She had worked on the yellow vest movement at a time when protests were active throughout France. Researcher Emmanuelle Reungoat co-directed a documentary on the “after” of the movement. She and Pierre-Olivier Gaumin recount the changes experienced by the people who got involved.
Emmanuelle Reungoat is a lecturer in political science at the University of Montpellier, in Hérault. At the time of the yellow vest movement, she worked on the subject as a researcher, going to meet the mobilized people.
Five years later, she broadcast a preview, this April 30 in Montpellier, of a documentary entitled Tastes of wrestling, produced with Pierre-Olivier Gaumin. The latter explores the “after” of the movement.
Emmanuel Reungoat answered questions from France 3 Occitanie.
Emmanuelle Reungoat : the project was born in 2021. We filmed from the 3-year anniversary of the movement, in the fall, to the movement against pension reform. The idea is to talk about what happens afterwards, to what extent it transforms people, even in very intimate things. It was a starvery intense and very important episode of their lives, including in a more general way.
ER: What the film questions is what emerges afterwards. There is a range of people who change over time. There are likes and dislikes. For some, it was a new family, things that remain. Some are marked by disillusionment, others still in the fight. In any case, they all felt a capacity to act, the strength of the collective.
We followed between 5 and 8 people, many in Occitania: a collective of women from Lunel, Yellow Vests from the roundabout near Arènes, another from Brittany who created a comic book based on the movement. There was people I had followed during my sociological investigation.
There is also character work, editing. The people we followed were not initially engaged. We wanted toshow the intimate changes that this causes, because they are not necessarily very visible. This changes their relationship to the world, with a new vision of social boundaries.
In the film, there is not necessarily a panel of all trajectories. There remained great mistrust among the unions, but some were already part of it. Others have set up associations and are still involved. THE more committed remained as a collective, became friends. For the women’s collective, they had no political commitment, but they are involved in the life of their city, even though they did not know each other before.
We also discover a man who is considering running for the legislative elections. For others, the cOur conversion was not made towards politics, but through social action.
The slogans of 2019 have not changed, purchasing power has not improved, nor have questions of tax justice. There is always a distrust of institutions. This movement remains a major self-managing, decision-making body. There was an experiment in democracy on a large scale, with its limits.
A screening tour of the film is organized in different cities in France, Switzerland and Belgium.
