Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show
Speaker 1: where we explored the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. This week we talk about France. When
Speaker 1: we Americans hear the word French, we often think that
Speaker 1: the next word is supposed to be revolution. In our imagination,
Speaker 1: France is a place where the revolution didn't just happen
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty nine, but happens every so often ever since.
Speaker 1: Turns out, the French think about themselves exactly the same way.
Speaker 1: Starting last November, protesters wearing yellow safety vests began to
Speaker 1: block rotaries and roundabouts all over France, and eventually they
Speaker 1: marched on Paris, where they talked seriously and threw stones
Speaker 1: and made a protest about a whole range of economic
Speaker 1: issues that were bothering them. The protests continued and the
Speaker 1: French present, Emanuel Marcran was required to take major steps
Speaker 1: in response. And since today is Bastille Day, the day
Speaker 1: that France celebrates as the recognition of its own revolutionary independence,
Speaker 1: we thought this was a perfect time to review the
Speaker 1: movement from beginning to end. To do that, we're joined
Speaker 1: today by Ann Yes Poirier, a French journalist based in
Speaker 1: the UK who wrote a wonderful article about her uncle
Speaker 1: Jojo and his role in the Giles Jean or yellow
Speaker 1: vest protests. And yes, thank you so much for being
Speaker 1: with us my pleasure. I want to ask about the
Speaker 1: concrete element of the metaphor of the yellow vest. What
Speaker 1: are they for? Why did the French carry Giles Jean
Speaker 1: in their cars. It's actually compulsory to have a yellow
Speaker 1: vest or high visibility jacket in your car in case
Speaker 1: your car breaks down. It means that you have to
Speaker 1: pass your car as safely as possible, put on your jacket,
Speaker 1: leave the car and put yourself in a safe place.
Speaker 1: So the upshot is that everyone who has a car
Speaker 1: has a yellow vest, making it a very simple thing
Speaker 1: to put on as part of a mode of protest.
Speaker 1: But it was also connected to the origin of these protests,
Speaker 1: which began with a tax on petrol or gasoline. Yes
Speaker 1: completely a car drivers basically very angry at a carbon
Speaker 1: tax on petrol and diesel started the movement. Hence the
Speaker 1: yellow vest probably And also you know it's a metaphor.
Speaker 1: It's a kind of call for help. You know, you're
Speaker 1: putting your yellow vest because you want to be seen.
Speaker 1: You want to be seen in order to be helped.
Speaker 1: So in a way, it was very appropriate symbol, if
Speaker 1: you'd like, of that movement, at least when it started.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask about that petrol tax, the tax
Speaker 1: on diesel that started this, the carbon tax. Now seen
Speaker 1: from the outside, that tax looked like France acting is
Speaker 1: a good global citizen, saying we're going to reduce carbon
Speaker 1: emissions in order to do our part to contribute to
Speaker 1: the reduction of global warming. All economists that you speak
Speaker 1: to tell you that the only realistic way to reduce
Speaker 1: carbon emissions is to tax them. And so the government
Speaker 1: to France decided under Manuel Marquante to adopt such a tax.
Speaker 1: Were the protesters being anti environmentalist in protesting this tax
Speaker 1: or was there another nuance to it? Well, actually it
Speaker 1: came as the last straw, if you'd like, because it
Speaker 1: started early in the summer twenty eighteen, when the speed
Speaker 1: limits on French roads was reduced from ninety to eighty kilometers,
Speaker 1: and that raged a lot of people in provincial France,
Speaker 1: if you'd like, especially people who rely on their cars
Speaker 1: to go about their day, to drop their children's score,
Speaker 1: or to go to their work. Then there was a
Speaker 1: hike in petrol and diesel prices. Then there was also
Speaker 1: more if you'd like, compulsory measures for when you do
Speaker 1: anmot when you have to get to certificate that your
Speaker 1: car is in good shape, which you have to do
Speaker 1: regularly in France, and there have been more implemented just
Speaker 1: a few months later. And so that carbon tax was
Speaker 1: really the last draw it was. I don't think on
Speaker 1: its own it would have created any movement in particular,
Speaker 1: but it came after a long series of measures that
Speaker 1: were deemed affecting primarily car drivers. And we're not talking
Speaker 1: about you know, city dwell as, we're not talking about
Speaker 1: metropolitan farms if you'd like people living in major cities
Speaker 1: or Paris, because they don't need to rely on their
Speaker 1: car to go about their day every day. We're talking
Speaker 1: about people in rural France. And they felt, you know,
Speaker 1: in a way targeted. So in the first instance, this
Speaker 1: felt like an attack on drivers, and in the French
Speaker 1: context that also means an attack on rural people, people
Speaker 1: who are not in the elite centers of the city
Speaker 1: and people who rely on their on their cars to
Speaker 1: get around. And indeed, the first form of the protest
Speaker 1: was to block roundabouts or rotaries as we call them
Speaker 1: in American English, and block traffic from traveling through at all.
