The Daily - Part 2: The French Rebellion

Episode Date: June 11, 2019

President Emmanuel Macron of France had been viewed as the next leader of a liberal Europe. But when the Yellow Vest movement swept the country, protesters took to the streets, rejecting him as elitist and questioning the vision of Europe that he stood for. In Part 2 of our series, we traveled to a city in northern France to hear from some of these protesters. Guest Host: Katrin Bennhold, the Berlin bureau chief for The New York Times, and Clare Toeniskoetter and Lynsea Garrison, producers for “The Daily,” met with Yellow Vest demonstrators in Reims. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.Background reading:For some followers of the Yellow Vest movement, Europe embodies everything they have come to hate: shuttered factories, stagnating wages and a young banker-turned-president in favor of deeper integration.In elections last month for the European Parliament, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen won in the rural, depressed and deindustrialized areas of northern, south-central and eastern France that gave rise to the Yellow Vest revolt.

So we first got on the train to France. Let's take this poor person right here. Wow. France is one of the founding members of the European Union. It had been at war with Germany on and off for centuries, so it was also very invested in the idea of a united Europe. But recently, France has seen a lot of social unrest. The yellow vests.

They've been out in the streets, protesting on roundabouts and in the center of Paris against this young, dynamic new president, Emmanuel Macron. Who just a couple of years ago, a lot of people in Europe saw as the next leader of a liberal Europe. And now there's this really angry movement that is rejecting him and everything he stands for. As elitist, as undemocratic even, and somehow as not French, not serving the interests of ordinary French people. So by questioning Macron, this movement is really also questioning Europe. from the New York Times this is The Daily Yeah, it's finished. Yeah. Thank you. From the New York Times, this is The Daily. I'm Katrin Benholt.

Today, France. It's Tuesday, June 11th. France. Try again. France. Yeah, good. So we got off the train in Reims. I can't do that. In the city in northern France, and in the middle of this region that makes champagne.

We grab a cab and we're driving into town because we've heard that there's a group of Yellow Vest protesters who come every day to this one roundabout. And as we're driving along, the taxi driver pointed out this shattered factory. And he said, look. Here's an example of a factory that has moved to Hungary because it's cheaper to produce there. And guess what? Hungary is also part of the European Union.

So this is what Europe is all about. It plays the working class people of one country against the working class people of another. So the first guy we meet is unhappy with the European Union? Yeah. And what did he say about the LFS? So this guy said he wasn't a member of the Yellow Vest movement, but he said he supported them. And this is something that the polls show very clearly in France,

that more than half of the French people support this movement, this grassroots movement, against the government and against Europe. Oh, here. Here. Oh, here. Here. Oh, yeah, there we go. So we arrive at this roundabout. It's basically this massive highway intersection on the outskirts of Reims, kind of in the middle of suburbia. You've got these emblematic big company names around you.

You've got a big IKEA. You've got a KFC. And on the other side, a Burger King. It smells like campfire. And on one side, in a sort of grassy corner of this roundabout, is a blazing bonfire. And a small wooden shelter, clearly handmade, maybe the size of a one-car garage behind,

with a French flag blowing in the wind. And a number of people huddled around the fire with their bright yellow reflective vests. So when we first walked up to this group of people around the fire, they looked at us with a little bit of suspicion. And we sort of hung back a little until this woman approached us. Her name is Chloe. And she was a sort of small woman, but standing very upright, looking very serious.

Can I see your jacket? Small woman, but standing very upright, looking very serious. I'm just going to read the back of Clos' yellow vest. There's actually a slogan in the back. It says, stop, stop, Mr. Macron. And she's written anti-Macron slogans on the back of her yellow vest, which she had decorated with a lot of pins. You can't just milk us like cows. Mr. Macron, reduce your own salary.

She told me that she had six kids. Something like a dozen grandchildren. But she also tells me she's kind of the mother of the roundabout. And she says that she's been here pretty much every single day since the beginning, November 17th, 2018. It was clear to us that if we wanted to talk to anybody else,

we had to sort of get her permission. So we asked her, do you think these people would mind if we approached them? And she turned around, we faced her back. Do you want to speak to these journalists? Is it okay if they take photos and talk to some of you?

