In the French cartoon Asterix, we meet a small village populated by steadfast Gauls. They resist the mighty Roman invaders, among other things with the help of a magic potion, but perhaps mostly thanks to their incomparable fighting spirit. Frenchmen dressed as Obelix from the cartoon Asterix demonstrate with the yellow vests in Montpellier, France in 2019. Photo: SYLVAIN THOMAS / AFP In today’s France, the magic potion has been replaced by wine and dark-roasted espresso. But as has been seen in recent months, the French have not lost their fighting spirit. They strike, shout and burn things down. DAILY: A Parisian cycles past a fire during a protest against Macron’s pension reform. Photo: OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE / AFP In the past, it has been the war in Algeria, gay marriage or fuel taxes that have made people angry. They have been wearing red hats or yellow vests, and they have thrown eggs and flour right into the face of the president. Now the protests are about pension reform, but perhaps also about much more. news has asked a young protester and an expert on French politics why there is so much noise in France. NOT UNHEARD OF: France’s former president Francois Hollande has a dose of flour thrown at him ahead of the election campaign in 2017. Several presidents have experienced similar food-related attacks in recent years. Photo: FRED DUFOUR / AFP In addition to the concrete problems with the reform now, there are three bigger reasons. – We like it, to be honest Macron and the government have raised the retirement age from 62 to 64. Among other things, with the help of a loophole in the constitution that allowed them to adopt the proposal without a vote. – We are going out into the streets, we are going to occupy the schools and universities to overthrow the government and force them to withdraw this reform, Gwen Thomas Alves (17) tells news. Gwen Thomas Alves (17) is in her last year of high school and is a local team leader in the student organization FIDL. Photo: Simen Ekern / news He is the local leader of one of the country’s student organisations, and an active participant in the Paris demonstrations in recent weeks. There have been many more students his age recently, and there is talk of a new protest force because of that. Young people are protesting against an increase in the retirement age which will not affect them until 40 years from now. Why? – It’s about solidarity. Many are unable to work after the age of 60. A quarter of the poorest in France die before they turn 60. We do this in solidarity with them, with our fathers and mothers, explains Alves. – But we also do it for ourselves, he says. – If you postpone the retirement age, there will be even fewer jobs for us young people. And now youth unemployment is at 18 per cent, adds the high school student. PROTEST GENERATION: Paragraph 49.3 of the constitution has become a symbol of the rebellion in France now. Front page of the newspaper Libération 29.3. The very way in which President Macron pushed through the reform has also contributed to more young people taking to the streets. Paragraph 49.3 of the constitution gives the president the right to skip a vote in the national assembly in special cases. He put it into use at the end of March, and Alves believes it is a huge democratic problem. “49.3” has become a symbol of arrogance and abuse of power, and the number is sprayed on walls all over the country. Now French newspapers are talking about “generation 49.3” – The fact that the authorities pushed through the pension reform by force made a lot of people really angry, says Alves. Alves is aware of the reputation that hangs over the French, that they are always demonstrating. He doesn’t mind. – We have such a reputation. We like it a lot, to be honest. We make noise. It’s going to continue, we’re going to continue to speak our minds in the streets. But this wave of protests stands out, he believes. – Last week there were 800,000 people in Paris, the biggest demonstration in 50 years. What is happening now is something different and more than the usual protests you have every week in France. These are real demonstrations, which can really change things. END OF THE KINGDOM: On a poster during the protests against the pension reform in France, President Macron is compared to a king who looks down on his people. “End of the monarchy” reads the poster. Photo: NACHO DOCE / Reuters A history filled with revolution Emmanuel Macron already knew at the start of his presidential career that he was facing a challenge. That the French are characterized by their history. – The French are king-killing monarchists, he told the German newspaper Der Spiegel in October 2017. A demonstrator walks with a cardboard guillotine during the protests against the pension reform in France. “Let’s cut out this pension reform” it says on the guillotine. Photo: Jean-Francois Badias / AP What Macron meant is that the French basically love their president, whom they want to see as a king. Then, when things go bad, they will cut off his head. They’ve done it before. From the French Revolution through May 1968, French history is replete with dramatic protests. French protest history This is a very simplified list of the most important events in French protest history. After a long period of political unrest and economic difficulties, France broke out in revolution in the summer of 1789. A National Assembly was formed in 1789, and the monarchy was abolished. The National Assembly adopted a declaration on human rights, where it was established that all people are born free and equal, and that all authority in society must emanate from the people. Photo: Jean-Pierre Louis Laurent Houel / Bibliothèque Nationale Française The July Revolution was a revolutionary uprising in Paris between 26 and 29 July 1830, directed against the reactionary government of Charles X. The February revolution broke out after the authorities had banned a so-called reform banquet. In the riots that followed, the National Guard went over to the rebels, and King Louis Philippe abdicated on 24 February. The Paris Commune is the term for the revolutionary government in Paris in March–May 1871 during the Third Republic (1870–1940). The