Wutbuerger, in France and elsewhere

‘Wutbuerger’, like ‘Zeitgeist’ and other Germanic expressions, has become a key word in all European languages: angry citizens, steamrolled by rapid change, often belonging to the working poor in mostly rural areas, easy seducible by political snake oil vendors and their nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-European rants. The Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests) in France are the last example, representing a good 20% of the country’s population.

The vote for Brexit in the UK, the vote for Trump in the US, the 12.5% of votes, in the last Parliamentary elections for the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland)-party in Germany and now the French Wutbuerger, blocking infrastructure, burning cars and pillaging shops have all something in common. At their core sit the direct losers of globalization, through loss of job, as well as the first line victims of spreading inequality. Plus the anger of those, beyond the 20% seeing their real incomes stagnate since a decade while the 1% got away scot-free after the financial crisis, engineered largely by a handful of institutions and their leaders of ‘The Global Wall Street’. Those who have profited most from the massive monetary expansion by the public sector to fight the ensuing economic crisis; billions which flowed, and continue to flow mostly into income from capital, not labour.

Whatever one may think of Frenchman Thomas Piketty’s opus magnum ‘Capital in the Twenty-First Century’, ennobled by the FT Economic Book of the Year Prize in 2014, his main thesis  –  the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth  –  is statistically unassailable, much as this has been tried by conservative economists.

Add to that the ever easier tools for mass mobilization through social media, the hunger for news by 24hours newscasters and the partisan, mostly rightwing bias of tabloids in print and visual media such as Fox and Sky as well as the incapability of the largest tech-companies to prevent fake news and other public spreading of lies, and you have a perfect storm in seemingly solid democracies. The Trumponian storm that threatens to wreak havoc with the oldest Republic and the spread of global values it stood for till Obama left the White House. The new, this time successful Guy Fawkes bomb, called Brexit, menacing to destroy British welfare, the cohesion of the country and its rightful place in Europe. Teutonic rightwing furor by the AfD and its trivialization of the worst national heritage on historical record (AfD-leader Alexander Gauland calling the nazi era  mere bird shit in German history) which has triggered a veritable government crisis in Germany.

And now the hurricane has reached France. At a moment in time when France thanks to reforms by Emmanuel Macron, long delayed under his predecessors from the Left and the Right, appeared to be on the economic bend. More so thanks to the inflow into Paris from London’s Brexit exodus by those not willing to give up the bright lights of a true capital for provincial chic in Amsterdam, Dublin and Luxembourg or concrete-cold comfort in Frankfurt. At a moment, too when the Paris-Berlin axis, powering the EU is more necessary than ever and mostly kept in motion by Macrons many initiatives to make Europe more efficient and thus a real power on the global table increasingly tilted towards the Asia-Pacific.

Of course, each of these national storms has also got specifically national origins. The Yellow Vests are no exception. The French 5th Republic, historically cut to measure for the larger than life figure of De Gaulle, gives inordinate power and prestige to its President. This applies also in the reverse: When things go wrong, he is blamed for everything, by everybody.

And Macron made one big mistake in his reformist policies by lowering taxes for the rich while putting an extra levy, climate related, on petrol. This was bound to make low-income earners furious who didn’t profit from the cuts, but paid more for their daily way to work.

Also, after ten years of jerky (Sarkozy) and phlegmatic (Hollande) immobilism, the French are not used to have a president who is eloquent, smart, suffers fools badly, keeps to his proposed target of ‘a prosperous France in a Europe which is as mighty as it is protective’ and actually does what he says.  Not used to a president who wants to reduce somewhat the oversized size of the state in all French affairs.

All this helps to explain the inordinate hatred coming from seemingly ordinary citizens, such as, and I quote I will personally intrude into the Élysée (the French White House) to kill this piece of garbage unquote (freely but accurately translated by the author from a statement in French on the 24 hours news station ‘BFM-TV’) by an apparently un-lunatic French citizen.

Alain Duhamel, the Walter Cronkite of French TV said after the third riotous weekend that ‘while Macron misjudged, the performance of the political opposition is deplorable’.  One tends to agree, having listened to their statements before that weekend.  To a man and woman (Marine Le Pen, head of the extreme right), they sided with the Yellow Vests paying only lip service to condemnation of the damage done by les casseurs (those who loot and burn). To gain political traction which they continue to lack despite the problems for Macron and his party LREM. Some of their statements were close to insurrection: to call for the President to resign and for new elections means discarding the constitution. Which states clearly that this can only be done by both houses of the French parliament together, but where LREM enjoys a large and regularly elected majority.

In a much anticipated first statement since the outbreak of the riots, Macron mixed signals of toughness regarding street violence with words of contrition about his tone deafness to social ills. His general promises for policy changes were interspersed with the announcement of specific relief for the poorer parts of the population. Basically, a statesmanlike speech of a sort other Western democracies can only dream of at this time in their national history.

However, now that the walls are broken, the Yellow Vests already signalled that they want more, much more. That won’t be possible as Macron’s considerable financial concessions already endanger short-time budgetary aims. Which are at the core of his intention to make an economically prosperous and fiscally responsible France the present pillar of a strong Europe, global champion of values and common sense, such as reasonable climate policies, in an increasingly fraught world.   If France does indeed descend into uncertainty or even chaos, things look black for the EU, thus Europe.  At a time when the two other main European powers are engaged in fighting their own internal and inner demons.

Picture: Pascal Maga