Campaign or ‘Movement of Movements'?

Much has been written on the Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Aid to Citizens (Attac) and its pivotal role in the emergence of the French altermondialiste (or ‘alter-globalization’) movement in the late 1990s. Particular scrutiny has been given to the study of Attac's role as both a civil society organization and a platform of convergence for various French social movement actors and organizations through a shared critique of neoliberal globalization. If we look at Attac's founding statutes, we notice that the organization's original purpose was to promote an international tax on currency transaction taxes (CTT) ¹ and financial capital movements in order to put ‘sand in the wheels’ of international finance. This chapter, through an examination of the Tobin Tax campaign in France and its impact on policy assessment and practice, attempts to explain why Attac rapidly became more than it had initially been intended to be. Through reference to research on political opportunity structures, ² it is argued that the CTT question in France is inseparable from Attac and that its appearance on the French political agenda was the product of a triple convergence between Attac, mainstream politics and public opinion, a junction whose point of convergence was neoliberal globalization.