As France was commemorating the end of the second world war in Europe this month, Emmanuel Macron cut an isolated figure on a near-empty Champs-Elysées, surrounded by steel security barriers to prevent any member of the public from getting within shouting, let alone pot-banging, distance.
For the first time, and by police order the French people were barrred from a large area ringing the official 8 May remembrance of the liberation. Six years after his first presidential victory and a year after winning a second term in the Elysée, Macron can scarcely show his face in public without being booed, heckled or insulted.
Our youngest-ever president – who once embodied hope, triumphantly defeated the far right and claimed to have broken the political mould by rising above traditional divides – has gone from being admired to being despised. Macron’s decision to push through an increase in the state pension age from 62 to 64, despite a huge groundswell of opposition, has created unprecedented levels of anger across the country – most of it directed at the president himself.
It is not the first time that a French president has had to face the people’s wrath: Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande and Jacques Chirac were in their day also publicly insulted. But none experienced such an extensive collapse of respect. More than 70% of the electorate disapprove of Macron.
I have been on some of the recent protests, and understand why so much of the frustration is focused on the president personally. The strength of feeling is neither disproportionate nor unfair. Macron’s electioneering catchphrase in 2017 was that France needed a “Jupiter-like” head of state, Jupiter being “not just a god, but the king of gods”. In office, he has duly exercised power in a top-down and highly self-centred manner. It is hard to disconnect this from the instinct to hold him personally responsible for the government’s actions.
On the pensions issue, people remain justifiably outraged that the government intentionally misinformed them about the minimum amount that they would receive during retirement. There is no alternative, Macron said. Yet, as economists have shown, alternative ways to fund the pension system were available. But Macron famously did away with the French wealth tax and slashed corporate taxes after being elected, decisions now borne by the working population. The “president of the rich”, as he is labelled, is more than ever perceived to be their best ally.
But the pension reform is no longer the biggest issue. The way its approval into law was handled and the mistreatment of its opponents explain why 65% of respondents in a recent poll said they considered Macron “brutal”. His arrogance has left people not just affronted but ready to conclude that he set out to dismantle fundamental pillars of the French social protection system.
Macron lacks a majority in parliament, so got his way only by invoking constitutional exemptions. Article 49.3, which allows the executive to enact laws without a parliamentary vote, was the spark that started the fire. He can hardly have been surprised that defying the millions of people who were taking to the streets (78% had expressed their opposition to the use of article 49.3) would be interpreted as a provocation.
Macron’s tone-deafness to the mood also seems calculated: on the eve of some of the biggest nationwide strikes in March, he went on a daytime TV slot for which the average audience age was, at 68, already retired. “Do you think I enjoy doing this reform?” he asked. The clip went viral as even young TikTokers imitated his patronising tone.
Police brutality has heightened anti-Macron sentiment to the point that 77% of people now say they regard the president as “authoritarian”. Footage of police officers beating unarmed protesters, insulting them or joking about the harm they can inflict have gone viral. The hundreds of arbitrary detentions after each protest which led to no prosecution have been denounced by the official civil liberties oversight body, which has suggested that the authorities deliberately used police tactics to discourage legitimate protest.
Despite this violently repressive climate, the crowds grew because people knew that in riding roughshod over the objections of a majority, Macron was also betraying a core promise. In May 2022, he was re-elected with the support of many on the left who had not endorsed him in the first round, but were urged to vote in the second round to keep out his far-right challenger Marine Le Pen. In his victory speech, he acknowledged this, saying that the result “obliges me”. He knows perfectly well that he was not elected to implement a neoliberal agenda that could unravel core elements of France’s cherished social model. There is no greater sign of his contempt for those who helped his return to power than this willingness to force through such an unpopular reform, backed by a brutal police force.
With four years left in his presidency, Macron is appealing for “conciliation and unity” – but succeeding only in reinforcing the impression that he doesn’t care what people think. In a TV interview on Tuesday night he stood his ground, again fiercely rejecting any suggestion that he had misjudged the situation. Asked if he understood why people felt he had displayed an attitude of contempt for them, he lectured the presenter on the definition of “contempt”.
Neither the president nor any government ministers can show up in public without facing hostile crowds, many banging pots and pans, now the symbol of popular discontent with a government that refuses to listen. Some have suggested that the ongoing unrest – a further round of nationwide protests is planned for 6 June – plays into the hands of populists. I see the protests as a positive sign that people refuse to lie down. This is the true spirit of French democracy.
If Le Pen’s far-right National Rally has been gaining ground it is not because it has anything credible to say on pension reform, but because it knows how to exploit anger. This is why Macron’s refusal to listen is perhaps his most dangerous betrayal. In dismissing reasonable opposition to his reform as troublemaking, he has fanned public anger while at the same time confirming the fears of millions on the left that the centre right can’t be trusted.
Abstention has become a feature of recent French elections: fewer and fewer citizens are willing to put their faith in voting, and more question the ability of elected officials to connect with their daily struggles. Macron’s lack of empathy will only amplify that sense of distrust and boost the far right’s false assertion that they alone are willing to put the people first.
By betraying those who need to feel heard by their elected representatives, Macron risks opening the door not only to future blank ballot papers but to dangerous ideologies spread by extremists who pretend to speak for the voiceless.
Rokhaya Diallo is a French writer, journalist, film director and activist.