Towards the end of the 1980s, it seemed to most that the end of the exception française, or French exceptionalism, had come. Irreconcilable ideological divides, with the inevitable internal conflicts they caused, were losing in intensity, while popular participation in politics and unionism was clearly on the wane.

Thus the emergence of a strong protest movement against globalization in the 1990s came as somewhat of a surprise, as much for social commentators as for the participants in the movement themselves. It seems to contradict this kind of “end of history” à la française, i. e. the consensus on regular democratic alternation between Right and Left and, especially, on the market economy.

Does this protest movement represent a return to French exceptionalism or is it merely a symptom of the difficulties that a society facing the challenges of globalisation is experiencing?
The aim of this paper is to answer these questions by analyzing first, in chapter one, the major characteristics of the French protest movement (its history, the different categories of groups and their basic demands). In the second chapter, the analysis moves to the impact of the movement on political debate and decision-making.