Richard Goldstein filed this piece the day before the French government rolled back the proposed fuel tax increases that have sparked protests throughout the country.
PARIS—Even in a country where protests are a ritual of ordinary life, the rise of the Yellow Vests feels unprecedented. For one thing, this movement was not organized by labor unions or the nationalist right, the usual marshals of demonstrations against the state.Those groups follow well-known rules of conduct, staging marches so peaceful that food is often sold along the route, and, though there is usually a violent sequel at night, when anarchists smash windows and spray paint over ATMs, the rhythm of such events is reassuring, since it constitutes a tribute to the flexibility of the Republic. Not so the Gilets Jaunes, or Yellow Vests.
This movement arose entirely on the internet, with an ideology that doesn’t hew to any party of the left or right. It’s agenda is quite concrete: to prevent the government from raising the tax on fuel, which has already been raised multiple times in recent years, and to secure the resignation of Emmanuel Macron, whose administration and its majority in the Assembly are backing the new levy. It comes at a time when taxes have been cut dramatically for the wealthy, resulting in a 12 percent rise in their assets during Macron’s 18 months in office. Meanwhile, the French middle and working classes have seen their buying power shrink and their incomes flatten. They pay taxes not only on gas, but also on their households, and on nearly everything they buy. (The current value-added tax on most purchases is about 20 percent.) Macron’s rationale for lowering corporate rates—that jobs will be created—has proven false, since the unemployment rate remains well above nine percent, and it’s 20 percent among the young. Raising an already high surcharge on fuel in order to sustain the environment is one thing, but doing so while enriching the rich and powerful seems remarkably obtuse, especially since, as OxFam points out, French banks have increased their investments in fossil fuels while reducing it for green energy. But the government has looked the other way, presenting an image of eco-sensitivity that appeals to prosperous liberal urbanites while letting the heartland fend for itself. Well, now it has.
More than anything, the people wearing yellow vests consider themselves de souches, or purely French. This is the same group that forms the solid core of Trump’s following: regional, rural, and less diverse than the rest of the country. As a result, many progressives here suspect that racism and xenophobia animate this movement, but so far there’s been no overt expression of those sentiments. What’s happened instead is that the right-wing National Front (or National Rally, as it’s rebranded itself) has leapt into the void created by the Socialists and Communists, who fret that fachos are stoking this rebellion, and by the center-right, which fears any assertion by the working class. And so, while left-wing champions echo the outrage of the Yellow Vests but avoid an overt endorsement, the nationalists have issued an invitation to the protesters: Your fight is our fight, they proclaim. The real danger is not that fascists are lurking in the shadows, but that these demonstrators, with good reason to be aggrieved, will support anyone who helps them get what they need—even the dreaded ultra right. That possibility resonates horribly with European history, but it also resounds with the spirit of Trump.
So far, the chaos hasn’t shaken the system. But most of the marauders in yellow vests—actually a chartreuse plastic garment that every car must contain for use in an emergency on the road—are new to the ways of protest, and they are unwilling to follow the rules that make such events manageable. They block traffic, prevent fuel deliveries, and, last Saturday, they turned the Champs Elysées into a farrago of tear gas and flames. The sight of enraged people digging out the paving stones while waving the tricolor flag is media catnip here. But the capital is not the locus of this rebellion. Protests, some of them riotous, have broken out in 1200 communities across France, with 280,000 participants at their peak, communicating exclusively online. As I write, three people have died and more than 700 have been injured in the melee. This spontaneous and unpredictable mutiny recalls the events of 1968, when a mass upheaval nearly toppled the government of Charles De Gaulle. It also resembles the Occupy Wall Street movement in its broad appeal. But there are several major differences. Those protests were led by young radicals, while the Yellow Vests are just plain French folks. Their rebellion is an extraordinary rebuke of Macron, because they affirm his reputation as “the president of the rich.” His first response to the uprising of the ordinary was to stiffen his well-tailored back. His prime minister grumbled about “sedition,” but widespread support for the demonstrators has forced the president to react. He’s proposed floating the tax hike so it can rise and fall with the changing price of oil, building a network of public transportation in underserved areas, and creating “committees of reflection” to address the impact of eco-friendly changes. “Green, but a little just,” sniffed the leftist daily Libération. But the underlying problem is the growing disparity of wealth that Macron’s policies have produced, and that issue has somehow escaped his notice.
He was always a neoliberal, a former banker who migrated from the Socialists to the center, and his haughty style has proven offensive to many voters. He is much more likely to hector working people than to schmooze with them, and he’s still living down his rebuke of a teenager who dared to address him by a nickname (manu), not to mention his 50,000-euro expenditure on new china. Then there’s the issue of his personal bodyguard, who barged through police lines to beat up anti-government demonstrators. The close bond between the president and the muscular thug has generated a whispered scandal about Macron’s sexuality. This is the kind of rumor that can be spread on bathroom walls, but cannot be openly addressed by the media, given the rules about discretion that govern discourse here. But It has soiled Macron like the stain on Monica Lewinksky’s dress.
Arrogance and the whiff of perversion are a bad combo for any politician, especially one who presides over a stagnant and inegalitarian economy. But the fateful question is bigger than Macron’s future. What does the rise of the Yellow Vests portend? Will they fade into the storied legacy of French rebellions, or will they lead to a return of the populist tendency that emerged here in the 1930s under the leadership of a crypto-fascist named Pierre Poujade? Will they form a new constituency for the far right, which already wins about a third of the vote, or will the left do its duty by those who are being immiserated while the state makes a fetish of wealth? Can there be a progressive coalition that includes the white working class, or will this country’s politics divide even further along racial lines? The same questions can be posed all across the West, but in France it reverberates with a history of turmoil that is both transformative and terrifying. I cast an anxious eye on Yeats’s insight about the rough beast slouching toward Bethlehem to be born. Will it be swaddled in a yellow vest?