The Antitax Movement in France in the 1970s Alexis Spire In his landmark book devoted to ways of protests and to the repertoire of collective actions, Charles Tilly demonstrates that tax rebellions were constantly a source of unrest in rural France during the Ancien Régime and after the French revolution. 1 However, what seems to be a French historical continuity reflects very different social structures under different historical regimes. The antitax movements vary according to the type of organizations that represent them (political parties, unions, or taxpayer organizations) but moreover according to the social classes. In this respect, the term "tax revolt," which is often used to talk about people's hostility toward the fiscal state, could be misleading as it implicitly attributes tax revolt to the grassroots people, or at least to the social class in conflict with the ruling power. In order not to limit the analysis to the working class, it would be better to use the expression "tax resistance," which includes every type of overt antitax complaints. Whereas most scholars explain fiscal revolts by the political and social conditions surrounding actions of individuals, 2 this article links the "repertoires of collective actions" 3 to antitax movements and the response of the state's civil servants. 4 As a result, the fact that violence against the French tax administration waned should not be interpreted as the sign of a general consent but rather of a transformation of tax resistance itself. Whereas in the nineteenth century, most tax protests hoped to undermine the ruling power, tax resistance that continued at the end of the twentieth century aimed more at influencing tax policies than casting doubt on tax payment per se. Therefore, tax resistance should not only be analyzed as a strict rebellion against the state: 5 First and foremost, its goal is to negotiate tax