“Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent”

This famous sentence came to my mind upon returning form my two-week stay in France during the Xmas and New Year’s holidays.  President Macron is not Richard III, certainly did not utter these lines in a soliloquy, and dogs don’t bark at him, but his nemesis, the gilets jaunes, or yellow vests yell for his resignation. The discontent is on the side of the yellow vests.  Since November, the French president has been haplessly watching the yellow vests’ protests descend into open warfare.  Triggered by a fuel tax rise, the protest started in the countryside as a demonstration of social discontent and loss of purchasing power by low and middle-income people.  The rural regions feel marginalized and ill-treated by the technocratic government of an urban and aloof president who appears to pamper the richer citizens at the expense of the working class.  At its onset, the movement received 80% support from the French people, who always side with the underdog.

The yellow vests’ grievance have evolved and grown exponentially.  Their plethora of demands are often unrealistic, like piling more taxes on the higher earners who already pay confiscatory taxes, and contradictory, like requesting less taxes and more social services, or wanting ever cheaper stuff and blaming globalization for their falling living standards.  A large number of yellow vests have income too high to qualify for social welfare benefits, but too low to enjoy discretionary expenses.  Many cannot make ends meet.  Because many yellow vests don’t vote, “In sum, it is a revolution against politics by non-political”[1]. 

Conflicts of interest between the self-appointed leaders are stopping the protest momentum.  The protest seems to have been highjacked by its more radical elements, who could nicely fit within Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables”!  The movement may have reached a dead end, providing some breathing time to the government.  The hard-working yellow vests have left the protests. 

Going to France in such a troubled time felt inauspicious.  The south of France, where my house is located, was reported to be a yellow vest territory.  Near Calvisson, they had occupied many roundabouts to block the traffic.  When I arrived on Xmas eve, most of the roundabouts had been evacuated (garbage and wooden shacks had been removed but the degradation was still visible).  I only saw one “occupied’ roundabout: its five “occupants” were playing cards and drinking coffee.  This circle had morphed into a social club for retirees!  During the holiday period, many yellow vests had voluntarily abandoned their roundabouts for the coziness of their homes, and the street protests attracted fewer hotheads as well.  In France, protesters take a break during holidays.  

Some 16% of the French population of 65 million claim to be yellow vests.  This figure seems very high.  At the movement apex, the active members may have only been in the range of 500,000.  However, I don’t know a single one nor do my French acquaintances.  We are regarded as elite by the yellow vests.  Only my hairdresser knew one, and she was not impressed by the woman’s grievance.  Her income is non-taxable like that of a large number of yellow vests; moreover, she never bothered to vote, claiming that street protests are more democratic and effective than the ballot box! 

In France, only 43% of the population pay income tax, but all my friends fall in this category.  In spite of the yellow vests’ claim, France is the European champion for welfare spending.  Its costly redistribution machine makes the country one of the most egalitarian in the developed world.  It pays relatively generous state pensions, distributes all kinds of freebees for the underprivileged and jobless, provides inexpensive public education and a free universal healthcare envied the world over.  In compensation, wage earners are saddled with a heavy tax burden.  With so many disgruntled citizens, one may wonder with president Macron where the dough goes.  In other words, are yellow vests a bunch of moaning free loaders? The French conundrum. 

                                                                             Yellow vest at work          

The topic of the yellow vests protest was central to our lunches, dinners and get-togethers, but because of our elitist self-confidence, our dinner conversations ran in circles like the movement itself.  By living in the countryside, my friends had front seats and could better assess the mood than their urban peers.  Most of us agreed that the yellow vests only had themselves to blame for their predicaments and bad livelihood choices.  Four elements are playing a central role in the movement, and carry their own contradictions:  cars, education/instruction deficit, envy/jealousy and a halfhearted approach to salaried work. 

