Les Insoumis ‘saucepan protest’ goes back centuries

“Since they’re ruining our dreams, we’ll ruin their sleep,” said leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, calling for his followers, known as les Insoumis, to carry out casserolade protests at a speech on September 23. A casserolade consists of groups of people banging noisily on pans in the street.

As it turned out, the call to action was not well followed, with only small bands of ‘saucepanners’ turning up to make a noise last Saturday in front of the Assemblée Nationale in Paris as well as in the centre of Marseille and in other cities such as Lyon and Grenoble (the biggest group was in Mélenchon's own constituency of Marseille, where around 100 took part).

The government responded saying casserolades were associated with the supporters of either populist politician Poujade or those who toppled Chilean Socialist president Salvador Allende. (Pierre Poujade was a mid-20th century politician known for racist views and protests against tax and ‘élites’ on behalf of small businesses; Allende was ousted by a US-backed right-wing military coup.)

In fact however the tradition goes back much further, with similar noisy protests being part of the ‘charivari’ tradition in the Middle Ages, where people would bang on household items to mock, for example, an older man who married a woman that people thought was too young for him.

As a specifically political protest it goes back at least to the days of the ‘July Monarchy’ period of King Louis Philippe (1830-48) when it was used by Republicans to protest against the regime.