Major protests in France: Macron convenes student representatives

Joining us now to talk more about those protests that are planned for Saturday is Philippe Moreau-Chevelloff from Sciences Po. He's a communications specialist and the host of the Rearming Democracy podcast. Great to have you with us, Philippe. So another round of protests planned for tomorrow. It's clearly an indication, I think, that the French people feel like their voices are not being heard. Now, at this point, it's not just about one specific issue, is it? It's more a reflection of a broader frustration against the government. Yes, the fact is that we have a president that has been there for like 10 years and it's a long period of time we are not used to that. Usually they have been defeated after their first round and after their first mandate, This one has succeeded to be re-elected and it's a long, long period of time. So there is this frustration accumulated through time. There is a need for change. What we observe massively in the polls is the need for change, any kind of change, even a radical one. So what we see is populist forces on the far left and the far right pushing their agendas and it heightens the level of tension significantly. Now there are new restrictions and bans in place for this weekend, but is it possible that this could only deepen the frustration and escalate the crisis even further? We don't know at that point. What we see is we have several persons, several kinds of persons walking on the streets. We have, first of all, people from the far left. Some of them are violent. Most of them are not. And we have demonstrators that are not at all politicized. That's the mass of the protesters, the demonstrators. They are not politicized. And we have also people that take advantage of these events in order to loot, to steal. And some of them are organized. They are organized gangs. Most of them are opportunistic pillagers that just want to benefit from the fact that some of them did open the windows, break the windows, open the doors. So it's a very complicated situation because we are not talking about a unified public. So just continuing on your point there, Philippe, about the fact that there are various different people taking place in these protests. How representative would you say are these protesters of wider public opinion in France than the people that we're seeing in the streets? 91% of the people French people are against violence in the streets They are really really worried about the current situation so most of the vast majority of the people are against violence any kind of violence and They want people to be able to demonstrate that second dates They also want people to be able to demonstrate peacefully in the streets So it's a mixed feeling on the part of the French population. Between, we are against violence, we don't want to see that ever again, and the state needs to be strong and firm on these issues. On the other hand, we want people to be able to express their frustration, their anger against the government, because we feel that way too. So it's a very mixed feeling. So President Emmanuel Macron, for the first time, is set to host some high school pupils whose protests over school conditions has sparked the initial movement. Will this dialogue be enough, in your view, especially given that many feel he's somewhat disconnected from public sentiment? Yes, he seems to be disconnected. He made a speech on Sunday evening that was not efficient at all. He said that he was feeling some kind of shame at what was happening in the streets. At the time he spoke, the looting was going on, so the situation was not at all clear at that point. And he didn't say anything significant. He didn't say that he was planning to do anything significant either. The only thing that he said is that he would talk to the persons that are dissatisfied with his policies, especially people in the school system. And they have started to do that, to talk. But it's a little bit late and it's a little bit not enough. Now, all of this is rather reminiscent of the massive protests that we saw by the Yellow Vest Movement back in 2018. But is there anything that sets this apart from all the previous demonstrations we've seen since then? It's not the same thing as the Yellow Vest Movement. Why? Because the Yellow Vest Movement was a movement initiated by people that were kind of linked to the far right and kind of, you know, outside of the big cities. What we observe there is a movement that has been born in the cities, and especially, mostly an urban thing. And it's not the majority of the people that are demonstrating this time. They are representative of the core of the left's votes, of the leftist voters, mostly, you know, dissatisfied, urban, educated classes. Okay, we're going to have to leave it there, but thank you so much for sharing your insights with us. That's Philippe Moreau-Chevrolet from Sciences Po. Thank you.