Globalization and the collective action of the socially excluded in France: At the heart of the margins?

Abstract

This article examines the mobilizations of the socially excluded in France as they relate to issues of globalization. We consider the manner in which these "have-not" movements (the unemployed, the homeless, undocumented persons) became and continue to be mobilized around alter-globalization 1 issues in relation with a number of other social actors. We demonstrate how the building of the global space of protest in France was punctuated by two moments. 2 The first corresponds to the gradual convergence of social actors around the issue of globalization. This convergence was centered on a renewal of activists' discourses, the development of multiple scales of mobilizations and a functional division of tasks among the actors. The second moment corresponds more to the crystallization of divisions among the actors. These divisions are articulated around different conceptions of what the struggle's aims should be and stemmed from differences regarding the sense of belonging to the global space of protest. In the timeframe we are considering (mid-1990s to 2005), the history of convergence placed the have-nots at the heart of alter-globalist mobilizations (second part), whereas the history of divergence translated into a "decentering" of the place of the have-nots within this space (third part). Their progressive marginalization also reveals the transformations of struggles against globalization in France.