‘It’s difficult to find precedents in the long history of social movements’

The likely fall of French Prime Minister François Bayrou’s government in a confidence vote called for September 8 has not deterred organizers of the « Bloquons Tout » (« Block Everything ») movement, who intend to maintain a day of action on September 10. How does this atypical movement fit into the country’s social history? What does the threat of a general strike, put forward by radical-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, actually mean? Le Monde spoke with Marion Fontaine, a historian specializing in socialism and the labor movement at Sciences Po.

Does the « Block Everything » movement fit into a tradition of social struggle in France?

We have to be careful, because the movement is in its early stages and has still not taken shape. For now, it exists mostly in the prognostications of political and union actors. Historically speaking, the timeline for comparable movements is very short, beginning in the 2000s. This is the era of citizen movements mobilizing via social media: the Indignados anti-austerity movement in Spain and Nuit Debout (2016) and the Yellow Vest movement (2018-2019) in France. In the background, there is the French pension reform and the failure of the major union mobilizations in 2024 to stop it.

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