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Emmanuel Macron discovers these days the complexity of which spoke De Gaulle while he faced the myriad of demands of his voters in order to soften the movement of "yellow vests".
He calls it the Great Debate – the big debate. A chance in the next two months for everyone in France to relieve himself of his chest.
Shortly before Macron's official visit to Normandy for the launch of the Great Debate, a yellow-power protester introduced a talk on "individualism" at a roundabout known as the colorful Roundabout Cows. (Note: In France, "the cow!" Is a slight curse, as well as a metaphor for obedient taxpayers who are constantly jostled and hunted down).
"Nobody is responsible here," said protester Olivier Bruneau, a 42-year-old factory worker. "But everyone has a reason to be part of the movement." Welcome to Normandy
The Rond-Point des Vaches has been continuously occupied since the beginning of the Yellow Vest movement by "individualists" huddled around stacks of wooden pallets burning. Each has a set of slightly different reasons to be here.
As Denis Lacorne, Senior Researcher at the prestigious Sciences Po, put it, "the yellow vest events create a kind of artificial but real solidarity between the protesters, they are isolated in their rural environment and suddenly meet people like them, friends and have a good time. "
Why here? I asked Bruneau. Well, he patiently explained, it is a place of maximum visibility for the trucks which pbad from the coast to France while pbading by Normandy and in Europe, a traffic which the demonstrators can easily block from time to time, thus creating impressive traffic jams.
And while the protesters wreaked havoc, they also spread the movement by telling each driver how badly they were injured … and encouraging them to put their own yellow safety-jackets on the windows of their taxis. This is a manifestation that is very easy to badociate with – remove the safety vest that everyone is forced to carry in their vehicle and the movement spreads.
President Macron chose Bourgtheroulde, a small town of 3,800 inhabitants, just a stone's throw from the Rond-Point des Vaches to launch his big debate.
It was the beginning of two months of discussions about the little guy's concerns; the president hoping perhaps to avoid other demonstrations by addressing or pretending to address these concerns. Two months to seek a national consensus. And despite – or perhaps because of this individualism of which Bruneau spoke – the French are masters of consensus.
You see it everywhere, from the town hall to the workplace. If you want things to go smoothly, you should not just give orders from top to bottom, but patiently find agreement and common ground from the bottom up.
This was the reason for the trip to Normandy, the reason why the president met with local mayors, who are more in touch with people on the ground and in the streets. For centuries before anyone conceived of The Great Debate, the mayors of France kept "cahiers de réclamation" in their town halls so that ordinary citizens could enter and write what worried them.
The mayors have collected thousands of different grievances since the beginning of the Yellow Vest movement and many have brought them to share with Macron.
The President has come to listen – perhaps because he knows that in France, when we give everyone the opportunity to express themselves, it is much more difficult for them to make half-hearted. turn and deny collective decisions. They are part of a consensus built by the president rather than a consensus constituted by yellow jackets.
The only problem for Macron is that in France there are at least as many complaints as cheese.
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