The "yellow vests", which have struggled to mobilize for months, have beaten the reminder of the troops for the first anniversary of the social movement this weekend. And according to our columnist Nicolas Beytout, this is (really) not good news for the government.
"Yes, surprising everyone by its unpredictable, spontaneous, spontaneity that has quickly turned into a strange mixture of disorganization and organization organization through social networks that have worked as connecting tools to manage the rounds points, blockages and demonstrations, and disorganization every time it came to find spokespersons or representatives of the movement.All of this became quickly unmanageable, nobody framing nobody, except for a few The result is that it took months for the government and Emmanuel Macron to regain control of the situation.
In these conditions, can we predict what can happen this weekend? Many events are announced ...
Yes, but difficult to say with certainty if the mobilization will be strong. The last time a big demonstration had been announced, the "yellow vests" made a flop. So, will this first birthday motivate them more? Suspense. The consequence of this fog, this elusive side of the movement, is that the government is now living with fear. The fear of a skid, the anxiety of overflowing. Twice, last year, the power came close to the disaster. The first was in Paris when "yellow vests" approached the Elysee. The second was at the prefecture of Puy-en-Velay, when demonstrators ran Emmanuel Macron's car who had just visited the officials who had almost died, burned alive in the prefecture of the city.
And, according to you, this fear is still there?
Not the physical fear, no, but the fear that all this starts again, that it leaves in spin, a fortiori in a context of social tension and hard strikes It is (say) a political fear, which seems to have lodged in the heads of many ministers, parliamentarians, high-ranking officials. And that sometimes brakes or even paralyzes the action of the government. This is all the more annoying that we do not know very well what the "yellow vests" claim.
The movement was on a run-of-the-mill diesel tax, and a question of purchasing power ...
Yes, with the famous "What do you do with French money?" Jacline Mouraud, the first figure of "yellow vests". But since then, 17 billion euros have been distributed to the French, especially the more modest. Never has a government released so much purchasing power! All was not solved, but all the same. And yet, there remains a discomfort, a diffuse malaise, anger sometimes. Beyond what can happen this weekend, it is there, the main challenge that Emmanuel Macron must meet. "