For 11 weeks the French Working class have been out on the streets showing their anger towards the French political administration, and in particular the French President Emmanuel Macron’s Marie Antoinette like behaviour towards the French proletariat. When Marie-Antoinette was asked in the 18th century what should the poor eat in the absence of bread, her response
‘Let them eat cake’,
When President Macron has been faced with similar questions relating to fuel prices and how should the French working class get to work in the morning his response may as well have been ‘hire a driver and a Limousine’. His politically elite disinterest towards the French working class has been astonishing but not entirely unexpected.
My Lunch with Emmanuelle Macron.
I met him in 2016 he had resigned from his Ministerial position, and recently launched a Presidential bid, in 2016 it seemed unlikely he would be the next President of France. I was invited by the European Union’s Poverty and Inequality group to speak on a panel about Britain’s ‘left out’ working class, after the commissioners of the group had read my book ‘Getting By’ about a Nottingham council estate, and several articles I had written about deindustrialisation and the working class vote around Brexit. The day was split into two parts in the morning the panel, and the commission met with people that had been invited into the meeting from various EU wide charities working on the consequences of poverty, they also brought some of their service users, to make a more powerful impact, Macron was charming and engaged with the former homeless people brought in by the charities with a smoothness that was reminiscent of snake oil salesman, he was empathetic, and when they told him that Government policy and austerity had caused them the most harm, he looked like he might cry. I watched, and thought about how different his manner was to British politicians.
Over lunch in the EU restaurant consisting of salmon canapés and soup with lovely bread - I spoke to Emmanuel Macron at some length about exclusion and poverty throughout Europe. Macron was very interested and attentive to my thoughts about Brexit, and especially the working class that had been socially, politically, and culturally excluded over the last 40 years. I was impressed by his knowledge and interest in this type of exclusion, and we spoke about the rise of the far right Front National, both of us agreeing that there was definitely a connection between right wing populism and social and class inequality. I noted at the time how different this response was to British politicians I had met from all spectrums that always have a Party Political line that they stick to, and stray from, making it clear that they are not there to engage in ideas from other people.
In the afternoon there was an open panel where I spoke and focused on class inequality, Thatcherism and the fortifying of a neo-liberal economy during the 1980s, and the problems that had been caused through New Labour’s social exclusion policy and the narrative of Third Way politics in the UK.
I pulled no punches, I never do when it comes to class inequality and the lie and damage that is done through the institutionalised gaslighting[1] that is social mobility, and meritocracy, that blames working class people that their apparent failure, and inability to become socially mobile is their personal failure, rather than the failure of the political and social system that gives unearned advantages to the middle class, while at the same time ensures that the working class are disadvantaged undeservedly. The European MPs and guests listened intently, and were interested in how this might be connected to Brexit.
In Emmanuelle Macron’s keynote speech at the end of the day he congratulated me on my research, and agreed and referred to my own presentation. Admittedly I was impressed, I have sat on many different panels with academics, and politicians in the UK and very rarely would any of the British middle class panellists ever admit to the argument that social mobility is a con trick ensuring class reproduction rather than challenging it.
I found Emmanuelle Macron, highly intelligent, and the perfect politician, I even made reference to him being a lot like Tony Blair, he laughed and said ‘I hope not’. M. Macron during the 2017 French Presidential campaign made a lot of political capital by distancing himself from the usual political suspects especially the French Socialist Party that had thrown the French working class under the bus during the very unpopular Presidency of Francoise Hollande, and he had used the fear of popularity for the far right Front National amongst people that had been ‘left out’ of the Parisian (and London) Middle Class Sharpen your Elbows Party.
In just two years this precarious political elite balancing act is tumbling in France, the French working class that were scolded by the arrogant left centrist Socialist Party who refused to acknowledge their falling living standards. The French working class like working class people all over the world have had enough of the gaslighting, and the attacks by the ugly extravagance of the Marie- Antoinette like privileged political minority that make promises, smile in your face, fake concern, or dismiss legitimate outrage as stupidity, criminality or mob behaviour.
M. Macron was elected out of a broken and lacking system that cannot and will not hold corrupt financial systems, elite and exclusive education systems, class inequality to account because they belong to it, they believe in it, and it serves them well. They cannot be reformed, they need abolishing.
[1] Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity.