• Gasoline and diesel prices hit record highs in France this week, pushing the government to act.

  • The specter of "yellow vests" is still in all the memories of the executive.

  • Are the French really that revolutionary about the car?

This week, fuel is reaching new heights in France.

Diesel has exceeded 1.55 euros per liter, while the SP 95 is approaching its 2012 record. This surge in prices, which is added to that of gas and electricity, makes the executive tremble.

Urged to act, government spokesman Gabriel Attal promised a measure by the end of the week.

The trauma of the "yellow vests", back last Saturday, is still very much alive.

At the end of 2018, following the restriction of the maximum speed from 90 to 80 kilometers / hour, a social rumor had exploded in what will remain the most striking protest movement of the decade 2010 in France, causing the popularity of Emmanuel to falter. Macron like never before or after.

The two France

The car remains a very sensitive subject for the French. No wonder it is so essential for a large part of the population, if only to get to work or shopping: “Gasoline is a purchase that many cannot do without or even reduce. Seeing prices increase therefore puts in tension the entire purchasing power of an entire population, ”notes Eddy Fougier, political scientist and specialist in protest movements. In the longer term, the French also know their model, the thermal car, practically doomed to disappear in view of all the ecological recommendations on the subject. This future also contributes to boosting sensitivity on the subject.

The car is also a division between two France, or rather two populations: urbanites on the one hand, for whom this mode of transport is not a necessity - even a heresy both in terms of transport time and ecology - and rural and peri-urban people, for whom the car is essential.

When the smallest store is more than thirty minutes away on foot, as is the workplace (and sometimes much more), and when the public transport offer is derisory, the car is essential.

Non-political divide

This cleavage is all the more complex since it is not even political, it goes well beyond: "It runs through different political currents, which makes it extremely unwieldy for politicians", notes Benjamin Morel, doctor in Political science at ENS. He adds: “The rural and peri-urban French people have the feeling of being looked down upon by politicians. It must be said that the urban French have a great electoral weight because they vote massively, especially in secondary elections, and that most politicians are urban ”.

However, as we have seen, one of the main cleavages between the two is precisely the car.

In October 2018, Benjamin Griveaux, at the time government spokesperson, declared that “Wauquiez is the candidate for guys who smoke cigarettes and run on diesel”, a sentence supposed to demean his political opponent, but which was seen as the contempt of some politicians for the car and the non-urban.

Don't touch my chest

If the car makes the French so sensitive, it is because beyond an addiction, it also embodies a value and an ideal: that of freedom and being able to move where we want when we want. “Attacking speed in the car or letting the price of gasoline rise gives the feeling of attacking individual freedom, of affecting people's way of life,” adds Eddy Fougier. Not to mention that the car is a personal transport good, “we consider ourselves not to be accountable and to be independent. "

Same analysis with Benjamin Morel, for whom the car represents at the same time a mode of value, the affirmation of a social status but also a way of projecting oneself in the world.

"There is therefore something intimate and personal in the car, which makes it difficult to accept State intrusions", recalls the doctor.

Enough to ensure a return of the "yellow vests"?

Not certain according to Eddy Fougier, who recalls that predicting social protests is a very inexact science.

But the opportunity all the same for the government to quickly put out the fire on a particularly hot topic.

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  • Contestation

  • Fuel

  • Yellow vests

  • Gasoline

  • Car

  • Society