A new movement against labor market deregulation is taking shape in France. Since February, when the Socialist Party (PS) government of François Hollande and Manuel Valls announced a proposed reform of the French labor code (code du travail), a wave of protests has swept across the country. On March 9, 500,000 people participated in a national day of action; an additional 1.2 million joined trade union demonstrations on March 31; and on April 9, tens of thousands more marched in Paris and other French cities against the law.

One of the impressive aspects of the new movement is the sheer number of cities and towns where protests have been organized: more than 250 on March 31 alone. That day, bad weather depressed turnout in the French capital. But despite the rain, hundreds of protesters gathered that night in Paris’s Place de la République, in the first of the “Nuit Debout” occupations.

In the weeks that followed, copycat Nuit Debout events started popping up all over France. Tens of thousands flocked to République to participate in nighttime mass meetings.