Chaos is the new order in Macron’s France

France is in a bad place. An important section of the working class, represented by the gilet-jaunes street gangs, has become totally alienated from the government. Not everyone supports them, especially the violence they have unleashed. But millions of ordinary French men and women, who feel poorer and less listened to than they they are used to, seem ready to look the other way when the police are attacked or businesses are broken into and looted.

President Macron, who just six months ago could plausibly present himself as the saviour of his country, ready to introduce the sort of economic and social reforms that his predecessors baulked at, has been reduced to almost total impotence, out of touch and, effectively, out of power.

He may recover. The French presidency has capacities and strengths denied to most other western leaders, and he doesn’t have to face re-election until May, 2022. Moreover, Macron is both intelligent and resourceful. But if he is not careful, or if the violence becomes “normal,” he may well find that his dream is over and that from now on he is no more than a discredited figurehead, living on borrowed time.

What was significant about this weekend’s clashes was their intensity. The mass-demonstrations of December, in which, at one point, hundreds of thousands took part, have given way to more focused assaults on the forces of order and, by extension, the President himself.

The Elysée Palace, situated on Paris’s exclusive Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, is effectively under siege, protected night and day not just by the ceremonial Republican Guard, but by squads of armed riot police. Some self-appointed leaders of the gilet-jaunes have vowed to storm the palace to force Macron’s resignation. One of the yellow-vested frontmen, Eric Drouet, was arrested as allegedly one of the “ultras,” and it did not take long for him to be compared with Jean-Baptiste Drouet, a leader of the 1789 revolution, who led the pursuit of Louis XVI as he tried to flee Paris for Austria and brought him back to face trial and execution.

There have been a number of ugly incidents. In Paris, a champion boxer, Christophe Dettinger, is being questioned by police after he launched a ferocious attack on one young CRS officer and later kicked one of his colleagues who had been knocked to the ground during a confrontation on the Pont Leopold-Sédar-Senghor.

He told magistrates that he had acted for the sake of his children and in defence of his friends in their struggle against the CRS.

In Toulon, in the far south of the country, a mirror image assault took place when the commander of the police on duty during a protest repeatedly punched a young black man, who didn’t try to defend himself, and afterwards launched further attacks on any gilet-jaune who came within range of his fists. The commander, Didier Andrieux, had received the coveted Legion d’honneur just days before at a ceremony in Paris.

Both incidents were filmed and have gone viral on You Tube.

According to the Government, just 50,000 protesters took to the streets on Sunday across France, to be met by a similar number of police. Many of the protests passed off with only a minimum of either violence or arrests, but it has become clear that a hard core of ultras is determined to create the conditions that, if unchecked, could lead to a devastating loss of trust in the President and what he stands for.

In sheer economic terms, France is no worse off today than it was 12 months ago. Growth is sluggish, and unemployment, particularly among the young, is an abiding concern. What has changed is the attitude of millions of ordinary people, who feel that it is they who are being left to bear the brunt of change by way of lost jobs and reduced benefits while the rich grow richer and the President prefers to talk of a more integrated Europe than a more prosperous and contented France.

Macron must know now that he cannot continue down the road that he mapped out in the months following his inauguration. The French will always support change, but only if it means that everything, in essence, remains the same. The protests that began over an increase in the price of diesel have now reached the stage where the President is on notice: he either rows back on his aggressive reform package, including plans to cuts the number of public sector jobs by 120,000 over the next three years, or he faces a winter of discontent that could result in his becoming the most beleaguered political leader in Europe.

The response from the Elysée has so far been weak. Macron’s New Year’s message was a dud, and his tweet on Sunday to the effect that he would not tolerate “extreme violence” in the streets has largely fallen on deaf ears.

Up to now, the parties of the Far Left and Far Right have failed to capitalise on the chaos. Jean-Luc Melénchon, current keeper of the Marxist flame, was ridiculed by mainstream parties when he praised Eric Drouet as a worthy successor to his namesake Jean-Baptiste. Marine Le Pen seems meanwhile to have been biding time, wondering at which point to best insert the Front National – recently rebranded as the Rassamblement National – into the new populist space opened up by the Gilets-Jaunes.

Macron has to take each day as it comes and be on guard. His opponents, on the other hand, can afford to look and learn. Their chance to burst on the scene may come in May when elections to the European Parliament take place. What happens then in France, as across much of Europe, may determine the course of politics for the next five years and more.