Andrew Smith warns that policing, political blame are no substitute for social reform & public trust

We're going to stay on this story next and bring in Andrew Smith, historian of modern France at Queen Mary University of London. Thank you so much for joining us on the programme today. You heard there from Rochelle that the French Prime Minister has this delicate task. On one hand, he needs to be able to listen to the unions and demonstrators out on the streets, but at the same time be tough and crack down on any potential violence that could break out this next weekend. Absolutely. He's got a difficult job ahead of him, and it is a big job for the Prime Minister to look over. One of the lines I thought that Sophie Binet, the General Secretary of the CGT, used, and I thought really got to the heart of it, is she criticised the Bastille Commune and said he has to remember he's no longer Minister of the Armed Forces. He's Prime Minister. He needs to listen to these sorts of demands. The criticism there is, of course, they're finding the police, they're finding the security forces, as they should, to guarantee Republican order, potential demonstrations next Saturday the following Saturday but actually what many high school students are looking for is more teachers in the classroom is more specific reforms that look at how we address these kind of things that spark a spark point which led to much of this later unrest so yeah it is absolutely a balancing act and it's i think beset on all sides by some of the political slagging matches which are going on right now in the assembly we can see the far left saying, well, this is all the government's fault. You've been at it for years. The government's saying, well, this is your friends that are up to this and all this kind of stuff. And ultimately, that type of conspiratorial blame game does very little to help. Gérald Darmanin, the Minister of Justice, he's down in Marseille, he's looking at the cells which are full of people that have been arrested and tried for their parts in violence and disorder. And that's right. The government has a responsibility to guarantee Republican order. But actually, I think French politicians, and especially those in the Assembly, have a duty to try and find a way out of this together. And that's not just in campaigning for their own interests, in campaigning for their own candidates in the presidential elections in six months' time, but actually trying to look at the solutions which can help France. And so I think Sophie Binet has been correct in calling that out. Andrew, I'm just going to cut you off for a second because we're going to listen to the head of the CGT union who's actually walked out of that meeting with the prime minister. imposed on him to hear for three hours the scale of the anger of workers, the scale of social grievances. For the rest, however, it's catastrophic. We have come to obtain tangible, immediate answers to the social anger. The prime minister, the government announced no measure whatsoever in response to our demands. You were listening to union bosses speak outside the Prime Minister's office following that three-hour-long meeting this Wednesday. Andrew Smith was listening to all those speeches with me. Andrew, thank you so much for staying with us. Basically, the sense I got from all those speeches we heard there is that the government does not have the measures in place to respond to the anger we saw out on the streets this past weekend? I think what we've just heard is after a three-hour meeting, the only thing that's really been achieved is turning up the temperature on pressure cooker France. It sounds like a really challenging situation. I mentioned before when we were talking that, you know, I think the really difficult thing right now in Parliament is this blame game that's taking place. But actually, there needs to be solutions arrived at through engaging with social partners. Now, we can see, of course, the CGT standing there. Sophie Binet is representing her members. She's making these maximalist demands around what kind of change that needs to happen. But the government needs to start working on finding some solution to some of the problems that people are facing. 500,000 people in the streets of France doesn't happen by chance. And yes, there were extraordinary, dreadful riots and violence which followed that. and that makes realizing and addressing those claims all the more difficult but it doesn't excuse any of that and i think the really important thing is when people make those demands when the unions make those demands to government what we hear time and again is there is no magic money tree there is no money to pay for this i think the really important thing is there is no magic social cohesion tree either and that's the really challenging thing you can't police yourself into social cohesion you can't police yourself into a political future and that's where the balance needs to be taken right now, I think. So meetings like today look like a missed opportunity for the Prime Minister to engage meaningfully with social partners to help deliver change. Instead, what he's got is a call for people to get out and get their yellow vests on in a fortnight's time. Andrew, stay with us because we had the French President Emmanuel Macron who toured these Gulf states to try and secure energy supplies in the wake of Saturday's demonstrations. Take a listen to what Emmanuel Macron had to say from Doha. The objective is to listen and respect the concerns, disagreements, and at times the anger that is there, to treat the causes in a methodical manner, but to separate it from the violence, which we will not budge on. Andrew, what do you make of how Emmanuel Macron has handled this crisis so far? Because on the eve of the protests on Saturday, he was spotted along with the French First Lady at Celine Dion's concert in Paris. Then, of course, he gave that speech on Sunday night. He jetted off to the Middle East to secure these energy supplies. He's apparently supposed to meet with the intelligence chiefs here in France on Thursday to assess the situation in the run-up to the yellow vest protest this coming saturday how has he handled all this uh this this crisis this anger we've seen out on the streets i think poorly uh is the the very short answer um emmanuel macron has always presented himself as a jupiterian president uh above the fray while also being this sort of hyper president who you know personalizes engagement and with things you know really tries to use prime ministers as being someone to carry out his will and it's a sense of being intricately involved and you know really kind of very closely involved in the kind of political running of the country what happened I think when he gave his announcement 16.7 million people I think in France tuned in to see