In July, some 700 undocumented migrants, mostly men from Africa, ran into one of Paris’ most famous structures, the Panthéon, and sat down on its stone floor.

Tourists were ushered from the tombs of famous figures in French history — Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Marie Curie — and taken outside. For the next hours, under the building’s echoing dome, protesters took turns making speeches and chanting about their right to the famous French values of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

“Why not give us legal status? Why not try to do something for us? Why humiliate us? Why do you ignore us? We are not objects. We are people like you,” one undocumented man said through a microphone as protesters fanned out on the floor around him, waving slips of paper and cheering.

“Our grandparents fought for France. … We’re not hiding anymore,” said another.

The men were part of a new movement called the gilets noirs, or “black vests.” The group of around 1,500 activists began to coalesce early this year, naming themselves after the gilets jaunes, or yellow vests, whose protests against declining prospects for the French working class were rocking the country.