Social photography book tells Yellow Vests uprising  -  In a richly illustrated book, Justice et respect. The uprising of Yellow Vests (ed. Syllepse), sociologists Lou Traverse, Thibault Cizeau, and Brice Le Gall (who is also a photographer) document this unprecedented revolt, which marked the year 2019, as closely as possible.

It lacked a book-survey presenting the look of social photography on the movement of yellow vests. Now it exists. In Justice and Respect, Lou Traverse, Thibault Cizeau and Brice Le Gall put their skills as sociologists and photographer (for Brice Le Gall) to the service of this uprising born on November 17, 2018, and which marked all year long to flow. Assuming a bias of fellow travelers of the movement, they immersed themselves in the daily life of its protagonists, of the Oise and Picardy in particular.

They thus show what has often remained invisible, despite the fluorescent vests: not only the Parisian events that took place every Saturday, but also and above all the daily life of the roundabouts, the camaraderie of the huts and life of these men and women in revolt. "In addition to being an accessible medium, the photo has the advantage of sometimes saying much more than long speeches inaccessible to the greatest number," explains Brice Le Gall. The images extracted from the book, which illustrate this interview, bear witness to this.

Social photography book tells Yellow Vests uprising

What was your goal in designing this book, which combines photography and sociology, since it gives voice to several protagonists of the Yellow Vests movement?

Brice Le Gall - First of all, we have no intention of writing a book on movement. It was above all the encouragement of the yellow vests encountered in the Oise and in the Paris region that drove us into this project. The latter opened their doors to us, trusted us and offered us, often without knowing it, a place in their own right that allowed us to get out of the easy posture of "salon intellectual". By following them for almost a year on roundabouts, demonstrations or in their families, a bond was formed and as a sociologist we felt very early on a moral obligation to testify, an obligation to give them back some what they gave us.

Was it not difficult, precisely, to make your place as discreet as possible among them?

In a sociological survey, the relationship with the respondents is always complicated. It was a fortiori for us insofar as the yellow vests encountered are also, above all, fellow travelers, people whose hopes we share. Faced with testimonies and often harsh, sometimes overwhelming life stories, in which we could identify, we wanted to get out of sociology for initiates and tried to produce a useful book in yellow vests.

Your work puts pictures of the Yellow Vests in their collective, almost family life, during the construction of cabins on roundabouts, local political actions or political meetings. Situations that were finally little publicized compared to the Parisian demonstrations. What emerges from your observations at this scale?

Indeed, there is a gap between the image of the Yellow Vests disseminated by the dominant media when they focus on the demonstrations on Saturday and the movement as it was built on the roundabouts and as it was lived in families. The feeling of betrayal and the hostility of certain yellow vests towards news channels is explained in particular by this gap.

What is striking at first glance is the extraordinary fighting spirit that these men and women use in their daily lives to try to escape the effects of neoliberal policies and the mechanisms of reproduction of the working classes. Almost all the people met have an intimate experience of domination, hassle, contempt. One way or another, they all suffer violence from the social world, they all have to fight to defend their right to existence and to dignity. This connection to the world that "well-born" people and the ruling classes often know only theoretically brings into play their raison d'être. These detours through the biographical interview, the "life stories", allow us to understand one of the driving forces of this revolt: the quest for justice and respectability which drives many yellow vests.

Observing mobilization at the roundabout and family scales is also very instructive in understanding the strength of the movement. Even if there were tensions on the roundabouts, the yellow vests encountered were able to neutralize the false divisions between the popular classes, that is to say between those of the cities and the countryside, between the immigrants and the So-called “native” French, between those considered to be “established” and “assisted”, etc. By finding a common enemy (“Macron, the tapper of the poor”), unifying symbols, new modes of mobilization, they managed to mobilize and make visible the most vulnerable sections of the population, starting with the working poor , single mothers, the disabled and the retired who receive poverty pensions, or those without qualifications who are permanently excluded from employment.

Even if the victories remain slim and the government remains deaf and foreign to the life of these people, the Yellow Vests managed to recreate solidarities and to re-exist the popular classes as a mobilized group, united around common interests. This is, I believe, one of the main achievements of the movement, which the government hastened to attack by demanding very early the evacuation and destruction of the huts.

Have you noticed a progressive politicization of yellow vests, in the sense of better taking into account the social question for example?

Inviting oneself to “beautiful neighborhoods”, that is to say in the world of the rich, in a world that is no longer theirs, that no longer belongs to them, immediately replaced the question social at the heart of the political game. One of the characteristics and one of the strengths of this movement resides both in a very strong territorial anchorage and in broad and offensive demands which attack the heart of the political and economic system. I think that some researchers are seriously mistaken in declining different “moments” of claims or in reducing them to issues that are properly “local” or focused solely on the question of “reproduction”. From the end of November, we see notebooks of grievances that allow us to better understand the nature of this revolt.

