The gilets jaunes or “yellow vests” protests, driven by rural poverty and general economic stress, continue across France more than three months after they began. Policy adjustments put forward by the government have not succeeded in quelling the unrest. Rejecting these measures as insufficient, protesters contend that French President Emmanuel Macron is blind, uncaring, and/or out of touch with their concerns. Macron’s nationally televised address on the protests only reinforced this perception. He gave it from the ornately decorated salon doré, the “golden lounge” of the Élysée Palace, formerly a residence of French nobility.
This image of Macron parallels the one discussed in part one of this series (see below also). There, a smiling woman sat in a Burger King looking out onto the riots as she supposedly snapped a selfie. That image spread widely and was identified as emblematic of the “spirit of the times.” Likewise, Macron’s choice of setting was considered remarkably tone deaf and indicative of his inability to grasp the true scope and nature of the tensions driving the protests. In both cases, figures that should be quite aware of what’s going on around them appear hopelessly blind, rooted in a perspective that reflects their own position rather than engaging those they purport to see.
This blindness is not visual or informational. Rather it is a self-seeing that is both all-encompassing and impoverished. Such self-seeing sees the riots in the streets perfectly well. It may even understand the perspective of the rioters. But even when face to face with the rioter, or face to numbers with sophisticated socio-economic analyses, such seeing does not change the position of the seer. The other remains the other and the self remains the self. Self and other, even and especially in their collective dimensions (e.g., class), can communicate and empathize with near perfection and still remain in fundamentally different places with different conditions. Macron calmly explains his thinking from the salon doré of the Élysée Palace while the woman sits smiling under the protection of the Burger King. They both see quite clearly.
