The time for roundabout occupations, the setting-up of shacks and wildcat demonstrations is over. With the mobilizations against the pensions reform, December has seen the return of more traditional forms of social movement, including the great marches from Place de la République to Place de la Nation in Paris.

Jean-Michel Denis, an expert on trade union mobilizations, emphasizes that “Here we find a mobilization taking up a classic workplace framework, in response to what is itself a classic type of reform.” For the sociologist, “At the formal level, we have national days of action, a more or less common front of the trade unions, large demonstrations and a series of [government] negotiations with trade union representatives.”

Yet the gilets jaunes mobilization — a movement which was, at first, notably marked by its distrust toward the trade unions — has radically changed the picture. The unions, for their part, are well-aware that huge expectations have been raised in terms of achieving social justice — and that it would be dangerous indeed to disappoint them.