Burned effigy, calls for “regicide”, Emmanuel Macron once again crystallized hatred after his forced retirement, an escalation reminiscent of that of the yellow vests, even if it remains contained for the time being.
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Protesters have taken to the streets every night since the President of the Republic and Prime Minister decided on Thursday to resort to 49.3 to have this text adopted, thereby taking government responsibility for this flagship reform of Macron’s second five-year term.
And even if Elisabeth Borne is not spared, the person of the head of state is particularly targeted.
“Macron, we can start again! Louis XVI, Louis XVI, we beheaded him!” chanted young people in Paris and Toulouse.
A head of his kind was waved at the end of a wooden handle at a rally in Châteauroux in early March.
“Since the Yellow Vests, he has crystallized a lot of resentment and hatred for himself,” notes Anne Muxel, director of research at Sciences Po.
In December 2018, the head of state was booed and insulted in Puy-en-Velay as he left a prefecture set on fire by protesters. “Crève!” a woman had hurled in the path of the procession.
A year later, a depiction of Emmanuel Macron ending a pike had outraged former seal keeper Robert Badinter.
This young president, who likes to be brave, from the ENA and the banking world, quickly embodied arrogance in the eyes of his critics.
“It’s in his person, he’s a divisive president, loved or hated. And otherwise he would not have become president, admits one frame from the presidential camp.
With the Covid crisis in 2020, “anger took a back seat, not distrust. There’s that feeling again of not hearing, not hearing, the French,” Anne Muxel continues.
“Whatever crises he has experienced, there is a communication problem. He never manages to get messages across,” she adds.
The Yellow Vests movement, which arose spontaneously in protest at fuel tax hikes, had led to road and roundabout blockades and massive rallies punctuated by violence every Saturday.
Apparently, the current crisis stems “from the same extremely deep distrust of political institutions, including local ones,” notes Luc Rouban, research director at the CNRS.
The vengeance also extends to MPs who agreed to vote in favor of pension reform, some of whom have had their whereabouts tagged or stoned.
By opting for 49.3, the executive conveys “the image of an isolated minority power speeding up parliamentary work” and “launching unearthly politics (far) from the reality of French life,” notes Luc Rouban.
As with the Yellow Vests, this spontaneous anger is also fueled by fears that weigh on purchasing power. Whether or not the law will finally pass on Monday remains to be seen whether it will remain after the motions of no confidence in the Borne government are examined.
After meetings that have been closely monitored by the unions in recent weeks, “mobilization will be reduced, the days will be distributed and we will meet every Saturday with yellow vests,” predicts a union official, who does not rule out “several months of brothels on Saturdays”. until summer”.
On the government side, we expect more occasional radicalized movements that will anger public opinion and die out of their own accord.
“People who still know that we’re in an inflationary, economic, perhaps financial crisis, and that at some point we’ll need responsibility,” says a government adviser.