Gilets Jaunes, Acts XIX and XX: The Days When Nothing Much Happened

March 23 and March 30, 2019. By now the Gilets jaunes demands are well known. Buying power (le pouvoir d’achat). The RIC (see previous post). Action on the climate (which may serve as a way into a new kind of activism for some). Pensions. A return of the ISF (Impôt de solidarité sur la fortune, or wealth tax). Macron démission.

All they need is an exit strategy.

Thus far, at least, the Gilets jaunes have provided no path to resolution, beyond the insistence on complete capitulation. Le Monde quoted Monique, age 62, who planned to keep coming out in the streets “so long as they won’t agree to the demands” (Le Monde).

Though the gilets jaunes have some designated media spokespersons, they apparently have no one willing to take on leadership responsibilities, no one who is empowered to negotiate for a resolution; Aline Leclerc, who has reported on the movement from the beginning, refers to “these leaders who refuse to be.” This week the government selected a leader–truck driver Eric Drouet, one of the initial founders of La France en colère facebook page and a continuing poster on Youtube as well. He was fined 2,000 euros for organizing two demonstrations in Paris, in December and January, “without preliminary declaration,” as required by law. He is going to appeal (Le Monde).

So.

March 23, 2019, Act XIX.  The total numbers of those who mobilized in France, after the violent destructiveness of Act XVIII, rose to 40,500, with 5,000 in Paris (Le Monde, Le Figaro ).  (If the excesses of March 16 gave them no pause about this strategy, then what will?)  The new Prefect of Police in Paris Didier Lallement, installed as of Wednesday, March 20, closed off the Champs Elysées because of credible concerns (Libération), but also likely because the Champs Elysées has become the symbol of the hated “elites,”  and smashing it is a trophy.

The video on this page, from Le Figaro, shows the massive police presence on the Champs Elysées as well as the alternate route chosen, to the east of the city, which took the marchers to Sacre Coeur.

In the course of the following week, manifs (manifestants, or demonstrators) registered a declaration to march on the Champs Elysées on March 30, Act XX; the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, saw it as a “provocation,” and publicly refused the authorization.

Saturday, March 30, 2019, Act XX. The numbers throughout France, according to the Ministry of the Interior (as always contested by the movement) were down to 33,700, with 4,000 in Paris.

Avignon, targeted with an “all France to Avignon” facebook posting, closed off parts of the city. In the following two videos, the yellow vests were highly visible in Paris (to take visual advantage of their numbers) but were not being worn in Avignon in order to blend more easily into the crowd; this may reflect a new strategy.

The new Mayor of Bordeaux, Nicolas Florian, called for a ““ville morte,” on Saturday, asking inhabitants to stay home and projecting a possible “apocalyptic” event because of the expected presence of “black blocks”‘/casseurs. There too, in spite of some damage, some burning of construction debris, the day went off relatively quietly.

In 1968, faced with eventually as many as seven million workers on strike alongside the students who made that year famous, President Charles de Gaulle’s government worked with the trade union leaders to hammer out the Grenelle Accords, which ended worker involvement in the massive 1968 protests, and thus ended the protests altogether. It was more complicated than that, as Chris Howell has shown: de Gaulle did not care to negotiate with the unions himself; the union leaders, caught by surprise at the intensity of the feelings of their workers, were distrusted by them; and ultimately the unions did not sign on to the agreement, though the agreement was adhered to. The gains, in the minimum wage and in substantial wage hikes, as well as protective legislation for unions, were significant (Howell, Regulating Labor, pp. 67-68).

Many things are different now: the transformation of the industrial sector, globalization, long-term unemployment. And yet: early in Macron’s term, his front-loaded changes in the labor laws did give rise to union marches, particularly in the fall of 2017, that got substantial support that soon fell away; people stopped turning up for them. Why? More on the union role in this soon.

One of the earliest reforms–or rather, we should call it a change–was the suppression of the ISF and its replacement with the IFI. Macron had campaigned on restructuring the economy so that France could become more competitive, and with a large parliamentary majority he was able to put through his initial changes, through the summer and fall of 2017, with amazing speed. The ISF, or Wealth Solidarity Tax, was initially created as a surtax on the super-rich under Socialist President François Mitterand; it had been changed or even abolished in succeeding years, depending on the political winds.  The first budget of Macron’s presidency, for 2018, abolished the ISF and replaced it with the real estate tax, IFI (Impôt sur la fortune immobilière). This change was essentially a tax cut for the very rich, designed to stimulate investments in the economy. The revenue predicted from this new tax would be substantially less, requiring cuts–in social services, naturally. The theory sounds very familiar, and it was disappointing for those who had hoped Macron could find a central path, neither right nor left, through France’s economic problems.

As for what happens next, Macron is said to be exhausted, “proche (near) du burn-out” as he prepares for the introduction of the results of the Great Debate and for the European elections (Le Parisien). He has lost many of his former advisors and ministers. The riot police of the CRS are said to be played out. Former Socialist President François Hollande criticized Macron this week for not paying attention to the unequal effects of his economic policy, for not responding quickly enough to the anger of the Gilets jaunes, and for not closing off the sensitive areas like the Champs Elysées sooner (bfmtv). Former President Nicolas Sarkozy of Les Républicains (formerly UMP), with whom Macron has had a cordial relationship, also criticized him for not taking a firmer hand and for getting distracted by the Great Debate, from January 15 to March 15, instead of taking bold action (Le Figaro).

And next week will likely be Act XXI.

Header image from Shutterstock.com.