Speaker 1: And that too connected to the idea of freedom to drive.
Speaker 1: And it's as though the protesters were saying, if you're
Speaker 1: going to impinge on our freedom to drive, then we're
Speaker 1: going to impinge on your freedom to get around the country.
Speaker 1: Then the protests moved into the city and some began
Speaker 1: in Paris itself. Tell us about how that happened, Well,
Speaker 1: protesters didn't come from you know, the cities or Paris.
Speaker 1: They came to Paris on Saturdays, if you'd like, like
Speaker 1: tourists a day trip to protest um. It was never
Speaker 1: a Persian revolt. It was very much a provincial revolt.
Speaker 1: And and you know, at the beginning, we use the
Speaker 1: words of Jacques Lie if you'd like, which is sort
Speaker 1: of peasant the seventeenth century peasant revolts against a centralized power,
Speaker 1: and those are typically driven by genuine starvation. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's the that's the old president, of course, but
Speaker 1: it was also revolt against the local elite, if you'd like.
Speaker 1: So so the first Yellow Vest, if you'd like, when
Speaker 1: they started running on social networks and they said, okay,
Speaker 1: well we need to strike. We're going to strike on Saturday,
Speaker 1: the seventeenth of November twenty and eighteen. That will be
Speaker 1: our first action throughout the country. And there were quite
Speaker 1: a lot of them. Were just under three hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: I mean, by French standards, it's not enormous, but it's
Speaker 1: enough for the country to stop and to think, okay,
Speaker 1: what's happening here? And so those first Yellow vest belong
Speaker 1: to what in Britain we would call the squeezed middlewa
Speaker 1: if you'd like. That is to say, not destitute, not
Speaker 1: you know, very poor people, not at all, but not
Speaker 1: reach either. And in francing means a lot of people.
Speaker 1: We're talking about lower middle class middle classes, people who
Speaker 1: perhaps are too rich to get you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of benefits and not written obviously to be able to
Speaker 1: afford living in places where they don't have to rely
Speaker 1: entirely on their car. I mean, class consciousness and class
Speaker 1: politics are deeply embedded in the historical French story. But
Speaker 1: when one thinks about that, historically, one doesn't think about
Speaker 1: the squeezed middle One thinks about the rises of the peasants.
Speaker 1: As you described in the pre revolutionary period. One thinks
Speaker 1: about the rise of the bourgeoisie, which is a kind
Speaker 1: of rising middle class. One thinks about an aristocratic elite,
Speaker 1: or later a technocratic elite. But there hasn't been a
Speaker 1: central place. Correct me if I'm wrong in the long
Speaker 1: French narrative of class for people like you're describing, is that?
Speaker 1: Is that so? And if it is, what's the French
Speaker 1: term that or what language have have French commentators or
Speaker 1: observers used to describe this social class? I mean, you're
Speaker 1: you're You're right in a sense that it was novel,
Speaker 1: and it took time for sociologist, for demographers to grasp
Speaker 1: the movements, and one of them actually said, it's not
Speaker 1: a class, it's a mass. What's the difference between those things?
Speaker 1: In the sense that poinstante. If you take the age
Speaker 1: of the Yuno vest, actually you had people from the
Speaker 1: age of seventeen to the age of seventy seven, really
Speaker 1: people from all ages, all ages. Also a lot of artisans,
Speaker 1: a lot of self employed, also some entrepreneurs. You know
Speaker 1: my that's why perhaps well took about my own call later.
