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At UnHerd we try to cover emerging issues before they hit the headlines. Sometimes, though, it’s just as important to keep following a story after it drops off the front page.
The gilets jaunes protests in France are a case in point. Once it was clear that Emmanuel Macron would not be toppled, the British press shifted its attention back to Brexit. With his abysmal approval ratings now recovering, the French President looks much safer in his job than, say, Theresa May.
That, however, is not the end of the story. For a start, the protests are far from over, and while the British may joke that ‘the French are always revolting’, there’s nothing typical about the events of the last few months.
In an extraordinary essay for the American Interest, Claire Berlinski describes the immense cost of the protests so far:
“According to the police, there have so far been 1,700 serious injuries among the protesters, and 1,000 among law-enforcement officers. In no normal social movement in France do you have violence like this.”
She does add, however, that the “police may well be making things worse by using weapons that cause awful wounds.”
Then there’s the economic cost:
“It is hard to put a precise figure on the economic damage the rioters have done so far. From the Arc de Triomphe to Place de la République, windows have been shuttered, covered in plywood, or smashed. Before the New Year, professional and business associations were suggesting the figure exceeded $15 billion…
“According to the Ministry of Labor, some 58,000 people have lost their jobs or been partially unemployed by the crisis.”
Berlinski also mentions the targeted vandalism of “roughly half of France’s traffic radar detection systems” – considered fair game because the protesters believe “the state was running a speeding-ticket racket.”
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