The French Antiglobalization Movement: A New French Exception?

Summary:

On the antiglobalization agenda, two of the big demonstrations scheduled this year in 2003 will happen in France: one during the G8 summit in Evian in June and the other during the ESF, the European Social Forum in Paris and Saint-Denis in October- November. These events will certainly lure big crowds, exactly like in Genoa in July 2001 (G8 Summit) or in Florence in November 2002 (ESF). They remind us that France is one of the homeland and a leader of the antiglobalization movement. Everyone knows its heroes: the farmer José Bové or the pro-Tobin Tax association ATTAC, the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens.

The French government has announced that civil society would be closely associated to the preparation and the work of the G8 summit and that it would support financially if necessary the organization of the ESF. We can wonder if there is only one voice in France about globalization which would be rather opposed to this process: an official voice promoting a globalization with a human face, and a civil society voice emphasizing another globalization and another form of global governance. Are Bové and Chirac fighting for the same cause? And is Chirac a “Bové with an official face”?

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