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Is France facing a rerun of the ‘yellow vest’ protests?

French President Emmanuel Macron's move to force through his pension reform by short-circuiting parliament may well rekindle social unrest reminiscent of the Yellow Vest movement, experts have warned.

Is France facing a rerun of the 'yellow vest' protests?
A protester wearing a hood stands next to a burning new kiosk beside the Place de l'Opera in Paris, on March 23, 2023. Photo by Alain JOCARD / AFP

Protests against the government’s use of a special constitutional provision, known as article 49.3, to sweep aside parliamentary opposition to the reform have been angrier than anything seen over the past two months.

Since the article was used last Thursday, France – and especially Paris – has seen trouble flare nightly, with small groups of black-clad demonstrators smashing windows and setting fires.

Thursday, March 23rd saw another day of nationwide strikes and protests that ended in violent clashes in Paris, Bordeaux and Rennes. In Bordeaux a fire was lit at the town hall.

In total 457 people were arrested and 441 police officers injured, according to Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

Unions, united in coordinating their protests, have called for a tenth strike day on Tuesday, March 28th, but many expressed fears they could lose control of the protests as more radical demonstrators set the tone.

“Yes, we are worried,” Cyril Chabanier, the head of the moderate CFTC union, told AFP.

Commentators have begun to wonder whether the hardening of fronts could herald the return of the Yellow Vests, a grassroots movement that started in 2018 as a protest against rising fuel prices.

It snowballed into the biggest social action against Macron in his first term, the protests often marked by clashes with security forces and damage to property.

“It’s a social law of physics,” said Jean-Marie Pernot, a political scientist specialising in trade unions.

“If you don’t respect any of the channels meant for the expression of dissent, it will find a way to express itself directly,” he told AFP.

Protesters in France

Protesters march through Paris during a demonstration against the government’s proposed pensions overhaul on March 15th, 2023. Photo by Thomas SAMSON / AFP

Early Yellow Vest action was marked by strikes, weekly demonstrations, the blocking of roads and fuel depots, and the worst clashes with riot police in decades.

The weekly Saturday protests continued for months before gradually fizzling out – losing momentum after Macron agreed to many of their demands.

‘Tougher action ahead’

“There may be tougher action ahead, more serious and further-reaching,” warned Fabrice Coudour, a leading energy sector representative for the hard-left CGT Union.

“It may well escape our collective decision-making,” he said.

The Yellow Vests prided themselves on having no designated leaders. They resisted attempts by left-wing politicians and unions to harness the movement’s energy for their own ends.

READ ALSO: ‘Two fingers to the French people’ – what the papers said about Macron’s pension decision

But one of their more prominent spokesmen was Jerome Rodrigues, who lost an eye to a police rubber bullet during clashes at one demo.

Within hours of Macron’s pensions move on Thursday, Rodrigues told an angry, cheering crowd outside the National Assembly that the objective was now nothing less than “the defeat” of the president.

At the same time, protests erupted in many parts of France, some demonstrators destroying street furniture, smashing windows and setting bins on fire. 

Those protests continued on a smaller scale through the week, before the serious violence on Thursday night.

Demonstrator in Lyon

A man holds a placard reading “who sows misery, sweeps away pieces of glass” as demonstrators clash with policemen in Lyon during protests against the government’s planned pensions reform. Photo by Jeff PACHOUD / AFP

The unions have already put the responsibility for any future trouble at the government’s doorstep.

READ ALSO: Calendar: The latest French pension strike dates to remember

“Obviously, when there is this much anger and so many French people on the streets, the more radical elements take the floor,” said Laurent Escure, boss of the UNSA trade union federation.

“This is not what we want, but it’s going to happen. And it will be entirely the government’s fault,” he told AFP.

For weeks, Laurent Berger, head of the moderate CFDT union, has been warning the government that there could be more trouble if protesters got the idea that the Yellow Vests achieved more with violence than established unions with their recent, mostly peaceful, mass demonstrations.

“What is the democratic outlook for a country that fails to respond to 1.5 or 2 million people in the streets on three occasions, but that did respond to a violent movement with a fifth of that number in the street?” he asked in an interview last month.