And everybody sort of nodded and said, okay, why not? No, no, no, no, it's okay, it's okay. Who else do we meet? So we meet a whole cast of characters there. Me? Micheline. Micheline? Andraja. Oh, excuse me! We meet Fréd cast of characters there.

We meet Frédéric and Micheline. This couple of retired vignette workers who basically spent their entire life making champagne on minimum wage. And now they're complaining of back problems after all these years of hard work. They're sort of in charge of comic relief here. They make everybody laugh. And we meet René.

He's a retired electrician in a wheelchair. He's the oldest of 16 children and said that he started working at 14. He heard about the Yellow Vest movement on TV last November. Then he came to see it and has been here ever since. We meet Monique, a retired woman. Monique has been working for 43 years, she said, and now makes a pension of about 700 euros, that's 700. Monique has been working for 43 years, she said, and now makes a pension of about 700 euros a month.

She tells us that the first time she came to the roundabout, she was just overwhelmed by the kindness here. What else did they tell us? So a lot of them were telling us how this movement started. We, personally, it's the overflowing of gas. Today, gas is 1.50 euros. It was last fall when President Macron announced an increase in gas taxes. And this angered a lot of people. And they started posting these videos on Facebook.

And they started calling for protests across France. And in one video, someone suggested that people take these yellow reflective vests and use them as a symbol of solidarity. Because in France, everybody is required by law to have these vests in the back of their cars. So very soon people started gathering across the country for these protests, and they wore these yellow vests. This idea that gas prices would now be $6 a gallon, roughly, was a slap in the face to a lot of these people who worked very hard and, as it was, struggled to make ends meet.

And it sort of was emblematic of a president who lived in the Paris bubble, in a city with good public transport, who didn't really have to worry about money nor getting from A to B in a car. So there was a sense that this president was putting these lofty globalist ideas and these European values ahead of just regular French people who are often struggling. For working class people, it was an insult. And this became a countrywide grassroots movement.

So all these people gather all across the country, in Paris, in cities like Reims. What are their goals? The one goal that unites everybody on that roundabout was that they want to see Macron gone. I mean, the hatred of this president was so visceral. I mean, I'd never seen anything like it. No, no, no, he only does that.

It's a dictatorship. He's a dictator. Macron is a dictator. It was almost like, after Macron, people here were kind of done with leaders. They told me they don't even want a leader for their own movement. They want direct democracy.

They want the voice of the people to be heard. They want referendums, they told me. And beyond that, you can't even really classify this movement as being either on the right or on the left. This was actually mostly an apolitical movement that was just fed up with politics and had become politicized through that. One man I met said he had actually voted for Macron in the last election and he had had great hopes in him. He trusted him to sort of change France for the better.

to sort of change France for the better. But two years in, he said he felt completely disillusioned and betrayed by this man. He had voted on the left, he had voted for Macron, and now he said... He was going to vote for Marine Le Pen, this far-right politician who has been trying to sell her Eurosceptic, anti-immigrant vision of France first to the Yellow Vest movement. But my main impression from those conversations on the roundabout was that people were motivated by a desire to humiliate Macron first and to basically tear him down. Macron first and to basically tear him down. So if they're not a political movement, what are they actually doing?

So one of the things that they've been doing regularly and the thing that probably most people are aware of because you've seen it on television is these Saturday marches. And these marches at times times, have become quite violent on both sides, between the police and the yellow vests. But then beyond that, and in a very decentralized fashion across the country on these little roundabouts, they will just step into traffic in their yellow vests, in little groups, and they will sort of slow down traffic, even stop traffic, and they will engage people.

down traffic, even stop traffic, and they will engage people. And while we were there, this started happening. About half of them start running out onto the street, and they start sort of disrupting traffic actively. And they do it in a sort of very friendly, polite way. They start sort of engaging with drivers, talking to them, handing flyers to their windows. And they say, Please, would you mind putting your yellow vest on your dashboard? Thank you. Please, put your yellow vest on your dashboard. Thank you. Please put your yellow vest on your dashboard. Thank you.

