The Learning Years of Inventor Macron

The Yellow Vest protests are a nightmare for lovers of simple, black-and-white truths.

On one side, we have President Emmanuel Macron—a man you simply have to admire. A year and a half ago, as a young newcomer, he came out of nowhere to convincingly defeat Marine Le Pen, the leader of the right-wing populist National Front, in the second round of the presidential election. Macron invented a new political paradigm that transcended traditional divisions in France’s fossilized political landscape. He offered hope for the first credible response to populism—one that did not rely on flirting with or half-heartedly mimicking populist rhetoric. Macron attacked populism head-on, offering as an alternative a progressive political program grounded in the traditional liberal-democratic values of European integration. Alongside Angela Merkel, he became the only credible European and global leader to firmly oppose Trump’s dismantling of the international multilateral order and the undermining of the Paris climate agreement.

On that same side, though, we also find a Macron who gets on your nerves. From the night of his victory—marked by a meticulously choreographed solo march through the shadowy courtyard of the Louvre—he struck many as self-absorbed and arrogant, often brusque toward those he felt didn’t show him enough respect. This is the Macron who placed a bust of Charles de Gaulle on his desk—one he likely strokes in moments of trembling admiration for his own brilliance.

And then there's the Macron who has bitterly disappointed us by failing—at least so far—to live up to the hope that he would shield us from populism. This Macron failed to understand that millions across Europe and the world didn’t fall for the deceptive charm of populist charlatans simply because they hadn’t heard of Emmanuel Macron. He failed—and may still fail—to grasp that many people are driven into the arms of right- and left-wing demagogues by accumulated frustration with political, economic, and financial elites who have long ignored, marginalized, and pushed them to or beyond the edge of a dignified life. This Macron assumed he could implement many otherwise justified and beneficial reforms—as well as an ambitious energy transition program, without which we won’t save the planet—by a method that seemed to place the greatest burden yet again on the shoulders of the weakest. The fuel price hike meant to fund the shift to greener energy was the final straw.

“It’s easy to preach ecology if you’re a wealthy Parisian riding your €2,000 electric scooter down the Champs-Élysées,” said rural protesters. “But what about us, the people in the countryside, who can’t take our kids to school or get to the doctor without a car? What about the farmer whose rising fuel costs devour his meager earnings? What about small business owners and tradespeople who gain nothing from the tax breaks awarded to the wealthiest?”

On the other side are the Yellow Vests—whom we must stand with. Their demands for greater social justice are justified and legitimate. They represent the voices of those who have borne the heaviest burdens of years of austerity, and who are now being told, amid economic recovery, that their turn still hasn’t come. Macron’s brave new world promised better times—but only someday, maybe tomorrow or the day after.

The Yellow Vests’ revolt isn’t just an uprising of the most destitute. It’s a protest by a broader swath of the population who feel their standard of living has stagnated and that their voices go unheard. For many, it reflects a syndrome of relative deprivation—the accumulated anger of the middle class after years of tightening belts. At one point, nearly 80% of French citizens supported the protests.

But among the Yellow Vests are also those who must be condemned—those who used the mass protests to loot and burn across Paris and other cities, leaving destruction and millions of euros in damages that, of course, will be covered by taxpayers. Among them are also many who spread nonsense and lies amplified by the internet, leaving any reasonable person shaking their head. A few days ago, I listened to a conversation between two self-proclaimed leaders of the movement who told their followers they must accelerate protests because Macron was about to sign the Marrakech agreement in order to bring 480 million migrants into Europe. They also claimed he planned to give up France’s seat on the UN Security Council so that UN peacekeepers could be deployed to France to crush the protests by force. Minutes after gunfire erupted in Strasbourg last week—killing five people—messages circulated on social media claiming the terrorist attack had been staged by the government to halt the protests.

Among the Yellow Vests are also many who wear blue—Marine Le Pen’s National Rally color—and red, the color of far-left France Insoumise and its populist-nationalist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Both Le Pen and Mélenchon are working hard to redirect popular anger toward their political mills.

The protests caught Macron off guard, and he responded too late—with concessions such as raising the minimum wage—but these won’t satisfy everyone. To survive politically and for his anti-populist platform to succeed, he’ll need to do much more. Macron must understand that without social justice—which is not a matter of left, center, or right, but a condition for the normal functioning of liberal democracy—none of his noble and ambitious ideas will take root or endure. He needs effective solutions for the accumulated rage of the middle class, which has been created by years of unchecked globalization without social safeguards, austerity policies, and the handling of financial crises on the backs of taxpayers.

A society that fails to prevent excessive inequalities, hardships, and injustices—a society where the government shows no solidarity or empathy toward its own citizens, and where many voters feel unrespected and unheard—is a pressure cooker where everyone soon starts hating everyone else—especially those who are different.

For people living in France, the Yellow Vest protests are not always pleasant—but perhaps they were necessary. I hope Macron has learned something from this experience and that it’s not too late. Annoying traits aside, I still hope he succeeds—not out of any special loyalty to “Inventor Macron,” but from the hope that a democratic, rational, and progressive alternative still exists to the increasingly self-confident and aggressive populism. Populism looks at the Yellow Vests with lust and the worst of intentions—and that should worry us. If we mix yellow, bleu marine (as the French call the deep blue of Marine Le Pen), and Mélenchon’s populist red, we could end up with brown—a color that has never brought Europe anything good.