Throughout history, social uprisings and conflicts have be institutionalised within consultative bodies, where they have been simultaneously heard and stifled. Have recent unmediated struggles – from the Gilets Jaunes to Burkina Faso’s Balai Citoyen – used the rejection of negotiation and ‘social consultation’ as a deliberate tactic? In the face of anxiety, reformism and contempt for class, how have these battles been developing? And what can be learned from the historical examples of the German workers’ councils or the Forges de Clabecq?