Tactical Connecting and (Im-)Mobilizing in the French Boycott School Day Campaign and Anti-Gender Theory Movement

Abstract

Gay marriage movements have swept across much of the globe and each has had localized alliances of opposition. This chapter focuses on a splinter group from France’s anti-gay marriage movement La Manif Pour Tous (LMPT, Everyone’s Protest), the Boycott School Day Campaign, to analyze the rhetorical and technical-connective means by which this movement-imaginary cohered, became activated, and captured, in spurts, the field of political sensibility. It was organized through mobile phone databases and social media groups, where key nodes bridged otherwise disparate networks with common appeals, one of which was the “rumor bomb” claiming that the introduction of “gender theory” in primary schools included teaching children to masturbate. The chapter charts how these rumors were used to launch a niche public school boycott across France in 2014.