that announcement he saw a direct audience with the French people and what he seemed to say was speak to the intermediaries I've left some guys behind in charge that you can maybe get some answers from in the future now he's tackling things on the international scene he's gone to the Gulf that prearranged trip he's been you know discussing and announcing fuel supplies which he imagines will kind of reduce some of the cost of living increases down the line but it really seems that there is something missing there I think in that speech we didn't see those specific measures we didn't see some big gesture that would change things and so it feels like Macron is you know if not a lame duck then at least at the tail end of his presidency he's sort of retreated to the international scene where he's found himself finding that kind of niche that he can engage in but actually what he's let go is the social cohesion of the country and there needs to be more engagement I think with the problems that are wracking France right now and if Parliament cannot solve these issues then we need to see what can be done we need to see how the President can say well let's rise up this way in that Jupiterian way and announce changes and work on different elements that can happen there are small things that can be done that would help calm some of this anger You know, abolishing that parkour soup, the admissions app for universities that would appease a lot of the discussion in high schools. That's a small measure. It's a big task, but it's not for a government. And these kind of small things, something needs to happen. This constant, we'll see you in two weeks time, three weeks time, speak to the next guy along the line. None of that is going to fly. We've just seen the evidence in those trade union leaders coming out to say exactly why that's a problem. Now, we have the French Prime Minister who's promising a massive security deployment in the run-up to the next batch of protests, which we're going to see in France, the Yellow Vest one, of course, this coming Saturday, and then November 5th, the ones the unions have called for. I'm just curious to ask, what do you make of this report in the media part, a publication that security chiefs, the government wanted security chiefs here in France to point the finger of blame at the far-left, France Unbowed, for stoking the unrest which we saw this past weekend? It's a real challenge to get into some of the conspiratorial detail that can get behind it. But as you said, there is clear reporting and clear evidence that the government has maintained the line of trying to associate this violence with the far left, and particularly with La France Unbowed, France Unbowed party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. For me, that's as may be. There may be different people involved, different parties. It's not one party that's leading this. This is not about conceiving one political party. But what I will say is I think that line, that political attack line just puts into the hands of the far right for the elections to come in six months time. For me, every single time the government says, look for chaos and look at that party, they are setting themselves up and I think discrediting people's faith in the political machine. It may well be that there are people encouraging people to get involved in protests. It may well be that they're encouraging all sorts of outrageous language. But I think this constant attack line avoids a sense of looking for solutions. There cannot be a blame game. That's what the courts are there for. That's what the justice will do. It will prosecute those who are guilty for the crimes that have been committed, for the damage that's been done. If someone's stealing trainers, they're not a good guy making a political point. They're burning down a town hall. That's not helpful political discourse. but 500,000 people in the street making demands talking about the fact they're reliving 1789, to avoid another 1939 there's where we can start to find a vision for what people are thinking about is wrong with France right now now it doesn't mean you just cave to demands but neither can you ignore them and release them out of existence and that for me is emblematic of that attack line coming out of the government about associating all of this with one party i think you raise an interesting point when you said that half a million people did come out on the streets because for the most part, the protests were very peaceful. Of course, it did descend into violence. There were scuffles, there were clashes, there was looting. But what do you make of the fact that, firstly, the far right is gaining ground given the scenes of violence which erupted? And we have authoritarian leaders, whether it's the US President Donald Trump or Netanyahu in Israel, trying to capitalize on the scenes of violence here, You're saying this is a reason why we don't need radical Islam in our countries and why we don't want migration as well. Yeah, I think so. You've got two kind of separate issues there. The first is, you know, I think you can look at, for example, Jordan Bardella, of course, the president of the National Rally Party, number two. So, you know, recently the revelations about his kind of anti-Semitic messages in the past, all forgotten. Now he gets to stand outside of police stations and point at Green MPs and say, your friends did this. your friends did this that's what that government line does it plays into that messaging from the far right which says order stability policing security politics that's what they want to see that's where they want to see that election fought but you're right this is also something and President Macron talked about this talking about the idea of kind of not only foreign interference in organizing the riots but what we see amplification of that the kind of foreign information manipulation and interference is the kind of political studies term for it And what comes from that is amplifying messages, images, saying that France has fallen, that it's in flames and all the rest of it. France has very serious political issues that need to be addressed. But you could walk through the streets of Paris today perfectly safely. You could do the same in Marseille, Lyon and a million other places. France is a wonderful country. The difficulty is, as President Macron said, it's a lot of people who really don't want to see the best for France who are echoing this. So President Trump is keen to criticise this. Netanyahu is keen to criticise this, Vladimir Putin we look to these people and we don't see friends of France and the problem is if the far right aligns themselves with those voices I think we can see what they really think of France and the Republic Andrew, thank you very much for that Andrew Smith joining us there from London