Well, I should have known better than to make a prediction. But my main reason for posting is to prompt you to answer my question: what has happened to the gilets jaunes? As far as I can see, Mélenchan hasn’t managed to capitalise on the movement. Has Le Pen? It looks to me as though it has completely fizzled out, it had hardly any political impact at all.
Marine Le Pen’s party seems to me to be quite similar to Boris Johnson’s, by the way.
MLP's party is not very different from some of the weirder elements of Johnson's party, but on balance the CoG of the Conservative Party still seems more to the centre (maybe an optimistic view of the CP). MLP's National Front (or whatever they want to call themselves now) is a party almost totally devoid of government experience. Were they to get into power, nobody knows how they would manage and reconcile the gaping contradictions in their programme. Chances are they would go full Vichy, but you can't be sure.
The gilets jaunes movement was an inchoate collection of grievances and resentments, many of them quite legitimate. It started out as a protest against Edouard Philippe's well-meaning but not very clever decisions to reduce the speed limit on main roads from 90 to 80, and to increase the tax on fuel, all in the name of safety and the environment. Commuters in distant suburbs and rural communities struggling to make ends meet took this as one more attack on their livelihoods, and it mushroomed from there, including blocked roundabouts and motorways and quite a bit of street violence. In the background, low salaries that don't keep up with the real inflation (rents, phone bills, motorway tolls, insurance, energy prices...) It then took a more political direction, with extreme right and left wing parties trying to use the movement to achieve what they had failed to get in the elections. Demands included Macron's resignation, popular initiative referendums, rescinding the fuel tax, etc. Macron took a firm line on the law and order side (the demonstrations but ended up spending lots of public money to defuse the social grievances (about € 17 billion in total). The monthly minimum wage was increased by 100€, new tax breaks on overtime and pensions below 2000€, etc. For a politician dismissed as a right wing plutocrat (Rothschild!!!), he has spent a lot of money on social measures.The right wing parties accused Macron of buying social peace. The increase in fuel tax was rescinded.
The GJ had already run out of steam by the time COVID showed up, with the confinement making demonstrations impossible and creating a whole new set of grievances: lack of masks (destroyed under the Hollande government to save money), right to stay away from work ("principe de précaution") on full pay, etc. When masks were finally available, some people refused to wear them. When vaccines became available, many people were suspicious of them. Etc. Here again, the Macron government's measures (furlough on 85% pay, etc.) were among the most progressive in Europe, with the result that the economy contracted less than expected and bounced back quickly after COVID. The right still hasn't forgiven him.
Yes, some left wing Putin-supporting cranks on Twitter are certainly responsible for this.
No, no, no, those beastly centrists are the root of this evil.
