This paper investigates the Yellow Vests movement and the extent it constitutes an original platform for resistance to a sustainability transition agenda in the French context. The movement represents a disruption to global climate mitigation solutions that are often formalized at a global scale, and illustrates cultural and economic constraints in providing social justice in the age of climate change. Using a cultural performative approach, this case study reveals the relevance of framing and cultural analyses to understand such resistance. This qualitative exploration initiates a narrative analysis to assess how the universal resolve of the 2015 Paris Conference and the related legitimacy of the sustainability discourse has been further contested by the Yellow Vests and their fractured framing. From the ‘end of the world’ to the ‘end of the month’, we investigate the rise and fall of the legitimacy of the French sustainability discourse by analysing politicians’ and activists’ speeches, historical narratives as well as visual materials of resistance in France in the context of sustainability transitions. Tip of a broader social crisis, the movement reveals an original conflict of temporalities, symptomatic of the inevitable interdependency of socio-economic inequalities to sustainability transitions. Beyond the resistance itself, the Yellow Vests embody an original exemplar for the importance of cultural appropriation within the sustainability discourse’ legitimation processes.

本文研究了黄色背心运动及其构成在法国背景下抵制可持续发展议程的原始平台的程度。该运动代表了对通常在全球范围内正式化的全球缓解气候变化解决方案的破坏，并说明了在气候变化时代提供社会正义方面的文化和经济制约因素。本案例研究采用文化表演方法，揭示了构架和文化分析对于理解这种抵制的相关性。这项定性探索开始了叙事分析，以评估2015年巴黎会议的普遍决心和可持续性话语的相关合法性如何被黄背心及其破碎的框架进一步挑战。从世界末日从“到月末”，我们通过分析可持续发展转型背景下法国政客和激进分子的讲话，历史叙述以及抵抗的视觉材料，来研究法国可持续发展话语合法性的兴衰。该运动揭示了更广泛的社会危机的先兆，体现了时间上的原始冲突，这是社会经济不平等与可持续发展过渡不可避免的相互依存的征兆。除了抵抗本身之外，“黄背心”还体现了原始范例，即在可持续发展话语的合法化过程中文化专用的重要性。