There were over 500 arrests and numerous violent incidents across France on Wednesday but the far-left failed to bring the country to a standstill.
The Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau, thanked the ‘responsiveness’ of the police and rejoiced that the ‘blockaders did not block France’.
Most of the demonstrators I saw were students and freeing Palestine, not saving France, was their preoccupation
Over 200 of the arrests were made in Paris, where thousands had gathered throughout the day, first at the Place de la République and later at the Place du Châtelet. There were some scuffles late in the day at the Place de la République between protestors and police but the mayhem that the authorities feared never materialised.
In Paris at least it was a very white middle-class protest. Most of the demonstrators I saw were students and freeing Palestine, not saving France, was their preoccupation. There were more Palestinian flags on display than there were French ones, and I lost count of the keffiyehs I saw draped round the shoulders of demonstrators. The first chant that rippled round the Place de la République at 11 a.m. was ‘Free Palestine’. The second was ‘Macron, Démission!’ (Resign). That rather summed up the day of protest in Paris.
Retailleau claimed that the ‘Block Everything’ movement, which drew an estimated 175,000 people onto the streets, had been ‘hijacked’ by the far-left, and he was right. What was launched in the summer as an apolitical protest against the mismanagement of the country by a disconnected elite became a show of strength from the far-left.
Across the country, union-led blockades were set up from the crack of dawn onwards. In some cases there were angry confrontations between the protestors and people going about their business.
It was these people, the working silent majority, who have suffered most from the collapse of France under Emmanuel Macron. Probably the most grotesque sight of the day in Paris was the pupils of the prestigious Henri IV joining the protest. This is the school of the French elite, the alma mater of Macron. In a few years, no doubt, most of the pupils who confronted police on Wednesday will be running France, and probably making the same mess of it as their most famous old boy.
If the silent majority had their protest hijacked on Wednesday, so they saw their vote hijacked for a third time as Sebastien Lecornu was sworn in as Prime Minister. This was not who they voted for when they went to the polls last summer. Macron’s centrists were the big losers of the legislative elections, trailing in third behind Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party and the left-wing coalition led by Jean-Luc Melenchon.
In a healthy democracy, a president would recognise that he had lost the support of people, but France under Macron is undemocratic. He continues to ignore the result of the election, appointing a third centrist premier in 12 months.
Lecornu is a Macron loyalist who will fare no better than his predecessors, Michel Barnier and Francois Bayrou, because he is the patsy of a president universally loathed by the people.
This contempt is the only thing that unites the far-left and the silent majority, those millions of men and women who vote for the right.
For the moment their voice is being ignored on the street and in parliament but elections are coming. The silent majority will be able to express themselves next March in local elections and then a year in the presidential and legislative elections.
That will be the occasion to take their revenge on those who have stolen their protest, and their vote.
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