Remembering the success of Donald Trump and Matteo Salvini as well as the protests in France, analyst Lenka Zlámalová thinks that this is proof of the hard revolt against the elites who are stuck in their artificial, ideological and progressive worlds.
The elites have lost the ability to perceive the interests and issues of broad social layers. They have lost the ability to lead. An elite that does not have the trust of the broad social layers, ceases to be an elite. It becomes a degenerated pseudo-elite, against which the society will sooner or later revolt. The revolt has different manifestations.
France is a special example. The country has experienced a second revolt over the past two years against the first, which brought Emmanuel Macron and his movement En Marche! to the Élysée Palace.
Paris has been experiencing the wildest wave of protests since 1968. It is symbolic. Eighty percent of the French have the impression that the revolt last year failed, and supports the Yellow Vest movement expressing popular opposition to progressive politics, which is rooted in 1968. In 1968, there lies the roots of everything that now belongs to the repertoire of progressive elites: abstract environmentalism, the desire to erase the borders of national states, identity politics.
First of all, the first two have a huge impact on the life of broad social layers. Abstract environmentalism, pushing for the gradual elimination of conventional energetics or cars with combustion engines, sharply raises the costs of living through various environmental taxes and higher energy costs. In particular, it affects the poorer layers, in whose family budgets, spending on oil or electricity plays a much greater role than in richer households. Unmanaged migration reduces security and takes away a feeling of home. Again it concerns especially the poorer people, who are forced to live in mixed neighborhoods where their culture and lifestyle have ceased to be the standard. Rich parts of cities remain safe from the migration impact.
Altogether, it results in a feeling that life is worse than it used to be. Real living standards are falling or stagnating as well as the level of safety.
Macron did not manage it. Instead of taking care of improving the living standards of the French, he devoted himself to deepening European integration, the progressive energetics policy, and environmentalism. The French are not Germans who suffocate their discontent. The French show it clearly, even when tear gas and rubber projectiles are used against them like last weekend in Paris.
Macron, unlike Marine Le Pen, promised France prosperity. Instead, he fortified himself in the Élysée Palace in the role of a king. More than to finding a solution to the life problems of the French, he devoted himself to the progressive topics of the global elites and naively thought that he might please everyone. But the French have shown that they will not let anyone trick them.
