The week of the French national holiday begins and President Emmanuel Macron has a Bastille to take if he wants to revive his second term at the Elysée. Will speak on the occasion of July 14thtrying to turn the page after the long crisis of the pension reform and the violent outburst of protest, which has been disrupting urban areas since June 27. He must convince his compatriots that the “République” respects and protects all of his children: from those who protest because he considers himself abandoned by the institutions to those who curse because he thinks he lives in insecurity; from those who rail against the police to those who ask for more police. After years of yellow vests, Covid, inflation, anti-pension reform demonstrations, violence and controversy, the president can only conceive this July 14 as a real opportunity to relaunch the national cohesion. His Bastille 2023 can be summed up in two words: unite and reassure.
Violence comes from afar
The balance of violence in the days between June and July, after the death of the seventeen year old Nahel in Nanterre, it is impressive. The arrested were 3.693 and 1,122 of them have been referred to the judicial authority. It is mostly about very youngcoming from them “suburbs” in which the revolt (three weeks) of December 1995 had exploded after the death of two young men intent on escaping the police. Since the 1990s, the public investments in the “banlieues” they have increased significantly. Yet some of the ravages in recent days it has concerned precisely those buildings (libraries, schools and recreation centers) that show the presence of the state in the urban suburbs. The same can be said of the attacks on town halls and mayors, sometimes attacked with particular violence.
If the spark of the revolt is clear (the death of Nahel following the shot fired by a police officer), the explosive cocktail that made it so devastating is complex and eschews simplistic explanations. The search for “identity” and of origins, practiced by families who could feel united by their common French nationality, animates the controversies and sometimes the violence. A generation of very young people flaunts “identity” discourses by opposing others identity discoursesmade primarily by the far right of Zemmour. Then there are the economic reasons for the protest. Development is not the same in every region and within every urban area. The revolt of the gilets jaunes before and those of the “banlieues” are now also a revealer of the problems of those who live in objectively disadvantaged areas. Discontent seeks flags and finds them of every color. The revolt of the yellow vests has favored electorally Marine Le Pen. around you, Jean-Luc Melenchon he is trying to ride the tiger of the “banlieues”, but the reaction of public opinion to the violence could (once again) bring grist to the Lepenist mill.
The (difficult) way of change
The fact remains that the extreme violence of the last revolt can hardly be explained only with identity, economic and social elements. He probably also weighed the atmosphere of discontent and of public frustration for the way in which President Macron has passed such an important reform as that of pensionsthe text of which was never voted on by the National Assembly.
Macron and the government of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne have achieved significant results in the economic field. But in public opinion it is the sense of concern that prevails, with the result that the country seems to be a prisoner of a paradox: on the one hand everyone seems to have desire for “change” and on the other all seem wary of reforms.
The objective difficulties of President Macron, who in his first term (2017-2022) could count on an absolute majority of deputies, while now only has the relative majority. In another country, parties loyal to him would have negotiated a government agreement with another political formation (in this case, the neo-Gaullist center-right of the Républicains). Instead, the Elysium has bet on the prerogatives deriving from the “French-style presidential” constitution. But this is not enough if in the end society feels disoriented by its own representatives. The Elysée’s positional income lies in the fact that (on the right as on the left) the strongest oppositions are today the most extreme, so it will be difficult for them to access power. That’s true, but it’s not reassuring.
Cover photo EPA/GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO / POOL MAXPP OUT