By Elissa Darwish
PARIS (Reuters) – Benoit Vasselin has no problem saying he will take part in France’s “Block Everything” protests this week. But he won’t specify what he and fellow protesters will do when they pitch up outside a trade union HQ in the northern town of Lille early on Wednesday morning.
The mystery over what protesters like Vasselin are planning is confounding security services, just as President Emmanuel Macron grapples with the collapse of his fourth government in less than two years.
The “Block Everything” movement sprung up online in May among right-wing groups, researchers and officials said, but it has since been taken over by the left and far-left.
Its lack of centralized leadership and ad hoc organisation via social media and Telegram make it hard to gauge just how disruptive Wednesday’s day of action may be.
The government is not taking any chances, planning to deploy 80,000 police to contain protests that could number 100,000 people and target airports, train stations and highways with blockades or acts of sabotage.
The movement’s snowballing online support underlines a deep vein of popular discontent against what protesters deem a dysfunctional ruling elite preaching a painful gospel of austerity.
“I am extremely angry with the political system in France, which favours large corporations, which favours ultra-wealthy billionaires, and which … erodes the rights of ordinary French citizens – the very ones who keep the country running,” said Mathieu Jaguelin, 43, a tour guide in southwest France who participates in several “Block Everything” groups on Telegram.
France’s Interior Ministry declined comment for this story.
“We will not tolerate any blockage, any violence,” Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau told France 2 television on Monday. “I understand the anger … but the anger cannot be vented in the streets.”
FESTERING ANGER, MOUNTING ECONOMIC WOES
French lawmakers ousted Prime Minister Francois Bayrou on Monday over his debt-slimming plan, plunging the country deeper into a political and fiscal crisis with no clear exit.
Reuters spoke with six “Block Everything” participants who said the political system was no longer fit for purpose.
Some urged a constitutional overhaul, while others called for Macron’s resignation and higher taxes on the rich. All said the movement was a reaction to the political chaos and hoped the protests would prompt politicians to act.
“The public authorities and the government have betrayed us so much that I’m not sure they can really meet the expectations of the people,” said Louise Nechin, a left-wing activist in Paris.
“Block Everything” has drawn comparisons with the 2018 “Yellow Vest” movement, which began as motorists’ protests against diesel taxes before morphing into anger over high living costs and inequality.
Billions of euros in tax cuts helped quell the uprising after six months, but some residual anger still animates the “Block Everything” movement.
Two major labour unions have backed “Block Everything,” while more unions are planning to strike on September 18, possibly heralding the start of a new era of social unrest confronting Macron, who has been in power since 2017.
DECLINING FAITH IN POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
Paola Sedda, an expert on online movements at the University of Lille, said “Block Everything” emerged out of the deep anger over Bayrou’s proposed budget cuts at a time of declining faith in political institutions.
The activists’ deep mistrust of traditional media and political institutions resonated widely, she said.
A French intelligence source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said some “opportunistic” foreign actors, including pro-Russian and pro-Iranian groups, were “amplifying certain popular hashtags, particularly on X … to exploit a sensitive domestic context”.
However, “the phenomenon is relatively marginal compared with publications of domestic origin”, the source added.
The Russian and Iranian embassies in Paris did not respond to requests for comment.
One “Block Everything” moderator on a Telegram channel, who declined to give his name as he didn’t want to appear as a leader of the group, said the odd pro-Kremlin account sometimes posted but such posts were “systematically moderated or criticized”.
“This does not change the core reality: the origin of the movement and its dynamics come from real people, here, expressing their anger and desire for change,” he said.
(Reporting by Elissa Darwish; Editing by Gabriel Stargardter and Frances Kerry)
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