Nuit debout et l’épineuse question du leader. Retour sur une expérience vécue

In this chapter, Manuel Cervera-Marzal proposes to analyze one of the most obvious expressions of this relationship to the policy expressed at Nuit Debout: the rejection of all forms of leadership and the continuous affirmation of an attachment to horizontality. Nuit Debout was built around an ambition often stated in General Assembly or commissions: to give life, here and now, to a true, direct and horizontal democracy. Neither the media, in the frenetic search for a leader and "good customers", nor the iron law of the oligarchy expertly brandished by the commentators, nor the delegated reflexes interiorized for years have yielded the movement in his mistrust of the leaders. The author examines the costs incurred by this refusal, the difficulties encountered to remain faithful to this principle and the mechanisms that allowed media figures not to be imposed on citizens, firmly committed to the preservation of the (simple) word of profane citizenship.