Yellow Vest protesters as protagonists: When ordinary citizens enter politics

When the Yellow Vest protest movement broke out in France, some first-time protesters—without prior experience of political engagement and often quite distant from politics—became protagonists of a political crisis, feeling empowered to publicly pass judgment on politics. This protagonism went hand in hand with politicization, in the dual sense of socialization into specialized politics and a transformation of their conceptions of the social world. Because these individuals perceive themselves as equally entitled to speak as citizens, those we interviewed expressed strong distrust of political representatives (whether politicians, trade unions, or spokespersons) and claimed to speak for the people, the “ordinary” against the “big and powerful,” but also against the state. Yellow Vests thus developed relatively sophisticated judgments of its “right hand”—law enforcement—and its “left hand”—the failing welfare state.