PARIS—My time in this city is ending, so I won’t be here to see the next round of protest by the Gilets Jaunes. But I did watch Emmanuel Macron’s speech on television last week. I won’t go into the details, because they’ve been amply reported, but little attention has been paid by the American media to the reasons why the response here has been so negative. The business-oriented press across Europe groaned about “a giveaway,” as one German daily put it, chafing at the 10-billion euro expenditure on raises and tax abatements for workers and pensioners. But the protesters saw the offer as “crumbs,” and all the French parties other than Macron’s were highly skeptical. The left was convinced that the money to be dispensed will come from cutting social services, while mainstream conservatives found the plan both expensive and insufficient. Marine Le Pen, whose nationalist party has a new name that sounds like a football team—the Patriots—snarked that Macron “refuses to admit that the policies of which he is a champion are being contested.” She’s right about that, but not about what motivates the Gilets Jaunes. They are materialists, not ideologues, and they want greater equity. As for what they got, one protester put it succinctly: “bof bof.” Not much.
But Macron’s speech wasn’t really aimed at the Gilets Jaunes, whose hatred of him is palpable. When he looked soulfully into the TV camera and assured the audience that “my only care is for you,” he was wooing two groups: the urban professionals who form his base, and those who fear disorder above all. The latter group has been silent so far, but it’s the reason why the government is so eager to emphasize the pillage and violence. If this law and order strategy sounds familiar to many people here, that’s because of the man who has had considerable influence on Macron during the crisis, operating largely behind the scenes. That would be Nicholas Sarkozy, the former French president now under investigation for accepting campaign money from Muammar Gaddafi (before bombing Libya). He was unable to win a second term, but he knows how to fashion a conservative coalition, and Macron is clearly trying to combine a feint to the left with an appeal to the right.
There’s another object of his affection: the financial sector. As a former banker, Macron knows it well, and he staked his rise on a bet that courting corporations and investors with tax breaks would jump-start the economy. This, combined with sensitivity to feminism, gay rights, and climate change, is the promise of neoliberalism, and it hasn’t paid off. In fact, it’s the main source of Macron’s problems. Investors aren’t flocking to Paris from London, as he said they would, and the wealth gap has widened nearly as much in France as it has in America. But busting up luxury shops around the Champs Elysées seems to have impressed the business class. Their motto now is an unintended homage to Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan: “Sauver le soldat Macron.”
He certainly is their soldier, and they’ve reasoned that it’s cheaper to raise workers’ wages a bit than to risk the higher taxes that a different government might impose on them. The carrot and stick strategy that Macron has embraced may be effective, at least in the short run. But it also affirms the contradiction that he’s caught in. If the demonstrators had behaved less riotously, he would never have noticed the “social and economic urgence” that he’s now proclaimed. So the destruction was necessary.
My sense is that, as the holidays approach and the winter cold settles in, the protests will ebb somewhat. But the rage will simmer on, and it seems clear that the spirit of the Gilets Jaunes will have a lasting impact on this nation. The reason why that’s unsettling is that the movement is unsettled. It doesn’t align with any organized political force; it is deliberately protean. Our experience of populism in America disposes us to see groups like this as animated by racism and skewing to the right. But according to sociologists who distributed questionnaires among the protesters, most of them are center-left. Nationalism and cultural issues, the red meat of the far right, are not in their discourse. Only 1.5 percent say they are worried about immigration. Despite the media’s emphasis on young men in hoodies smashing stuff up—always an appealing story—the average age of the Gilets Jaunes is 45, their class background is lower-middle or middle-middle, and their prime issue is the loss of purchasing power, which the Socialists who held office before Macron did not reverse. Yet their singular focus means that they can move in any direction, and their political destination is still in formation. Every party except Macron’s is vying for their allegiance, but it’s not at all clear which side they’re on.
In that respect, the situation in France is different from what’s unfolded in America, where class divisions are weaponized by questions of identity. The alienation of the Gilets Jaunes is economic, but no one can say what underlies it. This uncertainty has created an ominous mood, but also one rich with possibilities. Will the protesters become part of the European far right, or will they create a new basis for a healthier progressive politics? Albert Camus, my favorite modern French writer, taught me that people are the sum of their choices. If the Gilets Jaunes are to achieve the change they want, they will have to choose. And that will make all the difference.