Rising energy prices, stagnant incomes and calls for social mobilisation: seven months before France’s presidential election, simmering anger is growing and making purchasing power a priority in the election campaign, Agence France-Presse reported on Wednesday, Agerpres notes.

“Get your vest out again!”, “Fuel too expensive, life too expensive”: although the scale of the mobilisation remains difficult to measure after this return from the holidays, social media are awash with calls for demonstrations, reviving memories of the “yellow vests”, the large-scale social movement that shook France in 2018-2019.

In La Rochelle (western France), on Tuesday, a “mobilisation over fuel” brought together only around 50 people. “We have to show that we are here,” explained Nicolas Costa, a 42-year-old ambulance driver, expressing his exasperation: “Even if this government leaves, it can still do something.”

But almost everywhere, the warning lights are turning red. On Tuesday and Wednesday, fishermen in southern France blocked oil and gas depots, while electricians staged a major strike on Tuesday, alongside an inter-union mobilisation of civil servants on 29 September and “citizens’” calls on social media for protests on 17 October.

“Purchasing power” tops the concerns of the French, being mentioned by 54% of respondents in a poll published on Saturday. It is followed by “the future of the social system” (40%), the environment (31%), immigration (31%) and the level of debt and deficits (30%).

The spectacular rise in energy prices (+16%) and in the prices of fresh vegetables such as tomatoes, courgettes and lettuce (+20%) is weighing heavily on modest incomes.

“We pay 90 euros for a full tank. At the beginning of the year, it was 60,” explains Pierre Pupier, a 29-year-old temporary worker employed as a butcher in Puy-de-Dôme (central France), who estimates that his monthly budget “has fallen by at least 100 euros since (the beginning of) September” because of inflation.

While President Emmanuel Macron’s popularity is at its lowest level (16% favourable opinions), the government, which has no majority in the National Assembly and is under pressure from the markets to make substantial savings, has no room for manoeuvre.

The government has so far ruled out extending aid across the board to offset the continuing pressure from petrol prices. On Wednesday, however, Emmanuel Macron called on the government to undertake a “total mobilisation” to ensure “supplies” and “control of fuel prices”, the government spokesperson reported.

The “yellow vest” movement, which emerged in November 2018 over a similar demand before becoming an anti-Macron protest movement, is on everyone’s mind.

For several months, the movement brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets every Saturday, as well as to road junctions, a symbol of a peripheral France forced to fill up its car for everything. Marked by violence involving the security forces, the movement gradually lost momentum.

At the time, no election was on the horizon. “Today, things are different: people can think about what will come after Macron and possibly try an electoral solution,” emphasises Jean-Marie Pernot, a political scientist at the Institute for Economic and Social Research (IRES).

With the presidential election in sight, 71% of French people say they are expecting “real social and political change”, while 54% believe that society must be transformed “profoundly”, according to a recent poll by the Ipsos-BVA institute.

With such “negative” feelings being expressed and a “demand for radicalism” that has never been “so strong”, France “meets many of the conditions that predispose it to a populist shift”, explains Ipsos deputy director Brice Teinturier.

The approaching election may also fuel “the fear of being even more overwhelmed than usual”, Jean-Marie Pernot adds.

In fact, the candidates in the April 2027 presidential election are competing with proposals aimed at improving citizens’ financial situation at the end of the month, even if these are costly.

On the left, the Socialist Party and France Unbowed say they are ready to support social movements. Radical-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has called on employers to raise wages and says he wants to cancel part of France’s debt.

Right-wing and centrist candidates propose “bringing net pay closer to gross pay”, that is, increasing net pay by reducing social security contributions, as former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal proposes.

Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, who is leading in voting intentions, is calling for a cut in VAT on energy from 20% to 5.5%.

source – AGERPRES