Emmanuel Macron yesterday gave a step that can define the rest of his term. The French president, which has until now doubted his credibility on not to be intimidated or go back on their promises, backtracked on a measure that has on France: the rise of taxes on the fuel. The rising cost of gasoline and diesel triggered three weeks ago the revolt of the yellow vests, the movement that demands an improvement of the purchasing power, and express the weariness of the middle classes impoverished France provincial. In the end, the pressure on the street, in the opposition and in the own ranks of the government majority, it became unbearable.
The correction is a cure of humility for a politician who has not tired of repeating that he would keep the course against wind and tide, and that many French people see as a leader, arrogant and disconnected from France’s real. The protests of the yellow vests and the scenes of violence and destruction in Paris and other cities have pushed Macron in its worst crisis since coming to power in may 2017. The president made a calculation of costs and benefits. Keep the pulse of the yellow vests could have aggravated the conflict and the violence in the street. Pull back cracked his image as a reformist relentless, but allows you to hold hope that things calm down.
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“Any rate deserves to put in danger the unity of the nation,” he said in a televised statement, the prime minister, Édouard Philippe. Philippe was referring to the human balance of these weeks of protests: four dead in accidental circumstances, and hundreds of wounded. The immediate fear was that a fourth Saturday in a row of demonstrations could result in new riots in the capital and put more stress on the forces of law and order.
The suspension of the soaring rates of fuel, planned for 1 January, will be extended for six months. This measure will accompany you to freeze the prices of gas and electricity. The State will enter 2,000 million euros to suppress these rates. If you don’t find other revenues or cut spending, this can complicate the reduction of the debt.
it is Not clear that the moratorium in the price of petrol and diesel try to calm the yellow vests, the garment that is mandatory at the French vehicles, and that is the emblem of the movement. The Government is confident that, as a minimum, the concessions serve to reduce the broad support of the movement in the public opinion. According to polls, around 70% of French people sympathize with the protest.
The response of Macron and Philippe to the crisis has a drawback. And it is late, and it is limited in comparison with the requirements of the yellow vests and some politicians of the opposition. In addition, it postpones the problem until within six months, when the moratorium expires, a date that will coincide, in addition, with the european elections. In France, the Rassemblement National (ex-National Front), the party of the old extreme right that supports with enthusiasm to the yellow vests, part as favorite.
Since the protests broke out three weeks ago, other claims have been added to the of the moratorium on the tax on fuel, which penalises the French who use the car daily in the cities and French regions with less public transport. Among other requests, includes a lowering of other taxes levied on the working classes, the increase in the minimum wage or the re-introduction of the tax on the fortune. Many activists go further and demand the resignation of Macron. The extreme right and the populist left they want the dissolution of the National Assembly and general elections. The right for Vdcasino tradition, moderate calls for a referendum. The protest has started to spread in sectors, such as high school students or farmers and, in the midst of the campaign of christmas shopping, and begins to have a cost to the economy of the country.
That this president has suspended a measure already adopted, and to do it under the pressure of the disturbances is unusual. You can mark a before and an after in the five-year presidential term.
The president, who has initiated reforms that include the easing of the labour market, intended to be distinguished from many of his predecessors such as François Hollande, and especially Jacques Chirac, who at times buckled under the pressure of the street or of public opinion. I thought that the indecision of the rulers was one of the causes of the character unreformable of France. It is considered to be legitimized by its electoral victory and by the vast majority of legislative of his party, The Republic Launched (LREM).
From the first locks of yellow vests in the roads around the hexagon, on the 17th of November, Macron and prime minister, Philippe, enrocaron in the refusal to suspend or postpone the increase in taxes on the fuel. It is not really a main measure in the program of the president as it was the labour reform or the reform of the public railways, both passed without any major setbacks. It consists in a rise of 6.5 cents per litre in the rate of the diesel and 2.9 in the rate of the gasoline. The idea is to align the price of both fuels and, ultimately, discourage the use of an energy source that emits greenhouse gases. It is framed in the plan of fight against the climate change to which France is bound by international agreements which it has itself promoted.
Macron rectifies something more that a taxation measure and a style of government. Indicates the limits of the fight against climate change when the cost of this fight falls in excess of layers, certain of the population. The question is whether the moratorium will put an end to the protests or, once detected that the president could assign, give wings to new claims.
“The French don’t want the crumbs,” he told agence France Presse Benjamin Cauchy, a prominent figure in the yellow vests. “You want the baguette as a whole.”
Fear of more violence on Saturday
There is a political path and the other police in the response of the French Government to the challenge of the yellow vests. The policy tried to address the prime minister, Édouard Philippe, when announcing the moratorium on the increase in the price of the fuel in 2019. The police is the responsibility of Christophe Castaner, the new and inexperienced minister of the Interior, which only takes a month and a half in office and is facing the biggest crisis of security, not terrorist of the past few years.
The yellow vests have been put to the test. After three weeks of unrest in Paris and the rest of France, Castaner wants to avoid a fourth episode next Saturday. “I invite the yellow vests reasonable, to those who do not support violent action, to dislocate from the extremists and not to congregate in Paris next Saturday,” said the minister.
The police unions have noted the exhaustion of the long hours and working conditions. Many times they were overwhelmed. After the incident, the minister considered the possibility of reinstating the state of emergency or exception, which was in force two years after the attacks of 2015.
the Whole debate revolves these days around the identity of the ‘casseurs’, which provoked the riots. The novelty of the protests of the yellow vests in Paris on Saturday was that, unlike other manifestations, the ‘casseurs’ not broke at the end, but that were active during the whole day. Another novelty is that many wearing yellow vests, the hallmark of the protests all over France to claim the less tax and more buying power.
that is why it is difficult to distinguish them. The images of televisions, the first speedy trial and the testimony of journalists on the street indicate that among the violent were militants of the extreme right and extreme left, violent professionals and also yellow vests.
