Why You Can't Wear a Yellow Vest Anymore: Ida Susser on the Battle for Democracy in France

Feb 28, 2026

Ida Susser, anthropologist who studied social movements and urban poverty, discusses the sudden rise of France's Yellow Vests. She traces their roots to long-term disinvestment and explains why they resisted left-right labels. She compares them to U.S. movements, explores their leaderless, horizontal style, and recounts how wearing a yellow vest became a policing risk.

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INSIGHT

Yellow Vests Refused Standard Left Right Labels

The movement initially lacked a coherent left/right ideology; many participants mixed beliefs bricolage-style and some had never voted.
Political actors like Marine Le Pen and Mélenchon tried to claim them but failed to capture their horizontalism.

INSIGHT

Diesel Tax Sparked A Peripheral Uprising

The Yellow Vests began on November 17, 2018 as a spontaneous movement of people from France's urban periphery protesting a diesel tax.
Participants drove hours into Paris to occupy tourist centers like the Champs-Élysées to be heard by Macron's government.

INSIGHT

Diesel Tax Was The Trigger Not The Cause

The diesel tax was a trigger, not the root cause; decades of disinvestment forced rural people to rely on cars.
Cuts to trains, buses, local bakeries and post offices made driving essential and made the tax feel like a direct attack.

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"You can't wear a yellow vest on a demonstration anymore because you get arrested as soon as the police see you." — Ida Susser

In November 2018, something strange happened in France. People from the urban periphery—truck drivers, nurses, teachers, plumbers—drove seven or eight hours to Paris wearing yellow safety vests. They weren't students. They weren't union members. They weren't organized by any political party. They were furious about a diesel tax, but really about something deeper: decades of disinvestment, cut services, shuttered bakeries, and a government that had abandoned them.

Anthropologist Ida Susser spent years studying this spontaneous movement for her new book, The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy. Like so many other observers, Susser sought to identify them on the traditional left/right political spectrum. The uncomfortable truth, she discovered, is that many had never voted. Many didn't care about consistent ideology. They mixed and matched political ideology, bricolage-style. Marine Le Pen tried to claim them. So did Mélenchon on the far left. Neither succeeded. The Yellow Vests didn't want either fascist or communist leaders.

Theoretical comparisons with MAGA and the Tea Party are tempting. We find the same rage, the same economic disinvestment, same feeling of political abandonment. But, for Susser, there's a crucial difference. The Tea Party was mostly an astroturf movement—manufactured by economic and political elites. The Yellow Vests, in contrast, are authentically grassroots. And these days, in Macron's France, you can't even wear a yellow vest on the street without getting arrested. So an incredulous Susser watched a 75-year-old man, innocently going about his business, taken away by police. His crime? That bright vest.

Five Takeaways

● They Weren't Left or Right—At Least Not Initially: The Yellow Vests didn't come with a consistent ideology. Many had never voted. They mixed and matched political ideology, bricolage-style. Marine Le Pen tried to claim them. So did Mélenchon on the far left. Neither succeeded. The Yellow Vests didn't want either fascist or communist leaders.

● The Diesel Tax Was the Trigger, Not the Cause: The real issue was decades of disinvestment in rural France. Trains cut. Buses cut. Schools moved further away. Bakeries and post offices shuttered. People had to drive everywhere—then the government taxed their diesel. Macron became enemy number one. They called him Jupiter. They called him king.

● MAGA Comparison Is Apt—But There's a Key Difference: Same rage, same abandoned communities, same sense that elites have forgotten them. But the Tea Party was mostly an astroturf movement—channeled by economic and political elites. The Yellow Vests, in contrast, are genuinely grassroots.

● They Refuse Leadership on Principle: The Yellow Vests are part of a horizontalist movement going back to the World Social Forum. They write their messages on their backs. They won't name leaders. Susser didn't put a single name in her book—they wouldn't allow it. With surveillance cameras everywhere, it's also safer not to be known.

● You Can't Wear a Yellow Vest in France Anymore: An incredulous Susser watched a 75-year-old man standing quietly get taken away by police for wearing one. The other man without a vest was left alone. The movement lives on in the pension strikes, in the songs, in the rage. But the vest itself has become a crime.

About the Guest

Ida Susser is an anthropologist at the City University of New York and the author of The Yellow Vests and the Battle for Democracy. She has previously conducted research in South Africa and on urban poverty in the United States.

References

Previous Keen On episodes mentioned:

● Charles Derber on progressive populism

● Hélène Landemore on deliberative democracy and citizen assemblies

● Christopher Clark on Revolutionary Spring and 1848 (upcoming)

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.

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