France's Boy King on the Ropes

There has been some good news recently. The French boy king, the darling of the neoliberal ruling class, Emmanuel Macron, is looking increasingly wobbly.

Macron and his administration have been caught up in the Benalla affair. Alexandre Benalla, the head of presidential security for Macron, was caught on video roughing up May Day protesters. Benalla was terminated belatedly once the video became public, but opposition parties in the French Assembly are demanding to know why it took so long.

Macron has remained silent until today, when he accepted responsibility. An Ipsos poll on Tuesday showed Macron had reached a new low. Sixty percent of poll respondents report an unfavorable opinion of the boy king, a low not even Macron's fondling partner Donald Trump has reached.

Even the usually supportive New York Times has started to publish pointed criticism. This is from Adam Nossiter's "Macron’s Image and an Ex-Aide Give Critics Plenty of Ammunition" which appeared in yesterday's national edition:

Mr. Macron’s distance from his constituents — highlighted by a string of recent missteps, including the public upbraiding of a bewildered teenager and the ordering up of a costly dinner service for the Élysée — was on display during his trip last week. He engaged with the crowds easily enough, smiling and shaking hands.

But he couldn’t resist lecturing a middle-aged woman in the crowded receiving line in the provincial capital, Périgueux. She was distraught over her shaky financial situation. For 10 minutes the woman engaged stubbornly with the president, pleading for help, as hundreds watched.

“Listen to me well, Mr. Macron,” she said. “I work but I no longer have the means to live. My life was better before. I work and I have a diploma. I work every day. I have children, and I can’t even pay for their vacations. We’re just not making it.”

“You say you are lightening up taxes on the one hand, but on the other you are loading us up,” she added. “And we are just not making it.”

Mr. Macron responded fluently but with abstractions and little empathy, describing a series of government programs and plans he insisted confidently were going to make life better.

“No, no,” the president said. “First of all what you are saying isn’t strictly speaking true. And then, when you pay your phone bill and your gas bill, it’s not the state that’s setting the rates. You can blame the state for everything, this or that is going up, but, it’s not all the state’s fault.”

“Yes, but I can’t change the tires on my car,” the woman responded. “I can’t afford the inspection. I can’t even maintain my car. We’re really in the hole. This is not the life I dreamed of.”

Later, Mr. Macron made a speech in this rural village, promising more attention from the state, a “reinvention” of state services. The crowd listened politely but the applause was light. 

“That was absolutely nothing, nothing, it’s the usual promises,” said Thierry Krevisan, a salesman who had stood for hours in the hot sun waiting for the president to show up. “It’s always the same speech.”

Neoliberalism does not work for the masses. Neoliberalism works for the wealthy, allowing the rich to capture an ever-larger portion of the pie; it can't be defended anymore as "a tide which lifts all boats."