Is it harder to protest the G-20?

Several thousand protesters gathered today in the city of Nice to protest the upcoming G-20 meeting in nearby Cannes. Protesters reportedly came from France, the UK, Spain, Mexico and Belgium. The delegation from nearby Italy apparently did not make it, possibly because of restrictions imposed at the border, part of a broad French effort to stifle mass protests and prevent violence:

France is desperate to avoid a repeat of violence at the opening of the European Union summit in Nice in 2000, when riot police and around 50,000 anti-capitalism protesters fought in the streets.

The whole of Cannes is expected to be cordoned off. Extraordinary security measures will involve most of the town’s 4,000 manhole covers soldered shut and airborne spy cameras deployed. Petrol stations around Cannes and Nice will be closed, and local hospitals have cancelled non-urgent surgery in preparation for a possible influx of patients.

Cannes was chosen as the venue for the summit specifically because it is easy for police to seal off.

Many of the protesters at today’s march sported Robin Hood hats and denounced global capitalism and austerity measures. At least from a distance, it all looked familiar to the demonstrations that have become routine fare in recent years at meetings of the G-7, G-8, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank.

But there’s a critical difference of course. Those protesting the G -7 and G-8 could plausibly claim to be railing against an elite and unrepresentative club taking decisions that affected the world as a whole. Ditto for the IMF and World Bank, where large voting shares afford the United States and the European countries an effective veto over the activities of both organizations.

In theory, the G-20 should be a harder target. Its members account for about 90 percent of the world’s gross national product and more than two-thirds of its population. It includes major developing economies such as India, Brazil, China and Mexico. Internally, the G-20 tries to operate by consensus and gives its most powerful members no special voting rights. 

At the very least, the new representativeness of the world’s leading economic and financial forum seems to demand a shift in the protest message: away from the illegitimacy of the forum and toward substantive criticism of policies the group endorses. For all but the most hardened anarchists, then,  the protests should be about pressuring the G-20, not opposing its existence.

To be fair, some of those at today’s march seemed to recognize that the new summit architecture changes things:

“It’s a very different beast from the G8,” said Mark Freid, head of public policy at Oxfam Canada. “Because of its broader scope, the G20 has a more frank recognition of the problems affecting the world such as poverty and food shortages.”

But for the most part, the professional protest movement seems to have rather seamlessly incorporated the G-20 into the web of institutions it rejects.