Understanding the protest movements against the COVID-19 public policy in France as a moral panic

This chapter examines the emergence and development of sudden and widespread protest movements against the COVID-19 public policy in France. Following Goode and Ben-Yehuda's incorporation of the moral panics concept into social movements studies, we combine a "grassroots model" with a "middle-level model" to explain how these protests involved a wide range of socially and ideologically diverse individuals, rather than a small number of radical extremists. Drawing on field observations in protests, biographical interviews with protesters, media coverage and a sample of activists' Facebook pages, our study reveals two key findings. First, we show how various moral entrepreneurs and grassroots activists were able to attract a broad audience by using moral and consensual boundaries, such as civil liberties, bodily autonomy and opposition to authoritarianism, to expose threats to society's well-being. Second, we highlight how the then fading Yellow Vest movement acted as a mobilizing structure for many activists and facilitated the spread of fear and outrage through its extensive use of Facebook. These findings suggest that the moral panic toolbox seems well suited to the study of movements usually described as "street-level", "leaderless," and "multicentric" that emerge in context of new kinds of anxieties about biopolitical issues, such as health scares.