The Yellow Vests and The Battle for Democracy: Taking to the Streets of Paris in the 21st Century

Written under the shadow of growing authoritarianism in the United States and Europe, this book is an effort to understand resistance movements of the twenty-first century.It foregrounds the Yellow Vests to present an accurate and timely picture of a protest movement that baffled analysts and blurred the boundaries of left and right. Comprehensively exploring the meaning of “les Gilets Jaunes triompheront” (the yellow vests will win), written on the Arc de Triomphe in 2018, The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy details how people of all ages, many from the provinces and the urban periphery, rushed through the Paris streets, breaking windows and braving tear gas, challenging the ruling class in extraordinary and unpredictable ways.Avoiding hierarchy and stable organization, and claiming a right to a territory or space that is between the private and the public, these protests imagined a different form of collectivity that is not commodified but established by the social practice