Macron made a number of concessions to the Yellow Vest movement.

Among other measures, he scrapped a planned carbon tax and boosted salaries for minimum wage earners, for a total estimated cost to public finances of €10 billion.

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POLITICS

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

President Emmanuel Macron warned that the policies of his far-right and hard-left opponents could lead to ‘civil war’, as France prepared for its most divisive election in decades.

Macron warns of ‘civil war’ if far right or hard left win election

French politics were plunged into turmoil when Macron called snap legislative elections after his centrist party was trounced by the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in a European vote earlier this month.

Weekend polls suggested the RN would win 35-36 percent in the first round on Sunday, ahead of a left-wing alliance on 27-29.5 percent and Macron’s centrists in third on 19.5-22 percent.

A second round of voting will follow on July 7th in constituencies where no candidate takes more than 50 percent in the first round.

Speaking on the podcast Generation Do It Yourself, Macron, 46, denounced both the RN as well as the hard-left France Unbowed party.

He said the far-right “divides and pushes towards civil war”, while the hard-left La France Insoumise, which is part of the Nouveau Front Populaire alliance, proposes “a form of communitarianism”, adding that “civil war follows on from that, too”.

Reacting to Macron’s comments, far-right leader Jordan Bardella told French news outlet M6: “A President of the Republic should not say that. I want to re-establish security for all French people.”

Bardella, the RN’s 28-year-old president, earlier Monday said his party was ready to govern as he pledged to curb immigration and tackle cost-of-living issues.

“In three words: we are ready,” Bardella told a news conference as he unveiled the RN’s programme.

READ ALSO What would a far-right prime minister mean for foreigners in France?

Bardella has urged voters to give the eurosceptic party an outright majority to allow it to implement its anti-immigration, law-and-order programme.

“Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country,” he said, vowing to boost purchasing power, “restore order” and change the law to make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

He reiterated plans to tighten borders and make it harder for children born in France to foreign parents to gain citizenship.

Bardella added that the RN would focus on “realistic” measures to curb inflation, primarily by cutting energy taxes.

He also promised a disciplinary ‘big bang’ in schools, including a ban on mobile phones and trialling the introduction of school uniforms, a proposal previously put forward by Macron.

Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of Macron’s Renaissance party poured scorn on the RN’s economic programme, telling Europe 1 radio the country was “headed straight for disaster” in the event of an RN victory.

On Tuesday, Attal will go head-to-head with Bardella and the leftist Manuel Bompard in a TV debate.

On foreign policy, Bardella said the RN opposed sending French troops and long-range missiles to Ukraine – as mooted by Macron – but would continue to provide logistical and material support.

He added that his party, which had close ties to Russia before its invasion of Ukraine, would be “extremely vigilant” in the face of Moscow’s attempts to interfere in French affairs.

Macron insisted that France would continue to support Ukraine over the long term as he met with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg.

“We will continue to mobilise to respond to Ukraine’s immediate needs,” he said alongside Stoltenberg at the Elysee Palace.

The election is shaping up as a showdown between the RN and the leftist Nouveau Front Populaire, which is dominated by the hard-left La France Insoumise.

Bardella claimed the RN, which mainstream parties have in the past united to block, was now the “patriotic and republican” choice faced with what he alleged was the anti-Semitism of Mélenchon’s party.

La France Insoumise, which opposes Israel’s war in Gaza and refused to label the October 7th Hamas attacks as ‘terrorism’, denies the charges of anti-Semitism.

In calling an election in just three weeks Macron hoped to trip up his opponents and catch them unprepared.

But analysts have warned the move could backfire if the deeply unpopular president is forced to share power with a prime minister from an opposing party.

RN powerhouse Marine Le Pen, who is bidding to succeed Macron as president, has called on him to step aside if he loses control of parliament.

Macron has insisted he will not resign before the end of his second term in 2027 but has vowed to heed voters’ concerns.

Speaking on Monday, Macron once again defended his choice to call snap elections.

“It’s very hard. I’m aware of it, and a lot of people are angry with me,” he said on the podcast. “But I did it because there is nothing greater and fairer in a democracy than trust in the people.”

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