“In praise of les étudiants.”If the streets of France have something important to tell us now, it is that the centrist, or liberal-authoritarian, model is crumbling as surely as the lycées of Lyons and Nimes.
11 OCTOBER—The French have had a certain gift for street demonstrations going back to July 14, 1789, when they stormed the Bastille and the monarchy’s subjects began to make themselves, that semi-sacred word, citoyens. Now they are out in force once again, this time led by high-school students whose grievances run to broken windows, crumbling classrooms, absentee teachers, and poor education altogether. They often start small, these waves of national protest. The memorable évènements of May 1968 began over outdated academic standards, overcrowded classrooms and prudish dormitory visitation rules. Proposed increases in diesel fuel sparked the “yellow vest” demonstrations of 2018–2020. And now it is France’s decrepit lycées, where neglect and disrepair seem to be the national norm. But how often do small, local grievances prove merely sparks that ignite prairie fires, as we Americans would put it. May ’68 was very soon about far more than fusty rules and remote, inaccessible professors. It was about the social and political order and, so, it was about power. It was the same with the gilets jaunes protests. They were about neoliberal austerity and Emmanuel Macron as “president of the rich.” So they were about power, too. The hundreds of thousands of students who began protesting conditions in high schools across France have stayed “on message” since they took to the streets several weeks ago. The lousy conditions in which they get their lousy educations remain the focus as these demonstrations have spread to major cities—Marseilles, Strasbourg, Toulouse, Tours, et al.—as well as many towns and rural villages. But as students, parents, some school administrators and some teachers are joined by national unions, opposition parties, working professionals, and local government officials, it is obvious the broken windows, falling plaster, and teachers who don’t show up are, while justified sources of outrage, also signifiers of larger grievances. What is at issue across France is the liberal-authoritarian model, which is now known in polite company as “centrist” even if it is not the center of anything. And if the streets of France have something important to tell us now, it is this. The centrist model—let’s call it Macronism, or in Germany Merzism, or in Britian Starmerism-cum–Burhamism—is crumbling as surely as the lycées of Lyons and Nimes. ■ The French social system, one of the nation’s great strengths in the postwar decades, has been in decline for many years. Schools, hospitals, pensions, and numerous social services have all suffered in the service of a succession of national budgets reshaped to the benefit of France’s elites. Macron, a Rothschild merchant banker before his election to the presidency nine years ago, has made increased inequality his defining project. “There is definitely a widespread feeling of neglect,” a Parisian friend said to me the other day. “You see it everywhere.” There is also the Russophobia and, in keeping with the rest of Core Europe, the condemnable dismantling of the postwar social order in favor of a military-industrial complex on the American model. France’s defense budget is to reach €63.4 billion, $71 billion, by the time Macron leaves office next spring—almost exactly double what it was when he was elected in 2017. These connections obviously animate the demonstrations now sweeping across France, but they are so far implicit—unspoken of at the barricades. For better or worse, and I would say worse, the French are divided on the Russia question, responsibility for the war in Ukraine, and support for the Kiev regime. Jean–Luc Mélenchon, much favored by France’s youth as leader of the leftist La France Insoumise, France Unbowed, takes that impossibly contradictory position you find among some purported leftists in the United States: Russia is to be condemned for its February 2022 invasion, but NATO and the major Western powers provoked it. Not workable. Not helpful, either. In my view this confused understanding of the moment accounts for an apparent reticence among student demonstrators and their supporters to broaden, let’s say, the theme on the streets. Some students have declared with pride that they are the heirs of the May ’68 generation—the soixante-huitards, the sixty-eighters. Not quite, I would say: So far, anyway, they appear to lack the larger vision, the consciousness. Have they been propagandized to flinch from any serious critique of power? As many have remarked, the confrontations between demonstrators and the police have been far more violent than anything one saw in 1968. It is a question of who is responsible for this violence. The other day The Times of London quoted a 16–year old protester saying, “Without violence no one pays attention to you.” Maybe someone said this and maybe no one did: The Times did not name its source. But I have heard no one following these events at close range who does not think the French police, never noted for their delicacy, are primarily responsible for those occasions when demonstrations tip into violence. Stun grenades, rubber bullets, tear gas: These have all been deployed on France’s streets since the first protest broke out on 18 September. There are those who suspect—strongly in some cases—that it is the police who are smashing glass doors at some schools and setting fires to others to justify for the public the severity of the official crackdown. The violence of these events, I am told, is another reason the demands of demonstrators have remained narrow: When the police meet protesters with violence, the violence self-reflexively becomes the premier issue. These demonstrations could not have come at a worse time (or maybe a better time) for Macron’s centrist government. It is in political trouble, for one thing. Mélenchon, of La France Insoumise, is not likely to replace Macron in next May’s elections, but his sharp rise in the polls—along with the rightist Marine Le Pen and her National Rally—suggests a growing rejection of the neoliberal order and a determination among voters finally to turn the centrists out of power. For another, Macron has made a mess of France’s finances. It is the usual thing: He has cut taxes and raised defense spending but is politically unable to cut social services sufficiently to cover this financial regime. Investors are consequently dumping French debt, forcing the yield on French bonds to a 24–year high this past week. ■ Sébastien Lecornu, Macron’s in-over-his-head premier, now speaks of “overlapping crises” but has so far stayed true to Macron’s way with France’s citoyens—expressing sympathy for the students in the streets but committing to nothing by way of substantive reforms in response. From Le Monde’s Thursday editions:
This is a clear case of ideology leading to paralysis—the malady, I will add, from which Europe’s other centrist regimes suffer—the Merzists, the Burnhamists, et al. I am always a touch humiliated, I have to say, when I watch the French take to their streets. The street has served as a fourth branch of government ever since the Bastille days, as a British scholar recently put it: When the executive, the legislature, and the courts all fail, the street is where people go to get things done. France’s students may or may not get their buildings fixed up and their teachers paid properly so that they are willing to teach. I hope they do. I hope they begin thinking about power. And I hope the rest of us in the West remember, or learn for the first time, how useful streets can be. ■ A version of this piece appears in Consortium News. The Floutist publishes this piece without a paywall. We ask those who are not paid subscribers to consider becoming one: We can use the support of all those who see worth in the work. A subscription is $5/month or $50/year. Every dollar is appreciated and helps keep us going. You can also support us by sharing this article. For those readers who are already subscribed, our usual and sincerest thanks. |