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Louis. He noted that journalism is one of the most

closed professions in Europe, accessible mostly to

children of the upper middle class. Last winter, a

French TV crew was assaulted by a group of Yel-

low Vest protesters in Rouen, a town not far from

Amiens. Such attacks had become increasingly

common. Afterward, in a gesture of self-critique,

Libération, the most left-leaning of mainstream

newspapers in France, conducted an internal

survey: among 112 of its reporters, 81 had at least

one parent in the highest income bracket. About

90 percent of the journalists who appeared on TV

were upper middle class. ‘‘Journalists don’t need to

be ordered to like Macron,’’ Eribon told me. ‘‘They

recognize themselves in him, they come from the

same milieus. They campaigned for him.’’

At the panel, Eribon continued on the topic

of the Yellow Vests: ‘‘How do you expect journal-

ists to understand, to have a sort of spontaneous

sympathy for these people?’’ The journalists

come from a country where the ‘‘people’’ are

entrepreneurs and C.E.O.s of start-ups; sudden-

ly, they were faced with a group of people with

a vocabulary, a language, a mode of expression

out of reality TV. ‘‘German newspapers published

the fact that the Yellow Vests were anti-Semitic,’’

Eribon went on. They all carried the story of the

well-known French Jewish intellectual, Alain

Finkielkraut, who had been assaulted on a side-

walk during a protest last February. Someone in a

yellow vest called him a ‘‘dirty Zionist [expletive],’’

and told him to ‘‘go back to Tel Aviv.’’ In July, one

of the harassers was sentenced to two months in

jail for hate speech. But Finkielkraut himself has

a long history of complaining about the ‘‘culture’’

of Muslim immigrants, arguing that ‘‘the colonial

project sought to educate, to bring civilization to

savages.’’ Most recently, he lamented that no one

from the banlieues came out to mourn the death of

the French rock star Johnny Hallyday — a litmus

test, he said, for being French. Finkielkraut hosts

a program on one of France’s most prestigious

radio channels and is a member of the Académie

Française. He has never been to jail.

‘‘Alain Finkielkraut is a racist ideologue who

has a radio show every Saturday morning to

which he invites every racist and fascist that

France has to off er — members of the extreme

right, even anti-Semites,’’ Eribon said. ‘‘I’m not

saying that you shouldn’t criticize. But it seems

to me that if you criticize the one, then you also

criticize the other, who is on the radio every Sat-

urday morning for 35 years.’’

Louis, Eribon and de Lagasnerie are united in

putting pressure on politicians and policies that

go against working-class interests, upholding

what they feel is a long-abandoned social cri-

tique from the left. In December French railway

workers, in response to pension reforms pro-

posed by Macron, began what would become the

longest transport strike in French history; they

were soon joined by teachers and lawyers. Amid

extraordinary scenes of ballet dancers perform-

ing in protest and fi refi ghters clashing with the

riot police that lined the intersections, the three

writers were in the streets, posing for photos,

chins raised. They donated money to participants

in the strike, they appeared with local leftist pol-

iticians and, of course, they wrote.

Reforms to retirement plans were, the three

argued, one element of a larger, decades-long

push to dismantle the country’s hard-won social

protections. But it was a particularly telling devel-

opment, they believed — proof, if more were need-

ed, that contemporary France had lost its way:

‘‘There is undoubtedly nothing more effi cient for

understanding how the social world works than,

quite simply, to look at who dies before whom,’’

Louis posted on Twitter. ‘‘We forget it too often:

Politics is a question of life and death.’’ 

67

SPELLING BEE

Evocative, vocative (3 points each). Also: Activate, active,

aviate, avocet, caveat, civet, civic, covet, evict, evictee,

te, vitiate, vivace, voice, octave, octavo, ovate, vaca

votive. If you found other legitimate dictionary words in

the beehive, feel free to include them in your score.

KENKEN

HEX NUTS TRIPLE TREASURE

D I

E A

A B

B T

Y R

E

S

D

O P

R S

Y O

T R

T B

O A

S D

C S

I

E

L D

R D

ESA A

3

2

4

5 3

5 3 3

4

Answers to puzzles of 3.29.20

Answers to puzzle on Page 68

KODAK RUBS COB LICIT

AL I EN ERAT ENO FUTURE

YESNO AGREEDTO L I STEN

TELLLEFTFROMRIGHT

SQUA L I D T I P OP I O I DS

OU R S V E A L S CO L D TNU T

BIB TEARED FEINT GNU

DISH LAGUNA SNOWDEN

BAPESBODICESWOODW

L AME S L E X EME S HOG H

AGRANADA INADAZE I

CETSCONCHESTONI T

KTASKADVERSEADESE

BONE S AW SNA I L S E S PN

AR F SUSAN SOLOED OOF

WI F I CYANS NA L A I NTO

SOANDSO KON AVENGE R

SPOTTHED I F FERENCE

BAHAMA IDITAROD DOBBY

ADOR E R L L C DANA EMOT E

MO T T S L Y E E T S Y D E B U T

ACROSTIC

A. Chalkboard

B. Egosurf

C. Cartouche

D. Ephesus

E. Lifehack

F. Insight

G. Advantage

H. Webdings

I. Alpha-Bits

J. Titleist

K. Sargasso

L. Ordain

M. Nosferatu

N. Slant-top

O. Elapid

P. Metadata

Q. Irish ale

R. Cedilla

S. Oswald

T. Linotype

U. Off-script

V. Nastygram

CECELIA WATSON, SEMICOLON — Garamond’s
semicolon is ... aggressive, and elegant, its lower half a
cobra’s head arced back to strike.... Palatino’s is a thin
flapper in a big hat slouched against the wall at a party.

... Didot’s puffs its chest out pridefully.

KEEP THE CHANGE

Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined

box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as indicated in the box.

A 5x5 grid will use the digits 1–5. A 7x7 grid will use 1–7.

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