The failed comeback of the French Yellow Vests

• Frank Renout

  corresponding France

The Yellow Vests staged demonstrations across France today. But voter turnout was remarkably low. In Laon, in northern France, everything was counted a protester on the roundabout where, four years ago, masses of Yellow Vests gathered.

Thousands of people demonstrated today in Paris. In other cities – from Strasbourg in the north to Nice in the south – a few hundred people showed up per city at most. It was a day of protest “with a low turnout”, concluded the TV BFM extension.

The Yellow Vests shook France to its foundations four years ago. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets across the country every weekend for months. There have been protests against rising fuel prices. Major riots and violence regularly occurred in Paris in 2018 and 2019. President Macron made concessions and embarked on a tour across France to reconnect with “ordinary” French people.

It is surprising that voter turnout was so low today. There were all the ingredients for new actions. “More than a third of French people are angry and more than half of French people are dissatisfied,” said political scientist Brice Teinturier this week on the radio.

Once again there is great concern about purchasing power and inflation. And trust in government is low. “France is in a minor state, but it’s not the case that the French are uniting,” says Tienturier. “People are no longer so easily mobilized together. Dissatisfaction has various causes.”

Polls by the Ipsos research agency show that about one in three French people are dissatisfied with President Macron. But those are people with radical left or radical right ideas. And they often don’t want to go out on the street together.

Furthermore, according to Ipsos, a third of the population seems to have lost all faith in politics. Proving isn’t even an option anymore. In the last parliamentary elections, in June last year, only 46 percent of the French voted.

This division plays into the hands of centre-right President Macron. In October and November last year the unions staged protests and there was also a turnout Relatively low.

Moreover, the “left” is divided among themselves. The unions want to demonstrate in the coming weeks against Macron’s plan to raise the retirement age. But the left-wing opposition in parliament is organizing its own demonstration against those plans in two weeks’ time.

Yet the president and his administration benefit little from small or fragmented protests. In parliament, Macron’s party has no longer majority.

He therefore needs the support of the opposition to implement the measures. But it hardly works. Both radical left and radical right parties often vote against government plans. That’s why the government has already had such a ten times laws and measures implemented, outside the parliament.

A parliamentary vote can be circumvented with a special article of law. The measure will then enter into force without a vote in the French Assembly. This is allowed but it doesn’t deserve a democratic beauty prize, second friend and foe.

Macron wants to work out a series of important new reforms in the near future, for example on pensions, but also on unemployment benefits and migration. Opponents are divided and there is little enthusiasm for demonstrating. But for Macron it would be a sign of weakness if he had to put parliament aside every time to implement his reforms.

Today’s Yellow Vest fiasco shows that Emmanuel Macron’s presidency has definitely entered a new phase: the French are deeply divided and the number of French people who think there is still something to change is extremely low.