It quickly became that, though, because the diesel tax was yet another example of how adherents to the neoliberal consensus always address problems: first through austerity measures on ordinary citizens (in this case a regressive fuel tax) and second (if at all) through placing the burdens on large corporations or on entities of the government itself. For populists of both the right and left this is going to be seen as “corruption and greed”. For those who question “free” market orthodoxy Macron’s bungling yet arrogant of the tax’s implementation looks like Third-Way business as usual.
And so what could have been an opportunity to demonstrate how all of French society – from corporations to government to ordinary citizens – had to contribute and sacrifice in an equitable way to supporting green initiatives instead turned into the genesis of an international movement that’s now attracting right-wing populists and ultra-nationalists and their toxic issues (as well as the anarkiddies of the left who regularly ruin peaceful protests).
It would seem odder to Americans, if most of them could be bothered to consider the world outside their borders as having institutions worthy of emulation. None-the-less, this protest was born in France: a place where the neoliberal aristorcrats of austerity are in the process of cutting or dramatically and suddenly altering some of those services in a particularly arrogant way that’s dismissive of the concerns of ordinary citizens. That sort of behaviour by leaders has never gone over well there.
