“In Paris, when these same people, who had friends who were their police, came to Paris and found themselves tear gassed and shot with LBDs and losing their eyes and feet, and coming back with red all down their faces and blood everywhere, and they began to understand that the violence is beyond legal. And so they began to understand what was happening in areas, what we might call the ghettos or the poor areas of Paris, where Black people or people of color were being harassed by the police.“
In 2018, hundreds of thousands of people in France showed up day after day, month after month, to protest the French government’s attacks on labor, on social benefits, and on the environment, among other things, including police violence. Anthropologist Ida Susser took part in these communal actions, interviewing a vast array of participants, who came from all walks of life, from political positions across the spectrum, and from many different regions and class identities. We learn how people formed common cause, organized unique social worlds, and how their struggles, defeats, and successes, can teach us critical lessons in making the a new, more just, world. In the spirit of communing, Ida Susser has made Yellow Vests a free download here.
Ida Susser, PHD is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center and Hunter College, CUNY. Her recent book The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy: taking to the streets of Paris in the 21st Century(Routledge 2026) focuses on commoning movements and new visions. Her previous books include: Norman Street(Oxford, 2012) a study of working class opposition to cutbacks during the New York City fiscal crisis and the transition of Greenpoint-Williamsburg from a working class neighborhood to a gentrified enclave, andAIDS, Sex and Culture: Global Politics and Survival in Southern Africa (Wiley-Blackwell 2009), a history of the power of social movements to transform health.
(0:00) The Reality of Police Violence in Paris
(1:00) The Yellow Vests Movement
(3:00) The Erosion of French Labor Laws
(7:05) The Beginnings of the Diesel Tax Protest
(11:00) The Three Commons and Progressive Transformation
(16:26) Building a Concrete Utopia
(22:16) The Success of the Nuit Debout Commissions
(27:57) The Birth of Co-op Cycle
(29:34) Redefining Class in the Flexible Economy
(34:45) Building a Historical Bloc
(38:05) Making Knowledge Free and Open Access
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