Protests of the yellow vests and the desire of the right to go back to the limelight

The protests that erupted throughout most of Paris are strongly connected with the Paris Agreement which seeks to deal with greenhouse gas emissions.

The agreement was signed in the French capital in 2015 with the aim of keeping the lid on climate change and controlling the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the air. This chemical is mainly responsible for the rise in the Earth's temperatures.

The Paris Agreement seeks to encourage the international community to take strong action against the negative consequences of climate change. The rise in temperatures and the melting of the ice caps lead to a rise in the sea levels and consequently the drowning of massive coastal areas around the world.

The government of French President Emmanuel Macron approved a new tax on fuel to force citizens to reduce consumption to a minimum. Nevertheless, this opened the door for violence among drivers, which morphed into public violence that created what is known now as the yellow vest protests.

Significance of the protests

The demonstrators believe that the new tax would negatively and directly affect their lives. This is particularly true among French citizens who live in the countryside and have to drive long distances to get their needs. This is why large numbers of people are joining the protests in Paris from areas far away from the French capital.

The protests are mainly led by motorists who belong to the middle class. But this shows the presence of rifts within the French society as far as Macron's policies are concerned. The reforms of the French president especially put pressure on the middle class.

The fact that the protests evolved into violence, burglary and destruction, especially of commercial outlets owned by the rich, shows that a class struggle has already started emerging inside the French society. There is a need for containing this struggle because it only serves the best interests of populism. This populism will cause harm to French democracy, especially if affected segments of society are always allowed to protest economic decisions that do not serve their interests. This can make France fall prey to an endless series of protests.  

This will hamper the work of French institutions and increase the popularity of populist politicians who adopt a discourse that favors the middle class against the elite.

This can change the electoral map in France and sweep right-wing parties to power. This is especially so if these parties stress their anti-rich class rhetoric which can attract labor unions to them. The right-win parties can then adopt different positions to the European Union, because French workers are averse to placing restrictions on their movement among European countries.

The other scenario involves a conflict between the right and the left inside France. Both trends will compete for leading France in the post-Macron period. Macron's popularity reached an all-time low. According to a poll that was conducted in November, the popularity of the French president declined by 25%. This will allow populism, which is against democracy, to be in control in France.

When the populists reach power, they will do their best to rally the poor and the members of the middle class behind them against all institutions that work for the welfare of the rich. This means that France will witness a new struggle between its political trends. It is important to note that the rich class will always stand by the old nationalist movements that propelled them to the top of society.

On the other hand, the measures taken by President Macron will increase the influence of labor movements. True, the new laws do not serve the interests of unions because they made negotiations between employers and workers more facile. Nevertheless, these laws will make the unions more capable of mobilization. This means that they will pose a real threat to the government of President Macron.

The working class backed Macron in the 2017 presidential elections. Now, it feels betrayed, given the fact that most of Macron's economic reforms came to serve the interests of the rich only.

The decision of the protesters to increase their demands was not a direct result of the failure of the French president to abolish the fuel tax quickly. This actually happened because of increasing public anger at Macron's economic policies, in general, and the deterioration in the living conditions of most French citizens.

The yellow vest protests were not the first against Macron. In May 2017 and soon after Macron was declared the winner of the French presidential elections, protests erupted and clashes happened between members of the Popular Front and French police. The protests took place against the background of fears that the economic policies of the new president would harm the interests of the working class. The new president tried to allay these fears by opening dialogue with labor movements on possible amendments to the labor law. The amendments would have sought to reduce unemployment, which in April 2017 rose to 8.5%, compared to 4.5% in the UK and 3.9% in Germany.

Labor law amendment

Macron believed that the Labor Law was responsible for the recession that haunted the French economy for some time. The law made it difficult for employers to lay off workers. Consequently, it did not open the door for hiring enough new workers.

The law also held private businesses back from expansion. It also discouraged foreign businesses from coming to invest in the French market.

The new labor law aimed to give the private sector more freedom in hiring and lying off the workers. It also encouraged the private sector to expand.

Macron also introduced amendments to the law as far as work hours were concerned. He kept the 35-hour a week requirement as is. But this made the middle class angry. The members of this class got the impression that the new law would deny them the right to choose the work hours suitable for them. They also believed that the law gave employers the chance to control the workers even more.

New immigration law

In April 2018, France approved a new law on illegal immigration. The law penalized those who enter France illegally with jailing for one year. The law also shortened the period necessary for the submission of asylum requests. This made human rights groups angry.

The law made naturalized French citizens angry as well. This opened the door for protests. This means that the policies of the French president spread anger among the members of different classes of the French society.

The same policies widened the gaps between the different classes of this society. Former French president Francois Hollande described Macron as the "president of the rich". Macron's policies, Hollande said, negatively affected the living standards of French citizens.

The latest yellow vest protests show that the members of the middle class do not care a lot about the environmental reforms sponsored by Macron's government. They care more about the need for improving their living standards.