An important aspect of the protests that I should also note is their relation to the mayoral elections in France. On March 15 and 22 France held local elections for over ten thousand of its towns and villages. While, in the United States, we do not compare local elections to the likelihood of a party candidate winning the presidency, in France that is common practice. The most apt comparison would be to look at it on a smaller scale, such as the elections for state senator in Virginia being used as an indicator for who the governor will likely be. Here is a map of the state senator elections based on party affiliation:
Now here is a map of how each county voted during the gubernatorial election:
The senatorial races are a near perfect indicator for the larger election that same year. This is essentially how local elections are viewed in France. The main difference would be that France is very much a multiparty state with new parties coming and going quite frequently. I have heard political analysts…well…discourage this before, and I would tend to agree with them. At least from an outsider perspective, the French elections look messy and unpredictable for a great number of new and burgeoning parties. How does any of this relate to the protests?
Well The party of Macron (Rally National or RN) is only a few years old. Like Macron himself, the RN was conceived out of nowhere and suddenly took French politics by storm. This is not unprecedented in France like it would be in the United States since the French system was built for the sudden growth of a new party, but such parties can disappear as fast as they arrived. This seems to be the case with RN. Reading European headlines prior to the elections, it was difficult to come across even one that did not include the phrase “Macron to be punished in upcoming election.”
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/03/07/macr-m07.html
In reality, I would not say he was “punished” during these elections. His stance on the new pension plan is incredibly unfavorable and the obvious seventy weeks on continued protests did not help his case. But, the arrival of Corona certainly aided in his party treading water for at least another few months.
France saw its lowest voter turnout since the Fifth Republic in 1958, he held the elections at the predetermined date but leaving your home to actually vote was discouraged…take away what you will from that. This garnered even more criticism from the public and this is one of the few times I would actually side with Macron. The pandemic will only cripple a nation as much as we let it. If he postponed election I am sure that he would have been criticized for being a tyrant who keeps his former local election RN members in power despite their lack of popularity. It was a lose-lose situation for the man and I do feel bad for him.
France on Fire 