I share blame for the ‘collective failure’ that led to yellow vest revolt, says Macron
EMMANUEL MACRON has branded the “yellow vest” revolt a “gigantic collective failure” in a new book in which the president pledges to continue transforming France unless protesters “shoot me dead with a bullet”.
The People and the President charts the birth and rise of the gilets jaunes in France, culminating in the start of the “great debate” currently taking place around the country to address their demands. The results are due to be presented next month.
In an interview, Mr Macron is cited as saying: “It is a gigantic collective failure for which I share responsibility. But I have three years to change that.”
He adds: “Lots of people were ashamed of their life, of not being able to make ends meet despite their best efforts. We’re the ones who should be ashamed.”
The yellow vest movement started out as a protest against fuel taxes but widened to fury among the lower middle classes of provincial France against a “president of the rich” perceived as arrogant and out of touch.
Mr Macron, whose off-the-cuff comments on the “stubborn Gauls”, the unemployed and the poor infuriated swathes of the electorate, concedes he hadn’t realised he could no longer speak in the same “direct manner” he used during his electoral campaign.
“Where I was wrong was, once [I was] president, people didn’t take it as a conversation between equals. They said: ‘He’s the president’. It was perceived as a form of humiliation,” he is cited as saying.
He confesses he underestimated the power of the movement at first because the demonstrations “were smaller than those against the reform of [national rail operator] SNCF” before Christmas, which he successfully faced down.
Asked what his message to the lower and middle classes is, Mr Macron says: “I’m fighting for you.”
“Who has supported me in the yellow vest crisis? Nobody. The French people chose me, not the republic of parties. If I fail, I have failed for them and with them. Never against them.”