La Foule

I wanted to share with you some observations from Claire Berlinski at City Journal about the Gilets jaunes protesters in Paris:

I spent Saturday speaking to the Gilets Jaunes near the Bastille, where I figured I’d have a good vantage point on a traditional protest site. I walked with them as they slowly made their way to the city hall, or Hôtel de Ville. It was obvious from a single glance that these weren’t Parisians, but rural people who couldn’t afford to buy expensive Parisian clothes or get chic haircuts. I instantly understood why Macron rubs them the wrong way. They looked worn out; their hands and faces were lined; they were mainly in late middle-age. They seemed to be decent, respectable, weary people who had worked hard all their lives, paid their taxes, and played by the rules.

They couldn’t have seemed less disposed to violence, nor more apolitical. They were respectful of the police, and vice-versa. As cops drove by, relaxed, the Gilets Jaunes smiled at them, like kids excited about their first trip to the big city, waved at the officers, and gave them the thumbs-up. The cops reciprocated. The sentiment was fraternal. “We’re all weary, overtaxed working men,” they were saying to each other. “We’re on the same side.”

I concluded they were just what they were advertised to be: family men and women who couldn’t make ends meet and who were tired of Macron’s attitude. Why this protest, why now, I asked? The fuel tax was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, they said; it made the difference between “able to make ends meet, barely,” and “not able to make ends meet.” It had just been getting steadily worse every year since the economic crisis began. They had run out of hope.

Recall my observations about how demographically different these protesters are from the students or banlieusardes of previous demonstrations. When ordinary working class Frenchmen in their 30s and 40s think they have nothing left to lose, that seems like a rather serious development to me.

7 comments… add one
  • Gray Shambler Link

    Thought comes to mind that the “working class” anywhere in the world has few options or avenues for leverage. They’ve been raised in the belief that if you live by the rules and work steadfastly and dutifully you will be rewarded. Generation by generation they buy into the lie.
    Ask them, they despise unions, believing union members get something they haven’t “earned”.
    They’ll wait them out, or crush them in the end. They’re only tools.
    Danger for France is, these workers are ripe for the empty promise of Socialism. Everyone lately gives lip service to the promise of Direct Democracy. Which leads directly to Socialism and poverty.
    Can’t happen here? Don’t bet on it.

  • PD Shaw Link

    Curiously, one of the things that stood out to me from Andy’s France24 video he linked to the other day was how nicely the protesters were dressed, looking more middle class than working class. It was a different region I believe, a middle-sized city well outside of the metropole. People complaining that they wouldn’t be able to buy Christmas gifts this year, while looking like they’ve had a haircut within the last few weeks.

    Don’t know that I have a point. From my perspective, the Parisian journalist comes across as somewhat elitist, but I also recognize Americans of all classes probably don’t dress terribly well.

  • PD Shaw Link

    Meanwhile, PM May just won a low-confidence vote.

    “Anarchy in the U.K. It’s coming sometime, maybe.” — Johnny Rotten

  • Ben Wolf Link

    Notice the lack of union involvement. The neolibs thought that professionalizing the leadership would undermine popular organizing, as it did in the United States.

    Didn’t work because the French didn’t purge the Left the way the U.S. did in the 1940s and 1950s.

  • Gray Shambler Link

    Ben, maybe I’m ignorant, but I’d like to understand your comment, which I didn’t. Honestly, G.S.

  • steve Link

    “the other day was how nicely the protesters were dressed, looking more middle class than working class.”

    A lot of what is being written sounds like advocacy journalism. Maybe what this author wrote is true, but it certainly sounds like the protestors are being idealized. Somehow in this it is also forgotten that the French farmer, surely some of those rural people are farmers, and French farmers are highly subsidized and protected.

    Steve

  • Andy Link

    PD,

    I guess I missed how they were dressed.

    It’s been a long time since I’ve been to France, but they seemed generally much better dressed than typical Americans.

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