Emmanuel Macron has been in Argentina for two days now. For an official visit, which offers him "an enchanted parenthesis" (his words) at the El Ateneo Grand Splendid bookstore, in Buenos Aires, on Thursday. Then, on this Saturday, December 1, 2018, for a G 20 under tension. In France, the yellow vests play their act III.
It is still dark in Argentina, the morning begins in Paris. Christophe Castaner and Laurent Nunez review the law enforcement system on the Champs-Elysées. "We are not going to stay too long, we must let them work", breathes the Secretary of State to the Minister of the Interior. Already, concern is rising. The fan-zone-style device shows all its limits. It is not yet 9 am, that the first clashes between demonstrators and the police broke out, making it impossible to access the authorized demonstration.
Office of Edouard Philippe, in Matignon. The Prime Minister is expected at the Pavillon Baltard in Nogent-sur-Marne (Val-de-Marne), where all the top LREM - Elyos advisers, ministers or parliamentarians - are gathered to install Stanislas Guerini at the head of the party. His advisers are categorical: “It is not possible to go there. “At midday, he prefers to go to the Paris police headquarters, Christophe Castaner at his side.
Is it the configuration of the auditorium, which deprives them of windows and therefore of a view of the outside world? When they learn that Philippe will not come to Baltard, deputies plague. So far from what is being played outside… Philippe Grangeon has it in mind. It even grips him. At the podium, the future special adviser to the president wishes to evoke the movement of yellow vests, which is “also the expression of a call for help”. Ironically, the events will push the Prime Minister to abandon another appointment ... His birthday party, organized the same evening at his home. It will only pass a head.
Yellow vests: urban guerrilla scenes on Place de l'Etoile
At 11 a.m., 3 p.m., 6 p.m., the videoconferences organized with the zone prefects in the Beauvau basement crisis unit brought alarming news. At the top of the state, phones heat up. In Argentina, the president continues bilateral meetings or discussions in plenary with the great of this world. But he takes advantage of the breaks to make more phone calls. His aide-de-camp provides the press reviews.
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While the closing session is taking place, the Elyos teams receive images of burning cars. A glimpse, striking but distant, of what is happening in Paris. Between the walls of the Elysee Palace, on the other hand, the roar of the street is so close. As he opens his window, an adviser is struck by the insurrectionary scent of “howls and firecrackers, tear gas”. On the garden side, the sky is darkened with columns of black smoke.
In the most prestigious districts of the capital, vehicles and restaurants are set on fire, shops looted. Already, before that (mediatized) of the following January 5, the ministry where Marc Fesneau and Benjamin Griveaux live together undergoes an intrusion attempt. Demonstrators unseal a gate in the Tuileries Garden which collapsed on one of them. Symbol among symbols, the Arc de Triomphe is sacked. “Minister, this is terrible. At the end of the day, the Paris police prefect has a voice from beyond the grave, when Christophe Castaner picks up his handset.
"What happened has nothing to do with expressing peaceful anger"
Emmanuel Macron is reluctant to talk about internal affairs from abroad. The past two days were to be devoted to the G 20, not to the yellow vests movement. But this December 1, 2018, he ended up winning. “What happened has nothing to do with expressing peaceful anger. Nothing justifies the violence, looting and fires, ”condemns the Head of State at the introduction of his press conference, before returning to his plane. A flight during which he decides to go directly to the Arc de Triomphe, upon his arrival in Paris. It is a question, confides a relative, "to mark the occasion in a symbolic way". "It was necessary, continues the same, to show immediately that the State was going to hold, that public order was going to be ensured, not to show weakness in relation to this violence, to be alongside the police, traders . "
When, on Sunday morning, Patrick Strzoda welcomes Emmanuel Macron as he gets off the plane, the chief of staff looks wan. And the words of those who feared the worst. In the car that brings them back to the palace, he tells her everything.
This December 1 marks a turning point. “We were confronted very early on with the complexity of the movement, between legitimate anger and others which are not. There is France that is suffering, but the violence of December 1 is the result of a mixture of extreme right-wing black blocks and radicalized yellow vests, analyzes an adviser to the executive backwards. There is social anger, to which we must respond and there is an anti-republican movement that must be repressed. "
A year ago, the birth of the "yellow vests"
In anticipation of the following Saturday, the law enforcement doctrine is completely revised. It will be accompanied by controversies and protests against police violence. On December 10, Emmanuel Macron decreed “a state of economic and social emergency”, announcing a series of measures estimated at 10 billion euros, as well as the launch of the great debate. Anger, it will continue to be expressed for many months.
The yellow vests crisis will remain as one of the major events and a turning point of this five-year term. If this movement has largely declined since the demonstrations of winter 2018-2019, it is not completely extinct for all that. Some continue, here and there, to gather on roundabouts. Recently, a group posted a video showing the head of state taken to task, on July 14, during a walk with his wife in the Tuileries garden in Paris. And on social networks, groups are calling for action on September 12, when the start of the school year promises to be at high social risk.
A five-year crisis period in 6 episodes
1. The day Macron disowned General de Villiers
2. The day Macron was confronted with the Benalla affair
3. The day Macron learned of Nicolas Hulot's resignation
4. The day when Macron feared that the yellow vests would invade the Elysee
5. The day Macron saw Notre-Dame burn
6. The day Macron confined the country
