PARIS — Last month, Emmanuel Macron, a onetime investment banker who is now the Socialist government’s young minister of the economy, visited Lunel, a small town in southern France. He was taken to task in the street for the “loi travail,” the labor law — recently pushed through by his government — that he was in Lunel to promote. A trade unionist wearing a T-shirt challenged him: “You, you’ve got lots of cash, you buy yourself nice suits.” Without missing a beat, Mr. Macron responded, “The best way to afford a nice suit is to work.”

A video of the interaction has been practically running on a loop on YouTube ever since. To most people in France, this exchange says it all about the gap between Mr. Macron and the working classes. In his eyes, if you don’t have a suit, it’s because you don’t work.

In France these days, not only is it getting harder and harder to find a job, but even those people who have one are unlikely to be able to afford a nice suit. Work pays less and less, except for the elites represented by Mr. Macron. As in the United States, income inequality in France is growing.

The new labor law aims to make employment in France more “flexible.” Its main provision follows a single guiding idea: to facilitate companies’ ability to fire people, which, proponents of the law promise, will make the labor market “more fluid” and in the long run create more jobs. Unions have responded with major strikes at oil refineries, railroads and nuclear power plants, shaking the foundations of power. A sympathetic youth-led movement, Nuit Debout (Up All Night), has also sprung up — albeit disorganized and idealistic — calling into question the triumph of finance capitalism.