Delia Dumitrica – Erasmus University, Netherlands
Mélodine Sommier – Erasmus University, Netherlands
Keywords
Collective identity; Collective action; Discourse; Gilets Jaunes
Abstract
How to mobilize individuals? Can catchy phrases and slogans suffice in bringing people together for collective action? In this presentation, we focus on the use of ‘the people’ as one such mobilizing term in the case of Les Gilets Jaunes (the Yellow Vests) in France. We argue that instead of uniting, the term quickly turned into an ideological battleground. We outline the contours of this symbolic struggle over ‘the people’ in the context of French politics, pondering its implications for collective action.Data consist of media coverage, but also memes, and social media messages shared in relation to five moments that took place between December 2018 and January 2019 at the height of the Gilets Jaunes movement: President Macron’s speech on TV, Christophe Dettinger’s attack on the police, President Macron’s letter, Marlène Schiappa attending a TV show, the Foulards Rouges (Red Scarves) demonstration. These five moments were selected because they illustrate the discursive struggle over ‘le peuple’ and offer insights into the diversity of voices that give meaning to who ‘the people’ are or are not. Informed by discourse analysis (Wodak, 2006), the analysis focuses on identifying the meanings associated with ‘the people’ and the struggles they encapsulated. We focus our discussion on two discursive strategies through which the identity of the movement as well as its legitimacy are constructed and contested: references to republican values and the use of numbers.In French, ‘le peuple’ benefits from a rich semantic ambiguity: it can refer to the civic or the ethnic nation; to the commoners or the folk; to a large crowd; or, to the citizen body as a whole (Larousse, n.d.). More importantly, ‘le peuple’ gains its meaning in opposition to two other terms: the bourgeoisie and the government. As such, it has an anti-elite and anti-establishment ring to it. Yet, while political and technocratic elites have become the Other of ‘le peuple’, the latter is the French Republic. Indeed, the recurrent references to Marianne and to the slogan ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité’ by the Gilets Jaunes invoke the French revolutions of 1789 and 1848.While ‘le peuple’ can be an extremely potent mobilizer, it is also a problematic one. For, in spite of its rich historical heritage – or, perhaps, because of it – ‘le peuple’ remains a contested terrain of struggle between various social actors. As an ‘empty signifier’ (Laclau, 1996), ‘le peuple’ simultaneously invites identification and contestation. If in the early stages of the mobilization, ‘le peuple’ worked in an inclusive manner, allowing the right and the left sides of the political spectrum to join the movement, it quickly turned into a terrain of discursive struggle. The use of numbers sheds light on these struggles – specifically, whether the idea of mass and representativity go hand in hand – as different social actors started accusing each other of not being the ‘rightful’ representative of the people, or proposing different interpretations of who or where ‘le peuple’ is to be found. The Foulards Rouges (the Red Scarves), another citizen-led and digitally enabled mobilization, actively resorted to the notion of silent majority as a counter-narrative to legitimize their movement while discrediting the Gilets Jaunes. The use of numbers quickly became a bone of contention and reveals arguments related to class and nation. Discourses about Christophe Dettinger as well as the presence of Marlène Schiappa on a TV show questioned the difference between being popular (both in terms of social class and in numbers) and being representative of the people.
Bibliography
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Laclau, E (1996). Why do empty signifiers matter to politics. In: Emancipations. Verso, London
Wodak, R. (2006). Discourse-analytic and socio-linguistic approaches to the study of nation(alism). In Gerard Delanty and Krishan Kumar (Eds.). The Sage Handbook of Nations and Nationalism (pp. 104-117). London : Sage Publications.