The act V of the Yellow Vests protest in Nice took place calmly and without notable consequences for public order, apart from disruptions to urban viability.
About 600 people participated in the procession and walked through the city center streets at the pace of a leisurely stroll.
Gustave Le Bon, with his studies on the psychology of “crowds” to which he dedicated his first book in 1895, can provide some answers.
For him, the “crowd” is an unconscious collective subject in which a person blends in in a way that lacks responsibility.
This thesis is not original, as it was already present in the works of criminologists and sociologists in the second half of the 19th century, studies in which expressions such as “crowd crime” or “herd instinct of the masses” had made their appearance.
This may explain why and how normally friendly people can get caught up in unusual initiatives, feel like protagonists, and gain strong motivation from it.
In short, it is a sort of self-annihilation of one’s own personality in favor of collective behavior.
Feeling like “the people who speak out” when you are just a few compared to the resident population aligns with Sigmund Freud’s theories, which explained the role of the subconscious in conditioning behavior.
And in his time, there was no Facebook or selfies. We must have patience; it’s just such a moment.
