“We’re not stooges, fill-ins, or window dressing,” says Almamy Kanouté, who lives in the Groux neighbourhood of Fresnes in the southern suburbs of Paris. He is a campaigner with the Comité Adama – which works for justice after the death of Adama Traoré in police custody in 2016 – and the local representative body the Assemblée des quartiers. As an activist who fights against injustice, Almamy Kanouté says he is “ready to block everything” for the planned September 10th protest in France. But he does not want people from working-class districts who take part just to be confined to the role of “good followers, good soldiers” who “simply follow the struggle”.

The place of citizens from working class and multi-ethnic neighbourhoods in the September 10th mobilisation remains one of the protest’s weak points, according to many people to whom Mediapart has spoken. However, this day of “shutting everything down”, which is a response to the tough budget proposed by François Bayrou and his government, is nonetheless attracting support in many working-class towns, encouraged by some lively public meetings. On September 1st, in Saint-Denis in the northern suburbs of Paris, some hastily-made handwritten notes, scrawled in highlighter and signed “Bloquons tout” (‘let’s block everything’), promoted a meeting near the “pont de l’écluse”, a local lock bridge. The footbridges across the nearby Saint-Denis canal were also decked out with banners calling for the country to be shut down.