In rural areas, the car is a pampered family member! I never understood why Calvisson people park their car near their living room: their garage occupies prime real estate! A car is a symbol of status and freedom. The desertification of village centers makes the yellow vests angry, but as motorists they prefer to shop in ex-urban malls, where they buy lots of stuff they don’t need! Nobody walks any more.  In the old days, rural people were fitter than their city cousins, now it is the other way around.  In reality, the discontent started last summer when a diktat from Paris lowered the maximum speed limit from 90 to 80 km on secondary roads.  This sound but top-down reform, which aimed at reducing death toll[2] and cut carbon emissions was unpopular from the start.  Speed cameras are regarded as a punishing tool to take money from drivers.  They became the yellow vests’ prime targets: two-third have been vandalized.

Now let’s take the education and instruction issue, which is very complex and beyond the scope of this blog.  The yellow vests’ low level of education makes them prone to believe falsehoods and spread the fake news which contributes to firing up the protests; from the outset social media helped them to mobilize and socialize.  Their anger is directed against the urban elite, including government and journalists. The later, products of this same elite, are viewed as verbose and not trustworthy.  The yellow vests’ show of force in the large cities aimed at demonstrating that they exist, and that their grievances should be taken into account.  After two months of violent protests which have disrupted the economy, 50% of French citizens still support the movement.  Because the French dislike wealth and hate rich people, they are unconcerned by the negative economic impact of their consecutive Saturday’s urban guerrilla.

Envy is France’s national sin, and mediocrity its virtue.  Envy is fueling the anger of the protesters.  They envy everything and everybody.  Success, talent, ambition, hard work, and achievement are dirty words in their mouth.  Making and enjoying money is anathema; the hard-working rich should therefore be taxed to the hilt in order to subsidize everybody else.  Surprisingly enough, their cri du coeur is a perception of slipping living standard and purchasing power.  Tax the rich so they can enjoy their daily packet of cigarettes[3].

In rural areas, “9-to-5” jobs are getting fewer and those who have them fear that they can lose them tomorrow.  Jobs are nonetheless available for people without a diploma, but they are spurned for being too stressful or time-demanding.  The weekend is sacrosanct.

My week-long cultural tour to the imperial cities of Morocco was no escape from the yellow vests.  My small group of like-minded people was French, and the topic popped up during our lunches and dinners.  Many were retirees who lived in French provinces.  They took a dim view of the yellow vests’ demands and were horrified by the vandalism and violence.  The lifestyle of our French guide became a subject of conversation and soul searching.  He spoke Arabic and was amazingly cultured, having graduated in North African History and Islamic Culture.  Our tour operator hires him to conduct several cultural tours per year.  Impressed by his knowledge, one participant asked him why he didn’t select a full-time academic job.  His goal was to be free to choose his assignments and have time for himself and his family! Between short-term jobs, he drew unemployment benefits.  Not only did he complain that the previous government had lowered his payments, but that sometimes he could not make ends meet.  No comment. 

France lives beyond its means; its debt will soon reach 100% of its GDP! The country is no longer wealthy enough to provide cradle-to-grave social welfare benefits, a downside of which has been to dampen people’s taste for wage employment.  French people must be made to understand in plain language that they have to become responsible for their livelihood choices, cannot request the state to meet all their needs and expectations, and cannot blame the rich for their financial difficulties. 

Shakespeare provided the title of this blog; Jean de la Fontaine will supply the conclusion with his fable the Ant and the Grasshopper.  It is a moral lesson about the virtue of work and saving for the future: Winter is coming and the laid-back grasshopper begs food from the industrious ant who flatly refuses.  France has become a country of grasshoppers in yellow vests, with ants made to provide assistance.  They are forced to share their earnings through a costly redistribution tax system which at the end, punishes workers to the benefit of less industrious citizens.  Pandering to populism is a race to the bottom.

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[1] www.politico.eu, December 8, 2018

[2] Actually, road deaths have recently fell, vindicating the government.

[3] 8.20 euro a packet for status brands.  Interestingly, there is an overlap between areas with strong yellow vests’ activity and high tobacco smoking.