How the Yellow Vests Attempted to Rebuild the Urban Periphery of Paris

This symbolizes the re-creation of communities upon the ruins of deindustrialized towns and the skeleton villages that have lost their post offices, bakeries, schools, and other central activities. Here we see the ways in which collective effort among people who congregate in person helps to develop a progressive political approach and counteract the shaming of poverty and poor health. I also argue that the COVID-19 shutdown later undermined these collective approaches. The isolation of the shutdown and the reliance on the internet provided fertile ground for conspiracy theories, which became a breeding ground for the far right.

The urban periphery has been the source of Yellow Vests groups nationwide. In and around the northern suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis, I met many Yellow Vests and joined group meetings from districts such as Drancy, Aubervilliers, La Courneuve, Montreuil, Pantin, Pierrefitte, and Gennevilliers. All of these districts had historically been part of the working-class communist townships known as the Red Belt. Other Yellow Vests groups took over roundabouts slightly further out, such as in the shopping mall of a marginal working-class area, or still further away, in the semi-rural Val d’Oise. Later, I visited Yellow Vests whom I had met on rowdy Parisian demonstrations who had driven eight hours from Toulouse,

Montpellier, and elsewhere to join the Saturday afternoon protests. Many of them, too, lived on the outskirts of the main town.

The focus on the urban periphery provides a counterpoint to the emphasis on the weekly Yellow Vests invasion of the Parisian streets. Many Yellow Vests groups described here joined the protests on Saturday afternoons, along the Rue de Rivoli or to the Arc de Triomphe or along the boulevards leading to Montmartre. I often met members of roundabouts on marches in Paris. Indeed, I met some of the Gennevilliers cabin builders, described below, along the routes of several demonstrations.

In October 2017, a year before the Yellow Vests converged on Paris, Macron launched his campaign to talk to the disaffected working class to defend what many saw as his tax cuts for the rich and to talk about his new programs to help low-income people. Even then, only a few months into Macron’s first term, according to Reuters:

In Gennevilliers, a communist-held suburb on the Paris outskirts, President Emmanuel Macron’s promises to help the poor are met with scorn. It was in this drab working-class neighbourhood that the former investment banker launched his anti-poverty plan this week as he struggles to shake off the tag of “president of the rich.”

Sounding like the heroes of the documentary “Merci Patron,” Nathalie and Pascal Dilard, a middle-aged couple, told a newspaper reporter:

[They] were forced to give up their flat after they lost their jobs. With their teenage son, they now reside with Pascal’s elderly parents, living off 400 euros a month. “Anti-poverty? I’m sorry, but when I see our situation, that makes me laugh,” Nathalie, 50, said as anti-riot police pushed back protesting unionists during Macron’s visit. “My problem with him is that he helps the rich, not the little people like us. We can just die,” she said.

In 2019, I visited a new, large, light community center in Gennevilliers, where the Yellow Vests came to meet with community residents and the communist mayor. It was in this district, now a center for warehouses, trucking, and other logistics, where the cabin appeared on an overgrown abandoned lot in a space between highway exits used by truckers as a rest area.

The Yellow Vests building the cabins were a diverse group. The truckers from the local logistics plant appeared very supportive of the event, and some of the Yellow Vests came from there. I had met and talked with workers and managers from the plant at previous “yellow” events. A group of men were doing much of the work. These included a divorced chef in loose, scruffy, blue jeans, now based seven hours away from Paris. As part of his child custody allotment, he had brought his five-year-old daughter to play in the lot. Another builder was a muscular man with tattoos down his arms and a crewcut who appeared to be in his 30s. A third was a distinguished-looking retired man with silver hair and a sparkle in his eye.

He had a remarkable liveliness in his appearance and was clearly a highly regarded member, if not a leader, of this horizontalist activist group. The creation of the Yellow Vests community He told me of his strong opposition to unions and his long experience in left-wing organizing. A trucker in his thirties, whom an American would describe as “of color,” was there with his girlfriend, who seemed to be of longtime French descent, and they were both climbing up ladders to fix the rafters in the ceiling.

A retired couple, apparently also of French descent, had driven in from the South of France and were sitting inside on a bench, joking with the truck driver fixing the roof. An older, slender and agile woman, possibly in her early 60s, with long, trailing, black hair—was climbing a ladder outside the solid wooden cabin to hammer in the roof beams. I guessed that she was Latina or perhaps from an Arabic background (but I couldn’t ask these kinds of questions, especially in this situation).

Near the cabin was a large stack of wooden logs, donated by or maybe borrowed surreptitiously from a friendly source in the area. The workers proudly told me, without specifics, that they could get any kind of material from anywhere. Some young mothers who seemed to be working-class French descendants were starting a fire to grill long, thin sausages of the kind found on sale at the local supermarkets and frequently served in community barbecues. Boxes of juice and chips were scattered

near the fire in a pile to which I donated more chips and drinks. The women were feeding the children who were running around the lot. A small cabin (in Great Britain it used to be called a Wendy house, from the story of Peter Pan) had already been constructed for the children to play in.

Most likely because I had arrived with a Yellow Vest from Saint-Denis who had been invited to join the construction, people welcomed me when I explained my research.

They talked to me without giving me their names. I was careful not to take any pictures or ask questions that might be invasive, as the whole event, which seemed so cheerful and innocent, was not legal.

In the following ten days, picnics and evening soirees were held in and around the cabin. Then, as feared, the police suddenly drove into the roundabout with cranes and bulldozers and destroyed the cabins. I was told that they eventually burned down the main cabin. Cabins in other areas had lasted for months and Yellow Vests in Gennevilliers were shocked that the police had arrived so soon. I was surprised to hear the nostalgia expressed for the week of solidarity.

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