Gilets noirs


The Black vests or Black jackets is a French activist organization mostly composed of undocumented immigrants. The group campaigns for the provision of administrative documents for all immigrants, as well as decent housing and living conditions. The Gilets noirs arose partly in response to perceived racist, anti-immigrant, and pro-fascist sentiment among the Yellow vests movement.

Founding and goals

The Black vests movement started in November 2018 in Île-de-France.
It is made up of people who self-identify as "immigrants with or without papers, children of immigrants, allies of the cause, housed and unhoused people", mostly based in the "Foyers de travailleurs migrants", high density social housing for immigrant workers. They gained public attention in July 2019, when they jointly occupied the Panthéon with the La Chapelle Debout collective, and the Droits devant ! association, to demand a meeting with then-Prime Minister Édouard Philippe to make their demands heard. The groups called this action "Black vests looking for the Prime Minister", and it was the subject of an editorial in the daily newspaper Libération.
The movement's demands include: collective regularisation of their legal status in France, access to decent, safe and healthy housing, the end of deportations and deportation orders, the end of exploitative off-the-books employment, and freedom of movement & residence. Since France introduced movement restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black vests have also denounced unsanitary conditions in and the impossibility of social distancing there, particularly by organising a rent strike to force property managers to disinfect homes and provide residents with cleaning and hygiene supplies.

Timeline of the collective's actions

The Black vests have been publicly endorsed by numerous organizations, including ACT UP-Paris, Paris & suburbs anti-fascist action, the Asso Solidaires union, Femmes Plurielles, the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, the Mwasi Collective, and the association of Maghrebi workers in France.
Elected officials, including MP Éric Coquerel, Paris city councilmember David Belliard, and Senator Esther Benbassa, have also expressed support for the collective.