When green issues split the Yellow Vests

Based on a sample survey, this article analyzes the relationship between Yellow vests and ecology. Our results show that Yellow vests have the same relationship to ecology as the rest of the population. They too, overwhelmingly believe in the climate change, but are deeply divided on the answers to be given and on the public policies to be implemented. Our survey also confirms the great social and political heterogeneity of the social movement and reveals the lack of homogeneity within it with regard to ecology. A statistical cluster approach makes it possible to go further and to identify a singularity of the movement since it has gathered both the most pro-ecological and the most anti-ecological segments of the population. This survey was carried out on the basis of a representative sample of 2,000 people registered on the electoral rolls of Occitania (France), including 243 who participated in the mobilization of the Yellow vests. It exploits items relating to the perception of climate change, practices considered as environmentally-friendly, polarizing measures in terms of ecology and the possibility of voting for the French Green party, Europe Ecologie-Les Verts.