reasons for the Parisians’ rebellion are to be found, among other things, in the humiliating French defeat against Prussia during the Franco-German war, after a particularly difficult siege of the capital, and the fear of the reinstatement of a monarch. Photo: Bruno Braquehais In May 1936, a broad coalition on the left, including communists, socialists and the moderate left parties, won the election in France. The unions received this election victory by going on strike, and the new government responded by introducing several important rights such as the 40-hour work week and two weeks off a year. A student uprising in Paris in May 1968 developed into a general strike and extensive confrontations in the streets of France. This became a political and economic crisis for the formerly popular president, Charles de Gaulle. Many feared that the protests would develop into civil war or revolution. Photo: – / AFP In the period 2018-2019, several million French people demonstrated in the movement known as the yellow vests, after the garment the demonstrators wore. The protests were aimed at higher fuel taxes and the cost of living, but also developed into a broader movement demanding a more democratic political system. Photo: Benoit Tessier / Reuters Show more – We must look at this crisis with a historical perspective. The democratic crisis in France has lasted a long time, says Nicolas Tenzer to news. Tenzer is a professor at Sciences Po in Paris, and has studied French protest culture for a long time. Nicolas Tenzer, professor at Sciences Po in Paris. Photo: Simen Ekern / news He points to three major reasons for the French’s urge to take to the streets: – This is due, among other things, to the fact that the executive power trumps the other powers in society. – It is also because the French are experiencing a future crisis. Many French have a dark view of the future. They find that no matter how hard they work, it doesn’t pay off. That the public services will be poor, and that their children will have a more difficult life than themselves. – There are also a number of questions related to France’s less important role on the world stage, and what binds French society together. And in particular, many feel that the distance between the elites and ordinary French people is growing. Conspiracies and philosophy Tenzer also believes it is important to consider the way the French think. In recent years, we have seen the rise of a number of conspiracy movements, he says. – They often have ties to the far right and far left, and get help from foreign players. In general, they believe that the population is being misled. The front page of the left-wing newspaper Libération on Tuesday 28 March compares French people demonstrating against the pension reform to Asterix and Obelix. Photo: Simen Ekern / news Tenzer says these conspiracy theories really showed up during the yellow vest protests and the corona crisis. – A good example is that the leader of one of the country’s largest trade unions came out and said that Macron introduced this reform to serve the bank Rothschild, where Macron worked a long time ago. It is of course wrong. These conspiracy theories can have supporters among all strata of society. But France’s most renowned philosophers have also been very positive about protest and revolution. Jean-Paul Sartre was among the philosophers who thought it was okay to use violence to fight for freedom. Photo: AP Take, for example, the narrow-eyed philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, who believed that it was only through action – and preferably political protest – that one could have a meaningful life. The existentialist philosopher Albert Camus was early on in expressing his support for those who resisted colonialism in the 1940s and 1950s. Photo: – / AFP Sartre’s colleague, Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus, pointed to something the same: Both Sartre’s and Camus’ texts are the syllabus for French high school students like Gwen Thomas Alves. Young protesters wear gas masks, ski goggles and use umbrellas as shields during protests in Nantes, France, on March 7. Photo: Jeremias Gonzalez / AP Wants an end to the “empire” Gwen Thomas Alves thinks Macron has too much power. – Yes, he has far too much power. I think our ancestors who participated in the French Revolution would be very unhappy if they saw this. In France, the president can be elected even if he does not have that much support. In the first round of the presidential election in 2022, Macron received 28 percent of the vote, while 58 percent of the vote went to highly critical candidates. In early March, Macron was compared to the power-loving Roman emperor Caligula by opposition politician Mathilde Panot. Photo: Carole Raddato / Flickr In the second round, Macron won with 58 percent against far-right candidate Le Pen. In early March, opposition politician Mathilde Panot accused Macron of ruling like an “emperor”. And it is more about this distribution of power than anything else the French are demonstrating for, Professor Tenzer believes. Opposition politicians in the French National Assembly protest against the government’s pension reform. Photo: BERTRAND GUAY / AFP – It is a phenomenon that could be seen already 25-30 years ago: There are people who protest when a reform comes, much more than against the reform itself. Today, that is precisely what we see, explains Nicolas Tenzer. A protester in Nantes holds a traffic sign as he clashed with police. Photo: Jeremias Gonzalez / AP He believes the anger we see in France today could just as easily have been expressed against any other political project. – If it wasn’t the pension reform, then it would have been the reform of the social security system or something similar. The pension reform hardly deserves this overwhelming opposition. It could certainly have been improved, but something had to be done. – In any case, this reform was the perfect occasion for all the anger to come out. With an Asterix-like fighting spirit, Gwen Thomas Alves will fight on. – It will end with the pension reform being withdrawn, of course. That is what we hope, he says.
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The country that loves protest – Urix
