Emmanuel Macron, a young and novice politician who, a year and a half ago, arrived at the French presidency against all odds and in an atmosphere of invincibility, is currently confronted with the most difficult moment of his mandate. The Yellow Jackets – the movement without a leader or ideology protesting the price of fuel and the loss of purchasing power – are responsible for this. Disconcerted at first, overtaken later and less popular than his predecessors, Macron resisted the demands of yellow vest, which, according to the polls, enjoyed the mbadive support of the French. These are the keys.
Emmanuel Macron, proclaimed president of France on May 14, 2017. Michel Euler Emmanuel Macron, proclaimed president of France on May 14, 2017. Pool
When Macron arrived at the Elysee in May 2017, he was Minister of Economy for two years. Previously, he worked for two years as adviser to President François Hollande. That was all his resume. "He had never been elected, he had never met voters," says political scientist Jérôme Jaffré, director of the Center for Studies and Knowledge on Public Opinion. . This may explain his lack of tact in his dealings with citizens: the perception that he is an arrogant and elitist leader. Or the mistake of leaving a measure, such as the partial removal of the wealth tax, define it as "the president of the rich". And he 's surrounded by a small team of technocrats, most aged about thirty years old and little experienced in the old defamed politics.
2.
Macron's victory leaves the Socialist Party in a state of anxiety and weakens Republicans, the traditional right-wing party
<img onload =" lzld (this) "src =" http://ep00.epimg.net/t.gif "data-src =" // ep01.epimg. net / internacional / imagenes / 2018/11/30 / actualidad / 1543568407_061683_1543578808_sumario_normal.jpg "width =" 360 "height =" 296 "alt =" But not only have the parties been collateral victims of macronicity. In governing, the trustee also got rid of unions, mayors and regional leaders, who could now be of great help to him. The revolt of yellow vests brought together all the discontent of a country, recalls Jaffre, "where we know that dissatisfaction emerges quickly and with force." One example among many others: politicians like the ecologist Ségolène Royal, who had enthusiastically defended the now controversial ecological tax on diesel, are joining the movement today. The crowd of Besançon acclaimed General de Gaulle in 1963. Cordon Press
3. The system
The Fifth Republic, said its founder, General de Gaulle, is the meeting of a man with the people. This can be an advantage: the president is legitimized by a direct popular vote, accumulates unusual powers in most Western democracies and, when he has a majority in Parliament, he can govern in his own way for five years. The disadvantage, as the political scientist Jaffre explains, is that "the Fifth Republic can be a brutal system" because it "leaves the president alone before the people". When he delegates little and exercises the function of minister of – as in the present case – and the country is as centralizing as France and the power is concentrated in Eliseu, there is no no buffer between him and popular discontent. Everything falls on the head of state.
4. The representation
"The France of the invisible has become a visible France," explains Jaffré. These are the yellow vests provinces and small and medium towns. And the voters who abstain: 12 million in the second round of the last presidential election. It also channels the institutional invisibility of the National Regroupement, heir to the National Front, the former far-right party. The electoral system in two teams their night. Although he won 10 million votes in the presidential election, he was the second or third most voted party in the last election (according to what he said). act of the first or second round) and that he is the favorite of the Europeans, the National Front did not Getty Images
5 This image has been approved by a model This image is available in immediate download at this size:. Endemic Pessimism
What happens to Macron is not endemic. All his predecessors came to power with the promise of getting France out of stagnation and unease, but soon faced popular discontent. After the period of optimism in 2017, endemic pessimism is returning to this country. What is new is that discontent is no longer channeled through unions or parties. "Their problem is not so much the number of protesters," notes Jaffre, "but the support that they hold in the public eye." The paradox is that Macron's rivals are not more popular than him: you do not see any political alternative. The problem seems systemic. The other novelty is the European and global context. This time, the discomfort – that of French people who feel they are victims of globalization and see how the chances of progress disappear – is not so different from that of Trump voters in the United States.
Two police cars were burned, 60 were arrested, tear gas canisters, a paved ramp, closed metro stations and blocked roads. . An unauthorized demonstration of yellow vests provoked on Friday in Brussels scenes of urban guerrillas a few hundred meters from the European institutions. Despite the violence, visible from afar in the form of enormous columns of smoke, the movement did not take off with the same force as that observed in neighboring France. The protests have not stopped over the last two weeks, with occasional actions such as the occupation of fuel depots and the blockage of shopping malls in the middle of Black Friday. However, its arrival in Brussels, although noisy, did not reach large proportions: the demonstrations in the city gathered only 400 demonstrators, some of the deindustrialized Wallonia, the region most affected by crisis.
His speech focuses on loss. purchasing power. "The government thinks we are cows that it can milk," says Alain Boyson, a trader who criticizes the tax burden that must bear the Belgians, the second country of the European Union behind the French. "It takes more redistribution and the basic necessities are at a reasonable price," says Sophie, a 47-year-old shopkeeper who earns 1,200 euros (4,200 reais) a month and arrives by car from Wallonia. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel has announced a hard line against the bad guys. "The vandals must be punished," he said.
