New Zealand Listener – June 08, 2019

24 LISTENER JUNE 8 2019

with an absolute majority. At the same time,

the two rounds of the presidential election

left Macron winning 66% of the vote against

Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right, anti-

immigrant National Rally.

Macron seemed a young, vigorous

reformist and he enjoyed huge approval

ratings. But it was soon clear that he was

something like a French version of Tony

Blair. He was telegenic and young, with a

firm commitment to the European Union,

but he was also a neo-liberal dedicated

to encouraging business, easing up on

corporate taxation and, if possible, saving

money on social services. He was soon

criticised for failing to revive France’s tax

on the very wealthy, the ISF, which had been

abolished under the previous president,

François Hollande.

Within months of his election, Macron’s

party lost seats in France’s upper house, the

Senate, and his approval ratings slid. They

were not helped by the condescending

manner Macron sometimes adopts in public

appearances. Nor by the rates of unemploy-

ment in France that remain at nearly 9%,

worse than all but three EU countries.

Macron’s first response to the gilets

jaunes was a promise to raise pensions and

lower taxes for low-income earners. His

GEsecond was to launch a “grand debate” in

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an attempt to forge “a new social contract”

with the nation. Ending only in April, this

saw Macron spend more than two months

attempting to connect with people outside

Paris. He visited small towns, holding public

meetings with mayors to sound out local

concerns. Opponents dismissed this as a

personal charm offensive, and the campaign

has done little to revive his popularity in the

polls. The gilets jaunes have not gone away.

After the Notre-Dame fire, they complained

that Macron could find funds to rebuild the

cathedral, but couldn’t find the money for

their social needs. Macron’s response was to

announce he would cut lower- and middle-

income tax by €5 billion. He also suggested

that he would reform the École nationale

d’administration, France’s university for

bureaucrats and budding party leaders.

Populists often see it as crushingly elitist.

A TIDE OF RASLEBOL

A disturbing aspect of the gilets jaunes is

that their “programme” is so vague – tax the

rich, smash the bankers, down with Parisian

elites – that it can appeal to populists of

either extreme right or extreme left.

During the marches, the protesters gener-

ally rally around the French Tricolour, but

hammer-and-sickle flags, gay-pride-rainbow

flags and the red-yellow-purple flag of the

Spanish republic (a symbol of left-wing

activism) are also flown. Flags alone sug-

gest there are various causes and political

persuasions, both right and left, in the gilets

jaunes mix.

Then there are the slogans painted on

banners. Many are directed at Macron or

“Macron and the 40 CAC thieves” as one

banner read. CAC is a measure of the 40

richest companies listed on the French stock

exchange, so this was a jab at Macron as the

perceived friend of plutocrats. Some slogans

call for the reinstatement of the wealth tax,

but most are generic populist statements

such as “Citizen, not slave”, or the Victor

Hugo quotation, “It’s the hell of the poor

that makes the heaven of the rich,” or even

“Pend ton banquier” (Hang your banker).

The gilets jaunes protests have so far been

free of overt anti-immigrant sentiment,

unlike recent marches in Germany, Italy and

Spain. However, Le Pen sought to rally right-

wing gilets jaunes to her cause for the EU

elections and in mid-February, in Paris, the

French-Jewish intellectual Alain Finkielkraut

was reportedly surrounded by the protesters

yelling anti-Semitic insults.

At the opposite end of the political

spectrum, left-wing politician Jean-Luc

Mélenchon was prepared to welcome

gilets jaunes into a unified list with his La

France Insoumise party for the EU elections.

However, most are opposed to engaging in

electoral politics. The very few gilets jaunes

candidates who stood for the European

Parliament failed to reach the threshold for

election, but it is possible that the votes of

many in the movement helped boost Le

Pen’s party, which outpolled Macron’s to

become the largest French contingent in

Brussels.

Another concern about the gilets jaunes

is their demand for so-called direct democ-

racy in the form of referenda. But regular

prejudicial referenda have been a favoured

tool of dictators and demagogues, not of

democracies.

As yet, this is still a movement without

a clear leader. Should one emerge and real

policies be formulated, the movement could

rapidly disintegrate into left and right and

then tear itself apart.

The gilets jaunes phenomenon is a

social upheaval. But in the end, it is not a

revolution – more an ongoing tide of ras-

le-bol. l

Nicholas Reid is an Auckland writer

and historian.

Disturbingly,

“progamme” is so vague

• tax the rich, smash the

bankers – that it could

appeal to populists

of either extreme.

Within months of his

election, Macron’s

party lost seats and

his approval ratings

slid, not helped by his

condescending manner.

Casseurs: small groups

from the far right and

far left have attached

themselves to the

gilets jaunes protests.

FURY IN FRANCE