, my education, however fancy, isn't really going to get me a job or it's not going to get me the kind of job I thought I'd get, and therefore, you know, I'm going to need other sources of sustenance, and that's what we call the welfare state. And as you say, I think France, maybe with Germany and Italy, have been especially, you know, attached to their, to their welfare state, and it's in real trouble now, and they see that as, you know, really affecting their, their present and their future. When I've heard the students who are from the upscale, well, the enabled who's talking now, they are saying the things that Jean said, they're saying there's an inequality. We, yes, we have a problem with our school buildings too, and absent teachers, but it's nothing like the suburbs, and they're going up to the suburbs in solidarity, not seeing themselves as under the same, as you said sort of colonial, eternal colonial conditions. They don't envision themselves that way. In fact, they're up there. They'll get into the, into the fancy Parisian schools, but they're still in general aware, both of the inequalities and of the undermining of the entire structure of the social contract in France. And it's happening later in France than elsewhere. Jean? Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I entered the rupturing of the social contract. I think it's, you know, France has, you know, frankly, been in crisis for quite some time. And so at some point, like, you know, versus continually to reach the sort of boiling point where something had to happen, whether it's sort of, you know, a very clear right-wing stiff, which I personally think will happen, but, you know, or something else, like that, of that magnitude, to kind of really put things into, to relieve. Well, I think this has been very enlightening. I'm afraid we're running at a time, but I want to thank Jean Beeman, Professor Jean Beeman and Professor Ida Susser, both of the CUNY Graduate Center, my place of employment, for taking the time to talk to us today about the recent protests in France and beyond. I want to thank Sebastian Conceco Ibarra for his technical assistance. And I want to thank Ida's fellow South African Duncan McKay for letting us use his song "International Horizons" as the theme music for the show. This is Jean Torpe saying thanks for joining us, and we look forward to having you with us for the next episode of "International Horizons." Thank you. Thank you. (gentle music)