Commune de Paris et Commune des ronds-points

Abstract

What role did the Paris Commune play in the atypical mobilisation of the "yellow vests" in France which started in November 2018? If we stick to its occurrences in the mobilisation, it remained limited compared to that of the French Revolution. If we turn to historians, the comparison would not hold. The spectre of 1871 nevertheless returned in the discourse of a marginal part of the "yellow vests" movement around the "assembly of assemblies" initiated at Commercy, in the Meuse. The Paris Commune, in particular its federative project, was then the metonymy of a communalist aspiration for an anti-capitalist and anti-state reorganisation of society, inspired in particular by the North American anarchist Murray Bookchin. And the "yellow vests" movement can be seen as a Commune of roundabouts. To grasp this evanescent, partial and yet insistent presence of the Paris Commune among the "yellow vests", it would be useful to think in terms of "afterlife", as Aby Warburg has invited us to do in terms of art.

Keywords

• Paris Commune
• Yellow vests
• Bookchin
• Communalism
• afterlife
• Warburg