Please, would you mind putting your yellow vest on your dashboard? Thank you. Thank you. And so the point of these actions, mainly it seemed, was to get solidarity from a larger part of the population beyond the actual movement, to have these very visible signs of support like the yellow vest in have these very visible signs of support, like the Yellow Vest, in front of their cars, you know, visible on the dashboard. Eventually, they started very confidently, kind of casually almost, marching across the street and singing their songs and chanting revolution.

And it was a very joyous, very sort of powerful moment where this small group of elderly protesters in their yellow vests crossed this roundabout with a lot of cars sort of honking in support and they were crossing the street. So then suddenly the sky breaks open. And it's like the mother of all thunderstorms that comes down on us on this roundabout. It's like the mother of all thunderstorms that comes down on us on this roundabout.

It's like the middle of the afternoon and within two minutes we're all drenched. It's like pouring down and thunder and lightning. It's super dramatic. And basically everybody laughs and sings and keeps chanting revolution and then sort of runs through this incredible downpour. And seeks shelter in the tiny wooden hut. And people kind of huddle together and look outside into the dark sky as this downpour unfolds and comes down on the bonfire. And what's it like in the shelter?

It was kind of like a microcosm of the French way of life that these people are trying to protect. You had a little bar on the left with coffee and pastries and some potatoes. You had a sofa on the right with a few petanque balls on the floor. What's petanque? It's a bit like croquet. It's a quintessentially French thing.

So on this tiny space, you know, this sort of seven square meters, you have people sort of crowding on the sofa, singing the Marseillaise, the national anthem, laughing, chatting and drinking coffee. It's all incredibly civilized and jovial and incredibly French. I felt so much camaraderie in this room. Yes. Here we were on this really not very pleasant piece of land. It was muddy. It was noisy, surrounded by highways. And yet they had created this sort of community. It really felt like a living room. this may be wishful thinking, that there may be a lot of naivety, that how could this ever get anywhere without leadership, without organization?

But there was something so vibrant and optimistic and so determined. I mean, the simple fact that there was a dozen people who had come to this muddy roundabout every single day since November 17th last year, that in itself is an incredible achievement. So a lot of people on that roundabout told me they weren't there for themselves. They said they were there for their children and for their grandchildren. They basically said they were there for the next generation. children and for their grandchildren. They basically said they were there for the next generation.

Now France doesn't have the same levels of inequality as the United States or even Britain. But inequality has been rising here too. And young people are particularly affected by this. Youth unemployment is high. And poverty among those under the age of 25 has actually been increasing in recent years. So when I spotted a young girl in the back of the shelter, I wanted to talk to her. And so I went over.

Elisa is 12. Her mother, Hélène, is one of the Yellow Vestras. She said she's really proud of her mom. And she said she's creating a better world, a world in which people talk to each other more on the streets and spend less time on their telephones. It's a beautiful future, actually. It would be great. So then, just as suddenly as the rain had started,

it stopped. And the sky brightened, and we sort of stepped out, and the fire was still going. Macron doesn't want us, we're here. We're here. We're here. And even if Macron doesn't want us, we'll stay here. We'll always be here. We'll be right back. I love it.

Okay, we're going? Yeah, let's go. Okay. So by now it's 6.30 in the evening, and the girl, Elisa, needs to head home with her parents, Jeremy and Hélène. But we want to keep talking. So they invite us over. So we get to their apartment. It's on the top floor.

And when we come in, we find this very sort of sparsely decorated, but very homey space. There are a lot of plants. There's a lot of fabric. And when we get to the living room, the whole family is sitting around the table. Hélène, her husband Jeremy, an electrician. Their three children, Hugo, Luna and Elisa. They're all at high school age, 18, 14 and 12. And what's really obvious

is that the children really want to take part in this conversation. They're all like taking extra chairs and huddling around the table with us. And their dog.

Their dog. How could I forget? So Jeremy and Hélène were neighbors as children. They grew up next to each other. In Reims? In Reims. Both of them are from working class families. Jeremy's father worked in a factory.

