What American activists can learn from France right now

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What American activists can learn from France right now
The left should look to France’s Yellow Vest movement to see the dangers of violent escalation

By Ida Susser
Published March 28, 2026 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) In mid-February, shortly after I sent off the last proofs of my book “The Yellow Vests and The Battle for Democracy: Taking to the Streets of Paris in the 21st Century,” which examines the “Yellow Vest” street protests that galvanized French politics in the early 2020s, a young man named Quentin Deranque died in the city of Lyon in southeastern France. Deranque was a 23-year-old far-right activist who was fatally injured in a street fight with a small antifascist group known as the Jeune Garde, or the “Young Guard,” which the media has associated with the left-wing political party La France Insoumise, or LFI. The Young Guards was formed in 2021 by an elected representative of the LFI but in the face of current events has been disbanded.

Every death from political violence, on the right or the left, is a human tragedy. But in this instance, the political fallout, which fell a few weeks before the municipal elections across France, has been particularly dramatic. Surprisingly, the LFI does not appear to have been badly damaged, and pulled through the first round of the municipal elections with strong results. But the mainstream center-left Socialist Party, among many other groups, have blamed the LFI for this violence, undermining possibilities for any left coalition in the second round of the municipal elections.

My book documents the rage of the Yellow Vest movement, which emerged in 2018, and the resulting vandalism and property damage that included breaking store windows and setting motorbikes and cars on fire. The Yellow Vests were an autonomous uprising, not supported by any unions or political parties. But the extreme-right leader Marine Le Pen expressed sympathy for the uprising almost right away, and the LFI did so from the left a few weeks later. Many union members were involved in the movement, although never in an official capacity.

Most of my book is devoted to trying to sort out this political enigma, and how the movement and its consequences might be understood. The Yellow Vests were mostly nonviolent and had little or no experience of mass mobilization. The protesters included many women and seniors who were eager to avoid police violence. Although the Yellow Vests often claimed they were forced to fight back against what they saw as police aggression, none of the protesters advocated violence against people. ....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/03/28/what-american-activists-can-learn-from-france-right-now/