Director of research emeritus at the CNRS and specialist in youth, sociologist Olivier Galland believes that only part of the youth is demonstrating today against the pension reform. But the mobilization, even if it is not massive, shows the weakening of representative democracy in the eyes of a significant part of the under 25s.
How do you analyze the participation of young people in the movement against pension reform? Little present at the start of the mobilization, they have swelled the processions since the use of article 49.3 of the Constitution to have the reform adopted, Thursday, March 16.
The mobilization of young people does not seem massive to me, if we compare it to other movements such as the one against the CPE [contrat première embauche], as we have been doing for some time. In 2006, the demands affected young people in a specific way and there were more of them on the streets than at the moment. Today, the question of pensions is in reality not very mobilizing for the under 25s, but there is an opportunist transplant to bring other societal demands.
Rather than “the young people”, I prefer to speak of “the young people”, because it is not all the young people who demonstrate but only a part. If we take the typology that we defined with Marc Lazar [professeur émérite d’histoire et de sociologie politique à Sciences Po] In our survey on “a plural youth” in February 2022 [pour l’Institut Montaigne], two types of youth are demonstrating today. Those who can be called the “rebellious” (22% of our panel), on the one hand, and the “protesting democrats” (39% of our panel), on the other. But, we must not forget all this disengaged youth and very far from political concerns.
Who are these “rebels” and these “protest democrats” and what do they represent?
They have both commonalities and major differences. Schematically, the rebels advocate a radical change in society. A majority do not believe in the usefulness of voting and they have a high degree of acceptance of political violence. Sociologically, they are rather uncomfortable in society with material difficulties and strong precariousness. A small part of the school elite joins it. These graduates, often from the best schools, believe that politicians have betrayed their mandate, particularly on environmental issues, and want to change the system.
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