Hélène's father was a policeman. And they spoke of a sort of modest but comfortable upbringing. They both started working as teenagers, Jeremy at 15, Hélène at 16. When they first started working, they said things weren't so bad. Work hours were reasonable, salaries increased from one year to the next. But at some point, Jeremy in particular said that life started getting really tough. next. But at some point, Jeremy in particular said that life started getting really tough.

The thing that made him mad was the eastward expansion of the European Union. He mentioned companies that would come from other countries, Eastern European countries, that were able to undercut companies like his own in

competing for contracts. He mentioned people from those countries eventually coming to France and competing directly with people like him for jobs. And so increasingly there was a sense that their salaries and their job opportunities were stagnating. Their living standards were stagnating. And that when his dad was able to buy a house in his 30s with a young family, Jeremy felt that he can barely make ends meet.

He struggles to pay his bills. He has to borrow money from his own parents, and he feels humiliated by this. He seemed tired, frustrated, and he had aged beyond his age. He was only 38, and a very handsome man, but he looked older. He said he wishes he could take his children to the cinema. He wants to take them bowling.

And he summed it all up by saying, we don't live, we just work. And his wife, Hélène, she said sometimes she just cries. There are days, she says, when all she has is two euros to cook for five people. Two meals. She says she goes to the shop,

buys a pack of pasta, buys a pack of bacon, and makes two meals. What do they do with all this frustration? So for most of their lives, they've stayed away from politics. Jeremy told me that his parents have always voted. And he said, and look where that got us to.

He said, what's the point of voting? So at some point, they start hearing about the Yellow Vest movement. And at first, they really think it's not for them. Jeremy told us he thought, this is for people on the minimum wage. This is for people who are unemployed. This is for really poor people, he said. But then they hear some more about it. And at some point he decides to check it out.

And they go. And it was a revelation for them. They arrived on this roundabout. And they realized they knew a lot of people there. And the ones that they didn't know, they met and they discovered that a lot of the people there on that roundabout had very similar experiences to their own. And what I found really striking is how they expressed

the sense of relief that they weren't the only ones. We'll be right back. So over the course of the evening, over and over again, I saw this family that was angry not just with Macron, but with Europe. that was angry not just with Macron, but with Europe. The European Union had caused wage stagnation. The European Union had increased unemployment. The European Union had basically created the sense of a race to the bottom. So Jeremy was pretty clear when I asked him whether he felt European.

He said, not at all. He said, I feel French, only French. And what about their kids, Katrin? Luna, who's 14, sounded completely disillusioned already. She said, Europe? What is Europe? Europe to me is not much. It's just a group of countries trading together. What do you want to be? We ask her what she wants to be when she grows up.

And she told us she would love to work with animals. But then she pauses. And she said that's just a dream. And that she's probably going to end up following into her father's footsteps and become an electrician. She didn't feel like she had a choice. And what do you make of all this? I think, despite all the camaraderie that we saw on the roundabout, and despite the optimism around the table at Jeremy and Hélène's house, this movement has been fading.

It's been dwindling in numbers. And for the moment, it doesn't look like something that is going to last or grow into something that can lead people sort of credibly out of crisis and provide kind of a future avenue for them with real substantive solutions to these very real and pressing challenges. I mean, a couple of years ago, we all saw Macron's rise and we thought, here's a man and this man made a movement. And now the question is, this counter movementmovement, can it make a man?

Can it make a woman? Can it make a leader? Will there be somebody, some face to this movement that will take it forward in a more strategic way? But that hasn't happened yet. And if it doesn't happen, then the question is, where will this go next? Where will these people go next? So ahead of these EU elections, I find myself wondering, could the members of this Yellow Vest movement be tempted by the far right, by someone like Marine Le Pen and her party, which sort of stands for these anti-liberal, anti-EU values that would address some of their frustrations, but at the same time is so all consumed with immigration, a subject that really wasn't something that came up a lot in the conversations with the people we met. So the question, I guess, is at this point,

are people in this movement prepared to put someone like Marine Le Pen into power just because they're so angry with everybody else? And recent polling suggests they might. That's it for The Daily. I'm Katrin Benhold. See you tomorrow in Italy. Thank you.