Les déterminants de la mobilisation des Gilets jaunes

This paper presents the results of a geographic study of the first month of the “yellow vests” movement. This grassroots movement was organized at a local level but developed throughout France as soon as the protests began in November 2018. Using new Facebook data related to the movement, we show a strong geographic correlation between online involvement (on Facebook) and offline involvement (the blocked roundabouts). We precisely map the protests in France. Then, using data on roads where speed limits were lowered during the summer of 2018, and on the average commuting distance in French cities, we show that the topic of mobility is an important explanatory factor of the initial growth of the movement.