'Does he think we are idiots?' – La France périphérique sours on Macron

'Does he think we are idiots?' – La France périphérique sours on Macron

The tricolour was still flying in the villages around the commuter belt town of Joigny in celebration of France’s World Cup win. Local supermarkets were still selling celebratory plastic cups and paper napkins featuring Les Bleus. But the feelgood factor has flopped.

In Paris, the scandal over the presidential bodyguard Alexandre Benalla’s assault on May Day protesters has shocked and outraged. But Joigny, as locals like to remind visiting Parisians,“is not Paris”.

Three hours from the urban hysteria, here in La France périphérique – the term suggests physical closeness to the capital, but a great psychological distance away – there is anger and profound disappointment.

Political analysts say more than a third of the French electorate was already having doubts about President Emmanuel Macron, whose second-round election victory was boosted by voters’ dislike of his far-right opponent, Marine Le Pen, but were willing to give him a chance. Now he risks losing their support.

In the Yonne department around Joigny, Françoise Hitier, a native of Normandy who retired to the area, is one such disillusioned voter.



'I didn’t vote for Macron or Le Pen, but I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t expect this' Françoise Hitier, disillusioned voter

“I didn’t vote for Macron or Le Pen, but I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t expect this. Now I have lost confidence in him and the government.”

The pensioner is particularly angered by the president’s reaction to the scandal, which with Trump-like gusto Macron dismissed as a storm in a teacup whipped up by the media.

“Does he think we are idiots? Thank goodness we had Le Monde to reveal this affair, otherwise we’d have known nothing about it,” Hitier added. “Instead of playing down this unacceptable violence he should have spoken out straight away. By keeping quiet about it he’s bought himself time to prepare his response and wriggle out of the shenanigans. This isn’t right.”

Benalla’s actions may warrant a shrug from those who remember Charles de Gaulle’s shadowy, mafia-like militia, François Mitterrand’s secret “anti-terrorist” cell and Nicolas Sarkozy’s ”friendship” with Muammar Gaddafi, but Hitier’s is a voice among many. The French have not forgotten Macron’s vow of probity, morality and transparency in French public life.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Emmanuel Macron remained silent for a week after the Benalla affair finally emerged. Photograph: Rafael Marchante/Reuters

Instead, the Élysée kept quiet about Benalla for more than two months, prompting accusations of a cover-up. Macron remained silent for a week after the story finally emerged.

“People I’ve spoken to are stupefied by the whole thing,” the political analyst Bruno Cautrès, from the Sciences Po research institute Cevipof, told the Guardian.



'He is considered a master of communication and yet to make such a serious error. It’s dramatic' Bruno Cautrès, political analyst

“Sometimes it feels like we have gone back to the 1970s. I have studied Macron for two years and I myself am astonished. He is considered a master of communication and yet to make such a serious error. It’s dramatic.”



The Front National made serious inroads in the Yonne during last year’s presidential and legislative elections when disaffected voters branding themselves part of “forgotten France”, shunned mainstream parties. Here, as elsewhere, rumours, fake news and satirical reports quickly take root.

An exchange overheard in a supermarket queue kicked off with suggestions of an Élysée cover-up and quickly swerved into unpleasant terrain with the assertion that Benalla had changed his name to sound less Arabic – he did not – and an observation that the bearded, hoodie-wearing protagonist looked “like one of those Islamic State people”.



A day later, Benalla appeared in an exclusive interview with Le Monde in which he admitted his actions had been “extremely stupid” but said he was only helping police neutralise two violent protesters; he added, as he would, that he had been the target of jealous rivals wanting to get at him, and by extension, the president. The beard had gone. He was wearing a crisp white shirt.



Image-wise, the president is down. Politically, nobody is counting him out.

French presidents court public popularity but rarely need it, as it is virtually impossible to unseat a leader during their five-year term. At an approval rate of 32%, Macron is heading for what Cautrès calls the “danger zone”, but even if it plunged to the catastrophic 26% of his predecessor, François Hollande, at the same time into his mandate, it would take a massive defection in his centrist La République en Marche party, which has a large parliamentary majority, to depose him, and there is no sign of that happening.

Play Video 1:12 Macron's security officer filmed beating protester – video

“The main consequence of this for Emmanuel Macron is there will be a ‘before’ and an ‘after’ the Benalla affair. For several months now there has been a segment of the electorate – between 35-40% – who have doubts about Emmanuel Macron but continue to have confidence in him. It’s a kind of wait and see how he does attitude. This segment he will lose,” Cautrès said.



More seriously than damage to his image, the scandal has derailed Macron’s key constitutional reform, including changes giving greater power to the president at a time when some in France believe the Benalla affair shows he already has too much. The controversial legislation was to be discussed last week; instead it was postponed while parliament was suspended and MPs formed a cross-party commission to quiz key players in the scandal.



Macron’s call for ‘exemplarity’ rings hollow after Benalla scandal | Cécile Guerin Read more

The commission then plunged into disarray as opposition MPs – including the joint-chairman – walked out accusing the Élysée of blocking the inquiry and sticking two fingers up to democracy.



Consequently, the scandal, and its undertones of an Élysée that considers itself above the law, has sounded like an alarm, Cautrès said, making it unlikely Macron will be able to push through the reform. “It’s going to be complicated for him,” Cautrès added.



Complicated and frustrating but not fatal.



If there is a time to bury bad news in France, it is now, when the country shuts down over the long summer holidays and the serpents de mer – sea snakes – make their return (aka the “silly season”). The Benalla affair is all sound and fury now, but by la rentrée, the mass return to work on 1 September, it may well have lost its sting.

