Macron must learn the lessons of King Louis XVI
Mohamed Chebaro
Week after week, the French yellow vest protests continue despite the governments grand plan to open nationwide consultations in the hope of ending the demonstrations. The three-month consultation period risks becoming a permanent talking shop between the deaf and the blind, since neither seem to be listening to or even acknowledging the other. Group therapy failed in France 200 years ago, and it is unlikely to succeed this time, despite all the good intentions employed by the government to lift the increasingly squeezed lower-income sector of society from economic hardship.
Things could escalate from a winter of discontent to a spring-summer revolution that President Emmanuel Macron will pay for with his career. There are parallels with King Louis XVI, whose failure to implement reforms in the late 18th century meant he paid for the discontent of the French Revolution with his life. Former French president Francois Hollande has warned his pomp-loving successor Emmanuel Macron: dont forget French royals lost their heads at the guillotine. In extracts from his new book Lessons of Power the Socialist politician seeks to re-write the record books on his five years in office, which culminated when he became the first French leader not to seek re-election in recent history.
Hollandes decision was driven by unpopularity and he argued that voters could turn on Macron. He attacked the remote and imperious style his former economy minister has adopted since he became president last May. I never signed up to the monarchical conception of the Fifth Republics institutions. Those who say the people are looking for a king should never forget theyre in a country where the monarch had his head cut off, Hollande told LObs magazine. Since his election, Macron has used regal symbols to give his presidency a touch of majesty, from his victory speech at the Louvre to his decision to address lawmakers at the sumptuous palace of Frances former monarchy in Versailles.
The last resident of Versailles, King Louis XVI, was executed by guillotine in central Paris in 1793 during the French Revolution and his wife Marie Antoinette was guillotined later that year. Macron himself has said France is a nation of regicidal monarchists. Its a paradox: the French want to be able to elect a king but they also want to be able to overthrow him at the drop of a hat, he told Der Spiegel in an interview last year. As president, one cant expect to be loved.
In a series of attacks, Hollande also accused Macron of deepening social inequalities through tax cuts that help the wealthy and corporations policy reforms that had led left-wingers to brand the former banker a president of the rich.
Hollande famously hailed himself the enemy of finance and imposed a 75 percent super-tax on the rich after his 2012 election. He later scrapped it and adopted more investor-friendly policies, though he never recovered from a rebellion inside his party.
My governments reduced inequalities, this one increases them, Hollande, who had been in self-imposed silence since he stepped down last May, writes in the book. Trump backs Maduro rival amid massive protests Relations between Hollande and his former protege, who quit the Socialist government to launch his own run for office, sunk to such a low that on Tuesday Le Monde dubbed it a cold war. Hollandes barrage came as Macron approaches his first anniversary in power defending reforms to reshape the French economy that have fueled mounting discontent among rail workers, students, public sector employees and pensioners.
Even so, in a sign that Hollande may struggle to earn back the French publics love, his prime-time slot on public broadcaster France 2 to sell his book was a ratings flop.
It is not an exaggeration to say that Macrons career is at stake and the waiting game played so far by both sides could lead to a disaster, as it is still uncertain who will blink first. Clearly, it will not be the hardcore alliance of left- and right-wing ultra-radicals, who will lose nothing from staying in the street and disrupting Frances social and economic life.
What started as a protest against higher taxes on fuel escalated to reveal what every French person has known for decades: Their lifestyle must be reformed if the state is to balance its budget. Every president and prime minister for at least the past 30 years has tried but failed to bridge the deficit gap that affords citizens generous social security while not increasing the nations ballooning debts.
The French welfare state is one of the most generous in Europe, and the French hold on tight to the privileges and perks that make them the envy of many Europeans. Others on the continent feel that the French have always enjoyed a lifestyle, or joie de vivre, over and above the rest, partly thanks to the egalitarian benefits the state afforded its citizens, against all financial and monetary policy wisdom. In France, the pressure on peoples disposable income is not new, and usually such pressure hits the poor before the rich, and the people living in the countryside before those living in cities. But if the state is to remain viable while delivering all these perks, it needs to be reformed this is what French people both on the left and on the right have been resisting for decades.
The national debate that Macron launched last week is unlikely to satisfy the protesters, as it has been framed to include four main themes of taxation, green energy, institutional reforms and citizenship. That will not answer the whims of every protester, as they see in the debate a chance to table motions to discuss growth, unemployment, the deficit, migration, integration, and state and institutional reform, which are seen as off limits by Macron.
The writer is a British-Lebanese journalist
