In a kebab shop on the outskirts of Bordeaux, Christine, 48, was planning the next steps of the local gilets jaunes (yellow vests) protest movement.
“We might seem less visible, but we’re still out here,” said the cardiac nurse who left her job after a “burn out” – like “so many” healthcare staff. “Some don’t want to wear a yellow vest anymore because of being targeted by police, but we’re organising meetings, mobilising citizens and we’ve still got public support. We’ve created a new sense of solidarity in France and that won’t go away.”
Tens of thousands of anti-government protesters are expected to blockade rural roundabouts and march through cities this weekend to mark the first anniversary of one of the most unusual and long-lasting protest movements in French history – and the government is on alert.
Christine spent many days this year standing with a thermos flask and flyers on a suburban roundabout north of the western city, demonstrating against what she sees as the injustices of French society. An out-of-work single mother of two who struggles to meet housing costs, she said: “The yellow high-visibility jacket is a great leveller – once you put it on, you’re all the same. It brought people together.”
One year after hundreds of thousands of angry French protesters first put on fluorescent jackets and took to the streets over rising fuel taxes, what became a wider movement has left a mark on French politics.
The protests forced the government to announce billions of euros of tax breaks that demonstrators still insist are not enough. The centrist president, Emmanuel Macron, although vowing to continue his pro-business reforms, said he learned from the protests that he must put more humanity into what he called his “impatient” style of governance.
Policing tactics towards demonstrators have come under scrutiny. Official figures state 2,500 demonstrators were wounded during the protests, which have continued each Saturday for a year. About 1,800 police officers have suffered injuries. Activists say 24 protesters lost an eye and five lost a hand because of police weapons. Two police officers will soon stand trial over alleged violence against protesters.
After being caught unaware by the protests 12 months ago, Macron and his government are now trying to anticipate and contain other growing protest movements, including an unprecedented revolt among striking hospital staff as well as students.
Unions are planning a nationwide strike against Macron’s pension reforms from 5 December that could severely hit transport, and many gilets jaunes intend to join forces with it. A poll for Le Figaro this week found 69% of French people felt the ongoing yellow vest movement was justified.
Bordeaux was one of the biggest centres of the protests. It is seen as an example of the “two Frances” that Macron is still struggling to reconcile – a vibrant city with soaring house prices and an Airbnb boom, but beyond it an increasingly poor rural area with low-paid agricultural workers, significant unemployment and a feeling of being forgotten.
Geographers talk of a “corridor of poverty” outside Bordeaux. Most of the gilets jaunes protesters congregating here travelled in from the poor, rural hinterlands outside.
A 53-year-old former teacher, also called Christine, came from a small village 37 miles (60km) north of Bordeaux, where the only job options were the nuclear plant or the vineyards. “We don’t even have a cafe in the village,” she said. Having spent her whole teaching career in deprived areas before falling into poverty herself, she said when the protests started, “I was ready, I already felt we had to build a better society.” Despite witnessing what she called “war scenes” during police clashes in protests in Bordeaux, she would continue protesting. “Every week for a year, we have keep a presence on our local roundabout,” she said. “An 85-year-old woman with her dog is committed to sit there, and one in two cars always beep their support.”
Pascal Chauvet, 61, a travelling wine salesman, is now coordinating a gilets jaunes list for local elections in Bordeaux in March, under the label Démocratie Bordelaise (Bordeaux Democracy). Its platform includes rebuilding local industry, stopping property speculation and imposing tougher rules on Airbnb. After the European elections in May when gilets jaunes candidate lists garnered less than 1% of the vote, activists feel local elections will prove a better focus.
“There hasn’t been a social protest movement that lasted this long since the revolution,” Chauvet said. “The protests got people talking about politics again; it brought back a kind of social interaction we’d lost. People debate. I was a communist for 20 years, I met someone in the protests who was staunch far right. We’ve become friends.”
Chauvet said he understood and supported the Brexit vote in the UK and shared the sense of “feeling left behind” when the state erodes public services.
Daniel Menuet, a 45-year-old IT worker from the outskirts of Bordeaux, said people were still angry at the financial system and fat-cat profits, while workers struggled on their salaries. “My father raised four boys alone and managed to put money aside,” he said. “Now, my wife and I work, but with three children we’ve got just enough to stay afloat.”
Jean-Luc Pageon, who will protest this weekend, lives on a social housing estate in northern Bordeaux, and was furious at Macron’s plans to allow more social homes to be sold off. He said: “In nearby forests, you see more and more people sleeping rough in tents. In a rich society, that’s not normal. That’s why we have to keep speaking out.”
