Documenting the Diffusion of the 2016 French Nuit Debout

Abstract

In the spring of 2016, France saw a major social movement, with strikes and demonstrations, and a new form of protest, the Nuit Debout. Following the Occupy Wall Street and Los Indignados models, open air assemblies started in Paris on March 31 and then 
spread throughout France and abroad. The dataset presented here provides the exhaustive list of Nuit Debout gatherings that took place in France in April 2016 and an estimation of their audience. The data was gathered by a small multidisciplinary team (geographers, historian and sociologist) who consulted three main sources: a wiki created by the Nuit Debout movement, Facebook pages and groups created by local assemblies, and the regional press. Combining these sources made it possible to identify 1300 assemblies that took place in 215 different locations. The dataset available online is provided with an R script that generates a dynamic map of the Nuit Debout diffusion.