"From a petrified expression to a gift": Will the "Yellow Vests" strengthen Macron?

The "Yellow Vests" movement, designed with the aim of removing French President Emmanuel Macron from power, is actually a kind of "gift" to him, assesses Politiko, reports Tanjug.

As stated, the "Yellow Vests" increased Macron's chances of winning the upcoming European elections.

"Instead of ending the power of Emmanuel Macron, which was the idea with which they were formed, they could make him - stronger," according to an exhaustive analysis published on the Brussels website.

However, it did not look like that in December, notes Politiko, recalling that, a day after the violent demonstrations in Paris, the French president was assessing the damage to the Arc de Triomphe, which had been damaged by protesters and where they had written their slogans.

"Macron had a petrified expression on his face while greeting the policemen, and several protesters called on him to step down as president. He left the scene without making a statement to the public. The damage spoke for itself," the text states.

That rainy day, Politico continues, appeared to be the low point of Macron's tenure as the once-promising leader had previously traveled to the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, only to find upon his return that France's most important monument had been damaged, as well as dozens of luxury stores razed to the ground.

And that was just the beginning - during the next few days, Macron's popularity further declined, a group of demonstrators in southern France even simulated his execution by guillotine, while another broke into the ministry with forklifts - this is how the Brussels website describes the situation at the time.

With this background, he says, it has become fashionable to declare Macron, as a political phenomenon, "finished", with the "Financial Times" even warning the Democrats that this is a lesson they should learn, while public opinion research institutes cruelly compared Macron with François Hollande, the most unpopular president in the post-war history of France. However, all these messages overlooked several key indisputable points of French political life.

In the first place, despite the anger directed against him, Macron is not forced to leave office before the end of his term in 2022. Protected by the institutions of the Fifth Republic, which guarantee security above all else, and by the fact that his party has an absolute majority in the National Assembly, he has three years to correct things, which is no small feat, Politiko estimates.

In second place, he states, is the possibility that the "Yellow Vests" movement - which has no specific leader, organization or unified agenda - becomes harmful to Macron's opponents, and the president would in that case - which is a paradox - emerge as the winner, and that, according to the Brussels website, it's happening right now.

Last Wednesday, according to the text, Ingrid Levavaser (31), a nurse and member of the "Yellow Vests", announced that she will be at the top of the list of 10 candidates for the European Parliament elections in May.

A few hours later, polls estimated how much support that group could get in the upcoming elections, and the result showed only 13 percent, but enough to place them in the third most popular party in France.

While Macron's centrist "Republic on the Move" party lost a few points in the "Yellow Vests" scenario, the real victims were the politicians who cheered the loudest anti-government demonstrations - Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon.

Namely, because of the "Yellow Vests", Le Pen lost three and a half percent of support, and Mélenchon one and a half, while Macron's support remained at 22,5 percent, states Politiko, with the assessment that Macron's base is increasingly resistant to the insults of the "Yellow Vests". ".

"It is in the interest of the Republic on the Move party that the Yellow Vests run for elections. Under these circumstances, it is good news for them," explains Jean-Daniel Levy, director of the political sector of the Harris Interactive public opinion research institute.

The president's critics, who had empathized with the violent protesters, are now dismayed - a movement that was eager to disrupt Macron's tenure could now disrupt the very parties for whose favor he fought most.

"It was by no means planned for things to develop like this," states Politiko, stating that when the first results of the polls came out, the reaction was an attack on Levavaserova, contempt for the electoral "system" and requests for help in further protests and posts on social media. networks.

At the same time, Maxim Nikol, a popular YouTuber, accused Levavaserova of "betrayal", saying in the video that "frankly speaking, the elections for the European Parliament are staying in the system" and that "she is doing exactly what has been going on for 40 years".

Social networks were also flooded with negative comments, in which users denied support to the "Yellow Vests", and the opposition did not fare any better either, because that movement "robbed" them of the card of public anger they were playing on.

The president, for his part, used the challenge of the "Yellow Vests" as an incentive to try to "revive" his presidential mandate with a series of consultations in city assemblies and a "great national debate", slowly increasing his popularity among citizens, concludes Politiko.