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The mobilization of intermittents in the entertainment sector in France

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French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

This article proposes to analyze the success of a mobilization that had all the bearings of being highly unlikely – that of the Intermittents du spectacle in France. These contract workers from the live entertainment sector succeeded in overcoming various obstacles and, more importantly, in turning a supposed weakness into a strength. On the one hand, the intermittents availed of key (financial, cultural and political) resources and established social networks that allowed them to initiate collective action. On the other, the intermittents found a way to organize and to act collectively (in co-ordination) despite the fact that they came from very diverse backgrounds.

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Notes

  1. Contract workers in this sector are often referred to as ‘les intermittents du spectacle’. The term refers to the irregular and contractual nature of work in this sector. Intermittents are also very often classified as ‘précaires’ (precarious workers), that is, people either living on the poverty line or workers who lack job security. This would be the situation for most, if not all, the intermittents in the entertainment industry. For practical purposes, the term ‘intermittents’ will be used throughout the article and without quotation marks.

  2. The ethnographic observation provided the groundwork for a doctoral thesis in sociology, completed at the University Paul-Verlaine in Metz (France) (Sinigaglia, 2008a).

  3. ‘Co-ordinations’ first appeared as such in the 1960s and were inspired by the principles of the libertarian (anarchist) and autonomous trends. A co-ordination is based on a preference for horizontal structures (that is non-hierarchical) over vertical (bureaucratic) structures and for direct forms of democracy (placed under the control of a sovereign general assembly) over all other forms of delegation of power (see, for example, Denis, 1996). I will come back to this point later in the article.

  4. Union nationale pour l’emploi dans l’industrie et le commerce: the body in charge of unemployment insurance.

  5. A cachet is a term used in the entertainment sector to refer to a work contract (generally of one day) and to the financial retribution corresponding to the work carried out.

  6. For a short overview of this cycle of protests from 1984 to 1997, see the study by Menger 2005.

  7. In the field of entertainment, this criterion of exceptionality is not taken into consideration. Employment is ‘by nature’ discontinuous, and CIDs would have no meaning in such a context.

  8. Anyone can be an artist.

  9. Employment survey 2005 (INSEEE, 2007).

  10. As Robert Castel (2003, p. 7) also notes, ‘l’existence de protections (sociales) dont on craint qu’elles ne puissent assumer complètement et continuellement leur tâche, participe également à la création du sentiment d’insécurité sociale qu’elles sont supposées pallier’.

  11. These types of indicators are often used to explain the ‘crisis’ of the trade union movement in France (Mouriaux, 1998).

  12. I will develop this point later in the article.

  13. Studies on the unemployed (Demazière and Pignoni, 1998), on declassed working classes (Beaud and Pialoux, 1999) or on suburban populations in blue-collar neighborhoods with high immigration rates (Masclet, 2003) have shown how economic and social destabilization seems to distance these people from all forms of political participation.

  14. Intermittents and journalists are ‘rival associates’ (Neveu, 1999). The intermittents often count on journalists to publicize their actions, but they criticize journalists when they do not.

  15. Mouvement des entreprises de France.

  16. Association pour l’emploi dans l’industrie et le commerce: the organisation that manages benefits for job applicants locally.

  17. These ‘tricks’ include declaring contracts during more favorable periods, not declaring badly paid jobs that would decrease the amount of unemployment benefits, buying a cachet when a few hours are missing to avail of benefits eligibility, paying out of pocket the employer part of the social contributions and so on.

  18. This is what Marx said about nineteenth century French peasants who he felt were incapable of acting collectively to defend their interests because they were only ‘the simple addition of homologous magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes’ (Marx, 1852, p. 171).

  19. The world of chamber music, for instance, is very different from that of popular music.

  20. Accusations include bureaucratic misuses, the appropriation of power by a few individuals, the non-circulation of information to ‘grassroots’ activists and so on.

  21. This is the point Jo Freeman (1972) makes in relation to feminist groups in the 1970s.

  22. On the objective and subjective foundations of political competences, see, for instance, the study by Daniel Gaxie (1978).

  23. The CIP-IDF was the largest and most influential co-ordination of the intermittents’ movement in 2003. It was set up in a few days following the signing of the 26 June agreement. It is made up of a majority of intermittents – most having no experience in activism – of professional activists and of precarious workers who dedicate most of their time to activism.

  24. On movements’ impact, see the studies by Gamson (1975), Kitschelt (1986), Giugni (1995, 1998) and Mathieu (2004).

  25. This is the case even if public authorities’ recognition is quite tenuous and linked to the movement's strength (Sinigaglia, 2009).

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Acknowledgements

I thank Frédéric Royall for his help in the preparation of this article.

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  1. Laboratoire lorrain de sciences sociales (2L2S/ERASE) – EA 3478 Université Paul-Verlaine de Metz, Ile du Saulcy, 57 000 METZ, France

    Jérémy Sinigaglia

  2. Groupe de sociologie politique européenne (GSPE/PRISME) – CNRS UMR 7012, Institut d’études politiques de Strasbourg, MISHA, 5 alleé du général Rouvillois, CS 50008-F, Strasbourg, 67083, France

    Jérémy Sinigaglia

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Sinigaglia, J. The mobilization of intermittents in the entertainment sector in France. Fr Polit 7, 294–315 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2009.22

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