Let Them Eat Cake: Macron’s Carbon Tax Collides With France’s Forgotten

The gilets jaunes are rising up against what they see as an attack on their already difficult lifestyles.

It’s easy for well-off elites to call for radical action to halt climate change since such measures demand little of them.

But for those who toil in factories that spew greenhouse gases and need their more cheaply priced diesel cars to get to work, Mr. Macron’s carbon taxes are a provocation. –Konrad Yakabuski, The Global and Mail, 29 November 2018

At last, a people’s revolt against the tyranny of environmentalism. Paris is burning. Not since 1968 has there been such heat and fury in the streets. Thousands of ‘gilets jaunes’ stormed the capital at the weekend to rage against Emmanuel Macron and his treatment of them with aloof, technocratic disdain. Most strikingly this is a people’s rebellion against the onerous consequences of climate-change policy, against the politics of environmentalism and its tendency to punish the little people for daring to live relatively modern, fossil-fuelled lives. This is new. This is unprecedented. We are witnessing perhaps the first mass uprising against eco-elitism. –Brendan O’Neill, The Spectator, 3 December 2018

There are parallels between what is happening in France and almost every other developed country, including Canada, as comfortable urban elites seek to impose their climate change agenda on a broader population just struggling to pay its bills and earn an honest buck. No amount of hand-wringing over the fate of the planet, be it by the IPCC or by the likes of Ms. Binoche, is going to resonate with people who do not feel the elites have their interests at heart. –Konrad Yakabuski, The Global and Mail, 29 November 2018

When Emmanuel Macron rose to power, he put the environment at the heart of his agenda. Eighteen months later, anger over those policies has stoked protests that are a huge challenge for the French president. What was once widely seen by governments as a win-win transition to cleaner energies now looks more like causing short-term costs with huge social disruption. —Reuters, 3 December 2018

Canceling his visit to the UN climate conference COP24 in Krakow (Poland), Prime Minister Edouard Philippe received the leaders of the main French political parties. The first step during a busy week will also see him open the doors to representatives of the “Yellow Vests”. The largely disorganized protest of the “Yellow Vests”, born from the opposition to a higher carbon tax on fuel, is the most serious setback for Emmanuel Macron. Most of his opponents demand a moratorium on the increase carbon tax scheduled for 1 January. One of the Yellow Vests speakers, Jacline Mouraud, make a moratorium a prerequisite for any discussions with the government. —France24, 3 December 2018

Predictably, Macron’s 57-minute address last Tuesday on France’s transition écologique did nothing to quell popular unrest and suggests the French president’s troubles are only going to worsen. Political leaders who set themselves big goals succeed when those goals are congruent and mutually supportive. Ronald Reagan’s goal of reviving America’s economy strengthened his other goal of winning the Cold War. Like Reagan, Macron wants to transform France’s economic performance, raise living standards and close its chronic fiscal deficit. At the same time, he is pushing the transition écologique and the transition énergétique — the terms appear interchangeable. It is not just the hubris of, in his words, building an entirely new economic and social model for France. When a politician has goals that are fundamentally in conflict with each other, failure is assured. –Rupert Darwall, CapX, 3 December 2018