Antoine’s research on #saccageparis receives attention amidst mayoral campaign

As the battle for Paris mayor raged in early 2026, Antoine’s research on local social movement #saccageparis received attention from several French media outlets.

Since 2021, the digital movement has been very vocal in its criticism of the previous mayor Anne Hidalgo’s ambitious green agenda, which had media wondering the role the movement could play in the 2026 campaign, which saw the victory of Hidalgo’s designated heir Emmanuel Grégoire.

Antoine was first interviewed in the leading Parisian daily, Le Parisien, where he develops the concept of ‘bourgeois populism’ through which he has increasingly come to see the movement: actors who belong to the socio-economic elite but who make use of the populist repertoire. His two other media interventions on France24 and LCP, the French parliamentary channel, provide commentary on the movement’s origins, composition, and strategy going forward.

In all three interventions, Antoine sought to identify both democratic promises, and limitations, of the #saccageparis movement. On the one hand, the activists were ordinary citizens who found in social media (and particularly Twitter) a venue in which to voice discontent against a municipal power they saw as gone rogue. On the other hand, it says something of social media’s logics that their popular affordances are most astutely used by elite actors.

This research was conducted as part of his PhD dissertation, which is accessible here. He hopes to publish an academic article based on this research in coming months, focusing on the paradox of ‘bourgeois populism,’ i.e. the use of social media’s popular affordances by elite actors such as #saccageparis activists.