Les mobilisations socio-territoriales : le Larzac, une cause en mouvement ; Socio-territorial mobilizations: Larzac, a cause in motion

Abstract

On 12th August, 1999, peasant trade-unionists dismantled the construction site of a McDonald's restaurant in Millau, Aveyron. Among these activists, José Bové, organizer of the ewe milk producers' trade-union (SPLB) and of the Confederation paysanne, became one of the leaders of the emerging altermondialiste mobilization in France. Through this action, the Larzac came back to the political and social foreground, thirty years after a protest movement against the extension project of a military camp had been led by local peasants concerned by this governmental decision. In the south of France, the Larzac territory is a mountainous causse, a limestone plateau with a hostile climate. In the seventies, it was the melting pot of many protest actors engaged in antimilitarist, antinuclear, self-managing and regionalist struggles. The question is to know why the Larzac has generated such socio-territorial mobilizations, at various moments. Indeed, the Larzac can be regarded as the focal point of protest movements that still refer to this initial conflict, to such an extent that the Larzac may appear as a model. This work explains the forms and processes of mobilization - debates and converging causes - that have developed in this nodal and strategic place. From an inquiry on struggles in the Larzac, especially on their actualisation and organisational anchorage, as well as on special events, this work shows that the Larzac must be seen as an iterative protest site invested by activist experiences and specific values, such as authenticity. The analysis of the Larzac actors' discursive strategies underlines the double mechanism of physical and rhetorical appropriation of place. This process results in the constitution of the Larzac as a sacred place of contention and as a model for other mobilizations. The territorial dimension must therefore be considered through its identity and instrumental forms. Research on the motives for protest, on the repertoire of collective action and on the bridging strategies of these ...