Feelings of Hardship and Anxiety for Contentious Politics:Economic Crisis and the Unemployed Youth in France

This chapter aims to disentangle the complex relationship between the situation of being unemployed in times of economic crisis and the political mobilization of young people in France. In particular, we aim to put under intense scrutiny the process that-through unemployment-links psychological motivations to the decision to engage with politics, and to contentious action in particular. Previous chapters have already considered that the economic crisis may provide crucial motivations for collective mobilization against what are considered to be the intolerable costs of capitalism and labor market inequality. Here we argue that, beyond a stronger sense of acting for the just cause, these motivations should also consider the potential role of more ‘immediate’ feelings such as those pre-existing before the mediation of collective politics into streets and squares. In particular, we single out the role of economic hardship and anxiety, as these motivations are likely to come before other motivations can emerge, for example in terms of affective ties being built among protesters in occasion of collective action.