Emmanuel Macron is saying goodbye to the Elysée Palace in the midst of three unprecedented phenomena in the Fifth Republic: the energy crisis, the increase in the cost of living and the effervescence of popular repudiation.
Strictly following a “Green Agenda” program without a strategic balance, leveraging deindustrialization without another alternative plan that sustains the well-being of workers and small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, together with errors in geopolitical and geo-energy practices, influenced the French nation to have, at this moment, an energy crisis, when it has all the potential and opportunities not to go through it.
Currently, fuel prices are at record highs in the last week of September, with average values of €2,399/L for diesel, €2,165/L for SP95 (E10), among other fuels.
In some inland regions, diesel is being paid for, even in values higher than the aforementioned one.
Rural areas, which cover a third of all France, are suffering from it. For example, in the Oise region, this is affecting productive, work and even domestic activities due to the increase in the cost of different fuels.
Cases of increasing decrease in leisure activities are reported, that is, the number of people and families who stop going to shops and restaurants is increasing.
The news portal, TF1 Info, recently produced a report on how home caregivers and nurses continue to perform their work tasks amid rising fuel prices. This report shows that, for example, these workers are forced to reduce their work obligations and even some of them decided to reduce their monthly salaries. “Pauline Fabre, who travels 150 kilometers a day in a diesel car, spends 500 euros a month on fuel. Faced with this expense, she admits to being forced to turn away some patients due to the high cost of fuel. “It would no longer be profitable,” says the nurse from Saint-Flour, in the Cantal region. “We are not very profitable anymore, but we do it because there are people for whom we must guarantee continuity of care,” the citizen worker told TF1 Info’s journalistic team. (1)
In the Grand Est region, filling a car’s fuel tank can cost more 5 euros than in the Brittany region.
With these indices, France ranks among the European countries with the most expensive diesel (2)
Le Parisien reported, on September 24, that there are motorists who are using cooking oil to run their vehicles because they do not have enough money to buy the volume of diesel required to travel with their cars.
“Rapeseed oil costs between €1.50 and €2 per litre in supermarkets, a price significantly lower than the average price of diesel, which is around €2.40 per litre in France. However, it is also possible to get used cooking oil for free in restaurants,” reports the aforementioned Parisian media (3)
It is public that many vehicle drivers fear a fuel shortage, although the government says that this will not happen.
To try to launch some measures of a clear publicity nature, and without resolving the underlying issue, Macron’s government announced fuel subsidies, but the Elysée’s response was criticised by various actors in the country’s union, economic and social reality.
In fact, Cyril Chabanier, president of the French Confederation of Christian Workers (CFTC), declared that the Elysée plan does not sufficiently meet the expectations and needs of the French people because “The aid granted to both companies and households, the sum of both, amounts to 450 million euros. And 450 million do not correspond to the aid that would be enough for our fellow citizens to fill their tanks and continue to fill their refrigerators” (4)
This environment becomes suffocating for many French families because they are left behind with respect to the increase in the cost of living in general and with the salaries they have they cannot even resign themselves.
A survey by the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies site (INSEE), which was published on 24 September, mentioned that household confidence continues to trend weakly, with low morale (5).
The French media are increasingly publishing testimonies of national citizens complaining about the situation, inflation and the decrease in the chances of getting jobs. People who suffer from this situation also speak out for themselves on their social media accounts, who do not hesitate to affirm that they are no longer shopping as they used to and that they are depriving themselves of consuming a normal daily diet.
They see that the prices of meat and vegetables are climbing to the sky and that causes greater popular indignation over all this, when the victims, especially the needy, observe how certain political elites enjoy a “good life”.
“We are tired of sinking,” many French people say and begin to demonstrate in the streets.
And, for this reason, different union sectors – such as those grouped around health, teaching, among others – and exclusively social movements such as “The Yellow Vests” are preparing to increase their agendas of street protests because they believe that it is time to put a stop to the shipwreck of the people, as they declare to their respective bases.
All of them maintain the belief that they will be able to make it possible for Macron and his heirs to defeat them so that they do not return to political power.
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