On Thursday, incidents erupted on the sidelines of protests against pension reform. The Prime Minister denounced “unacceptable violence”. However, politically, the executive seems helpless in the face of the demonstrators. Jean-Rémi Baudot’s political brief
We have all seen these images, in Paris or Bordeaux. These small groups of demonstrators, very mobile, often causing fires in their path. Movements difficult to control, outside of any union organization. Tense situations where the use of force by the police is sometimes questioned.
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It is already necessary to make the difference between the processions and these small groups. Within these groups, there are in particular young people, unknown to the police, who express anger. However, there are also what the Ministry of the Interior calls ultra-left, anti-capitalist, highly politicized militants. Pension reform remains their main watchword, 49.3 their catalyst. But the stigmata of the demonstrations, anarchist tags in particular, complicate the political response to be made.
A relative of the Head of State defines some of these demonstrators as “nihilists”. Definition: ideology that refuses any social constraint. And so the objective, beyond pensions, is the fall of the liberal and capitalist system. This means that, as it stands, the executive cannot provide a political response. Beyond the withdrawal of the pension reform, no argument that the government could put forward would be likely to calm the most radical part of these young libertarians.
The executive is at an impasse. Officially, the government wants to play appeasement but behind the scenes, many explain to you that only the showdown with the police will eventually bring these demonstrators back home. A dangerous method because it flirts with the risk of smudging.
In the absence of a political response, the government could play public opinion
The complexity is that these sporadic movements could just as easily perpetuate themselves as extinguish themselves. According to political science professor Xavier Crettiez, a specialist in political violence, some of these demonstrators have no real reason to stop. Unlike strike days, these nocturnal demonstrations do not involve any direct cost for these participants, no deduction from salary. Add the idea that only violence would make it possible to win the case, the resonance of news channels and social networks, without forgetting the sometimes playful dimension of going to play cat and mouse with the police… And you have an unpredictable movement.
For lack of a political response to bring and except drama, if these movements were to get bogged down, the executive could rather play the opinion. This is partly what Emmanuel Macron began to do on Wednesday, invoking the American Capitol and Brazil. The Head of State places himself on the side of order. A way of trying to forget the origin of these protests: pensions.