The claims relate to the system of political representation, wealth distribution, the defense of public services, there are also several ecological considerations. These demands were already heard on November 17 at the roadblocks. Many yellow vests carry a global criticism of the system, but this is not expressed in the "intellectual", "theorized" mode of the "traditional" activist. The yellow vests encountered are faced with urgent, practical and concrete problems, the effects of which they experience in their daily life. For them, it is not a question of producing a worldly critique of capitalism. First, it is a question of finding solutions to live with dignity and to place the citizen at the center of the political game. The social question is therefore at the heart of their struggle. And because their living conditions are at stake, their anger can open up much more radical perspectives than that of intellectuals or activists ... A feeling of collective power was born on the roundabouts.

How did they react to the violence of the state response to their demands? The question of police violence has been more and more problematic over the weeks ... As a photographer, have you been put in danger?

Like other yellow vests, I took a few shots, including a grenade in the chest on December 1 when the situation seemed to escape the police on the Place de l'Etoile. Several photographers were reportedly knowingly targeted by law enforcement officials at the latest protest. I believe that violence tends above all to divide the movement, hence the strategy of letting rallies degenerate as at Place d'Italie on November 16. Generally speaking, law enforcement professionals know very well how to fix the degree of violence by the systems put in place. This is why we can say that there is an objective complicity between "black bloc" or "thugs", mainstream media and the Ministry of the Interior to increase visibility and in some cases provoke "violence". In practice, this strategy is effective. It fulfills its primary function which amounts to terrorizing.

Many citizens have been afraid to take to the streets to join the Yellow Vests, as they are afraid today to put on their vests. While the movement still seems to be supported by a majority of French people, few people joined the Yellow Vests during the Saturday demonstrations. It must be seen that this movement gave rise to an unprecedented repression: on the police level of course with an unprecedented number of mutilations but also on the judicial level (bans on demonstrations, arbitrary controls, preventive arrests, police custody, summonses to residence, judicial convictions, etc.). In addition, in addition to physical violence, the state has used word violence. Although less spectacular, this violence is no less effective: slander, contempt, incitement to shoot live ammunition at the demonstrators [former Minister Luc Ferry had called in January the police to “use their weapons ”, note], the focus on racist or homophobic slippages… The Yellow Vests were not spared.

In your view, what is left of the Yellow Vests movement today? They lasted a very long time, but a new sequence seems to be opening with the movement against pension reform ...

The question is difficult. Despite initiatives to structure the movement nationwide (such as "the assembly of assemblies" or, at this time, the "Citizens League"), the Yellow Vests have failed to garner the support that matters. They may have thrown poles, the famous “convergence of struggles” remained wishful thinking. Union leaders and most political organizations have never made a clear call to join them. The support of intellectuals was timid, that of high school students and students too, as well as that of environmentalists. With the exception of rebellious France and Solidaires, most of these organizations did not understand this revolt. The very temporary support of the National Rally and the high-profile presence of extreme right groups in early November 2018 worked like a scarecrow. The movement has also shaken up somewhat sclerotic frameworks of analysis on the side of certain fractions of the so-called "radical" left. These failed convergences are difficult to analyze.

They recall both the autonomy of these organizations which do not hesitate to defend the place of their apparatus and their representatives at the expense of the interests of those they are supposed to represent, but also the deep crisis they are going through, their lack of real roots in the country. Under these conditions, even if the yellow vests are currently demonstrating alongside the unions to defend their pensions, it is unlikely that they will succeed today what they failed to put in place when they were visible and threatening. for power. The ball is clearly in the court of the trade unions ... but the functioning of the big confederations tends to be more pessimistic. Beyond the competitive relationships between these organizations and the Yellow Vests, it should also be remembered that class racism is not the preserve of the elites. Although a mix between these groups occurs in the Parisian demonstrations against the pension reform, the Yellow Vests still seem to be the pariahs of the social movement.

Do you think there will be political consequences in the medium term of this mobilization?

The most likely is that the Yellow Vests continue their routes by grafting themselves on the various existing social movements or by bringing out new ones not identified as such. In fact, the anger of the people we followed is intact. We may have razed their huts, mutilate them, insult them, condemn them, lock them up (more than 10,000 police custody for all of France / more than 3,000 judicial convictions), the yellow vests are still there, scattered, often invisible , but everywhere ...

Today, we no longer count the ecological, social or civic initiatives in which the Yellow Vests are engaged: creation of cooperatives to help farmers, flea markets, solidarity workshops, trade fairs, forest cleaning, magnet fishing to clean up watercourses, etc. In Beauvais, a city marked by poverty, the Yellow Vests organize marauders to help the homeless and migrants. Because this movement brings about a general questioning of the economic and political system, it takes various forms and becomes institutionalized over the months. These people are inventing ways to act on the world, but they would need real support to transform it. These supports exist but they are not numerous.

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This is the irony of the story. For a long time, the radical left in France sought a political strategy and a thought capable of bringing it out of the marginality, and making it exist politically and electorally. This perpetual quest for the famous "alternative" still occupies him today. But, after the debacle of the PS in the presidential election of 2017 (6.36%) and the structuring - still chaotic, uncertain and likely to ebb - of a block sometimes qualified as “populist of the left” around rebellious France (and from Podemos in Spain), the time has come for the reformist left, too, to seriously question its future, and to name its horizon.

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