It’s Sunday afternoon and 10 people have gathered for a theater rehearsal in a community hall in Lille, a city in northern France.
Most of the amateur actors here did not get to know each other through the art scene. They met during France’s “Yellow Vest” protests.
The grassroots protest movement was at its peak in 2018 and 2019, when protesters wearing yellow, high-visibility vests blocked roads across France in response to fuel tax hikes to partially finance climate measures.
Since then the movement, known in French as “gilets jaunes”, has died down somewhat. Small, local actions still occur but larger protests have more or less ended.
But many of those who participated have not forgotten what it felt like to join the movement. Today one of the actors here, local 66-year-old woman Marine Guilbert, comes to rehearsal, a bright yellow vest hanging from the bottom of her bag. On it were the words, “Fière d’être un gilet jaune,” or “Proud to be a yellow vest,” between two butterflies she depicted herself.
One of the other actors teased her, saying that she probably wears a vest to bed too.
‘Worse than before’
At the height of the Yellow Vest movement, some protesters rallied peacefully. Others threw smoke bombs, looted shops and burned barricades. French police fired water cannons and tear gas, leading to accusations of police violence. According to data collected by the French outlet media sectionThe clashes resulted in four deaths and hundreds of injuries.
Seven years and several protests later, Gilbert, 66, is still angry about the political and economic situation in France.
“It’s worse than before,” explains Gilbert. DW. His salary as a cleaner is less than €1,000 a month, forcing him to rely on money transfers from his son and food packages from charity organisations. She feels abandoned by the state. That’s why by joining forces with this group, Gilbert is expressing his frustration in another way.
Gilbert doesn’t remember the last time she went to see a play. Too expensive, she notes. She says, pointing towards herself, that she no longer needs to watch professional shows. “We were born artists,” she says confidently.
The theater group was founded by Anne-Sophie Bastin, a lawyer and a yellow vest from Lille.
“We have seen so much violence, injustice by the police that we decided to reflect it on stage,” Bastin explains why he founded the group, wrote the script and also serves as director.
The group performed for the first time in 2019 and their The play was about the yellow vest. The new piece, which will be performed at the end of November in a 400-seat theater in Vasquehal, a town near Lille, is about Irishman Bobby Sands. ,
A member of the Irish Republican Army, an anti-British paramilitary force, Sands died during a hunger strike in prison in 1981 at the age of 27. Bastin says that some people see him as a hero and others as an extremist and that she considers him an inspirational figure.
As Bastin explains, the yellow vests on the street were a leaderless movement. Here on the stage, “they’re not used to having a boss,” she explains. Now he is the boss.
As an actor portrays his character according to his interpretation of the script at a recent October rehearsal, Bastin interrupts the rehearsal. “It’s me who wrote this script.”
In the past, only the yellow vests were part of the theater group and on one stage, there were around 40 members. As members came and went, the group also opened up to friends and family and now has 15 members.
France in crisis
A new protest movement named ““Bloquons tout,” or in English “Let’s block everything,” have grabbed headlines largely from the yellow vests in recent months as France lurches from one crisis to the next. A The survey published by the French newspaper Le Monde in mid-October It was found that 96% of the respondents were unhappy with the situation in the country.
One of the members of the theater group, retired Yoline Jean-Pierre, composed protest songs in her spare time. On rehearsal days, she wears a yellow vest with a badge and a red heart on the collar. When she starts one of her songs, the others also sing along. Like a catchy tune, the raga and its rhyming lyrics Stay within earshot. All the songs have the same theme: blaming President Macron, whom they hold most responsible for the situation in France.
This discontent is not likely to be resolved easily. According to Julien Talpin, a political scientist at the University of Lille, France is facing a structural problem.
“Since the French political system is no longer able to address inequalities, anger is being expressed in other ways,” he told DW.
One reason for the government instability is that President Emmanuel Macron lacks enough support in the French parliament to pursue reforms he says are vital to solving France’s economic dilemma. French national debt stands More than 100% of the country’s income But efforts by successive French governments to curb the deficit – from reforming France’s pension system to cutting national holidays – have faced opposition from the public and political rivals.
A recent report from French Inequality Observatory Shows that the country has seen an increase in the poverty rate in the last 20 years.
Still, it is difficult to see how changing the head of state would automatically solve France’s political problems. Experts say that if Macron steps down, he could effectively hand France’s top responsibility to the far-right National Rally party.
Yellow vests want Macron’s resignation
At the Lille community hall where the rehearsals take place, most of the actors argue that President Macron’s resignation is long overdue.
Pensioner Jean-Pierre doesn’t think that will happen. He quipped that Macron would remain in power “because he thinks of himself as God.”
Another actor waiting in the wings says he thinks very little will change no matter who is in office. Paris feels very far away, he says.
Cleaning lady Marine Guilbert says she’s channeling her desires for change into theater. “I hope our voices are heard on the ground and on the stage,” she says.
Jean-Pierre’s eyes start shining as soon as he talks about the theater group.
“We [the members of this troupe] “Fight the same fight,” the pensioner told DW. “We think so too. There is unity.”
Edited by: Carla Bleiker, Katherine Scheer