No one can say if this social spring in autumn will last through the winter. The drivers of this multifaceted movement are too numerous.
The already initiated decline in popular support, while the toll is counted in deaths and billions of euros and the mishaps multiply at the local level, does not suggest the movement’s end is near.
But the nature of the grand debate that is going to open and the degree of politicization of the movement will also play a role. Some participants already see themselves on a political trajectory, similar to those before them in similar circumstances: for instance, who would Daniel Cohn-Bendit be today without May 1968?
And there remains, in any case, this factor of mobilization, over which no one has control: the degree of solidarity and cohesion achieved by the Yellow Vests not towards their cause, but among themselves.
This joy of collective action, this sense of belonging gradually cemented solitudes on hundreds of roundabouts.
These Yellow Vests will likely be the slowest to store their yellow vest in the glove compartment.
