retake the roundabouts.
Over the past few days, videos and posts have been circulating on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram calling for the Yellow Vests to take to the streets again. One date in particular keeps cropping up: Saturday 17 October 2026. Rallies are being discussed in several towns and cities, and some former Yellow Vests are themselves beginning to spread the word. For the time being, no one can seriously predict the scale of the mobilisation. On 11 September, RTL pointed out that there was still no structured national organisation and that there remained a considerable gap between those expressing interest on social media and those actually confirming their participation.
But it would be a mistake to dismiss the phenomenon out of hand. For behind the hashtags and videos, the anger is rooted in some rather grim economic realities.
According to INSEE, French growth is expected to reach only **0.4 per cent in 2026**, whilst household purchasing power is set to fall by 0.4 per cent. Unemployment could reach 8.6 per cent by the end of the year and inflation is set to rise to around 3.1 per cent. At the same time, households are cutting back on spending and beginning to dip into their savings to maintain their level of consumption.
The Cofidis barometer published in early September paints an equally telling picture: 42 per cent of French people now rank purchasing power as their top concern, 61 per cent believe that inflation is having a significant impact on their finances, and 54 per cent still expect their purchasing power to fall over the next twelve months. Above all, 84 per cent say they have noticed the rise in fuel prices.
And this is precisely where the parallel with 2018 becomes troubling.
We sometimes forget that the Yellow Vests movement did not arise from some grand ideological manifesto. It began with a terribly mundane question: how much does it cost to fill up the tank? Then fuel became the symbol of something much deeper. That of a peripheral France forced to rely on its cars, and of a section of the middle and working classes convinced that they are always paying more without ever really benefiting from the system.
Eight years on, the same dynamic could, in theory, play out again.
The sharp rise in energy prices, linked in particular to international tensions and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, has already forced the government to extend support measures for the most vulnerable sectors and to introduce a subsidy for certain workers who rely heavily on their cars. When a government itself begins to roll out a series of emergency measures on fuel, it is usually because it knows the issue is politically explosive.
Even the political vocabulary is changing. On 11 September, Fabien Roussel called on the French people, in the absence of swift action on energy prices, to take to the roundabouts and gather outside the seats of power ‘as in 2018’. For her part, Sophie Binet, general secretary of the CGT, speaks of “immense anger” and a “return to social decline”, whilst a day of strikes and demonstrations has already been announced for **29 September**.
However, there is a fundamental difference compared with 2018.
A genuine grassroots movement cannot be decreed.
Thousands of ‘likes’ do not necessarily translate into thousands of people at a roundabout. Social media today generates a huge number of virtual mobilisations that evaporate the moment people have to leave their homes. Calls for action on 17 October may therefore well generate a lot of noise but very few people.
Above all, the Yellow Vests of 2018 achieved something extremely rare: they momentarily brought together French people who did not vote the same way, did not come from the same political backgrounds and often did not belong to any trade union. It was precisely the absence of a leader, a party and a traditional organisation that gave them their power — and their unpredictability.
A ‘Yellow Vests V2’ movement that were immediately co-opted by political parties or confined to a traditional right-left divide would risk losing this uniqueness.
So perhaps the real question is not: ‘Will the Yellow Vests return?’
Rather, it is: **Has France once again reached a level of frustration where a relatively trivial event can provoke a totally disproportionate reaction?**
And on this point, the answer is far less reassuring.
Another rise in fuel prices. A new tax deemed absurd. A budgetary measure directly affecting the middle classes. A video going viral. A poorly managed police operation. Sometimes, major outbreaks of collective anger begin with almost nothing, because that ‘almost nothing’ happens at a time when everything else has already reached breaking point.
The government would therefore be making a serious mistake by looking solely at the number of protesters at the first rally. Back in November 2018, too, many initially regarded the Yellow Vests as a peripheral disturbance destined to fade away quickly.
We know how that turned out.
As of today, **12 September 2026**, it would be an exaggeration to claim that a new popular uprising is underway. However, there is a particularly favourable economic and social climate for one to emerge: purchasing power under pressure, high energy prices, concerns about employment, frustration with taxation and mistrust of institutions.
17 October may turn out to be nothing.
Or it could be one of those dates that you only really notice in hindsight.
Popular uprisings have this peculiarity: everyone sees them coming once they have already begun.
