Générer des applaudissements lors de conférences de presse tenues par le mouvement des sans-papiers

Résumé

On the occasion of a protest movement, launched in Fribourg, Switzerland, in 2001 by immigrants without residence permits – the "sans-papiers (undocumented)" – and their supporters constituted a hybrid setting, a mix between press conferences and demonstration/political actions. Most notably, the setting implied an important number of supporters attending the press conference as part of the audience. In contrast to journalists, who have an obligation of "neutrality", the supporters were expected to express their approbation at the end of the hosts' official interventions publicly, thus, enforcing the protest movement's democratic legitimacy. This paper offers detailed analyses of the different ways the speakers closed their interventions, and reveals that some types of closings engender an immediate and unequivocal manifestation of approbation by the supporters, most notably those composed by a more than minimal acknowledgement, whereas others have difficulties in mobilizing an approving response. The different accomplishments of the closing thus have an impact on the movement's capacity to constitute its members publicly and to be recognized by others, as members of a legitimate protest movement.