Speaker 1: But he's a self made man, so it makes him
Speaker 1: in a way, you know, part of the year of
Speaker 1: the People, if you'd like it. Also, it doesn't come
Speaker 1: from the aristocracy, comes from middle lower bourgeoisie as say.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, and a lot of men and
Speaker 1: a lot of women, a lot of also single parents
Speaker 1: and single mothers who had difficulty making ends meet, a
Speaker 1: lot of professionals from you know, a lot of nurses,
Speaker 1: some teachers, so you know, it was a mix, a
Speaker 1: very very diverse mix. So it's quite difficult to apply
Speaker 1: the class system to it. And that's why also resorted
Speaker 1: to a very English, as in British term disguised middle class. Right,
Speaker 1: But you don't think it's it's not. Actually it doesn't
Speaker 1: exactly captured. But I do have the sense from from
Speaker 1: reading that most of the people who have come out
Speaker 1: for the protests do experience themselves as suffering from economic privation.
Speaker 1: It's not impoverished, but barely making it in some sense.
Speaker 1: And it seemed to me that that was why your
Speaker 1: story was so fascinating, precisely because your uncle didn't fit
Speaker 1: into that category. No, you didn't. My uncle Jo is
Speaker 1: in his sixties. Um, he's well off. He was the
Speaker 1: CEO of a large European Company, although he belongs also
Speaker 1: to you know, category of retired people who do have
Speaker 1: wives for their children and grandchildren, as somebody who lives
Speaker 1: in the provinces, somebody who feels quite lonely and whos corvet.
Speaker 1: Sort of fraternity on those roundabouts, and a lot of
Speaker 1: people started talking two neighbors they wouldn't talk to otherwise. So,
Speaker 1: especially at the beginning of the movement, it was really
Speaker 1: striking to see that there was this fraternity which is
Speaker 1: so French. And also given the very striking figure of cafes.
Speaker 1: You know, sixty years ago there were two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: cafes in France. There are only now thirty six thousand.
Speaker 1: And in sharp contrast, the roundabouts didn't exist fifty years
Speaker 1: ago and now we've got more than fifty thousand. So
Speaker 1: the roundabout became very much a place for conviviality. I mean,
Speaker 1: they built a sort of canteen you know, and tents,
Speaker 1: and they you know, for weeks, because now the movement
Speaker 1: has disappeared from the roundabouts, but for weeks, weeks and
Speaker 1: months they would converge and they would have their little
Speaker 1: commune and debating societies on the round about. So there.
Speaker 1: When you talk about fraternity, you're translating the French word fertonite,
Speaker 1: which for Americans means something like solidarity or a way
Speaker 1: of feeling some sense of connectedness to other people. And
Speaker 1: so you're suggesting, if I understand you correctly, that one
Speaker 1: thing about this particular protest movement is that it offered
Speaker 1: some opportunity for connection to people who might feel in
Speaker 1: certain ways isolated, and that they actually could take the
Speaker 1: roundabout of the rotary which they had taken over, and
Speaker 1: make it for a Saturday into a place to hang out,
Speaker 1: a place to interact with each other, in a place
Speaker 1: to feel human connection, like you belong to a common project,
Speaker 1: which in French terms, is a crucial element of national identity.
Speaker 1: It's one of the three big commitments of the French,
Speaker 1: the French model completely. And so we're talking about this
Speaker 1: mass rather than class of people who also feel you know,
Speaker 1: underprivileged or vulnerable because they are lonely. A lot of
Speaker 1: single parents, a lot of lonely retired people, and you know,
Speaker 1: living in isolation in provincial France and often only having
Speaker 1: a relationship through social networks in front of their computer screen.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly they rekindled with, as you said, very rightly,
Speaker 1: a very French way of life, because those cafes that
Speaker 1: have disappeared through you know, the last sixty years in
Speaker 1: France haven't disappeared from city centers. There's still plenty of
Speaker 1: cafes in Paris. It's out in the countryside where you
Speaker 1: don't exactly you know, in villages there used to be
Speaker 1: many cafes and now you know you are there's perhaps
Speaker 1: one left, but often there's none. So we're talking about
Speaker 1: a disconnection between part of France that is successful, young, metropolitan,
Speaker 1: that travels abroad, that is a sort of the radiant
Speaker 1: face of globalization. Just like President Michael, who is young,
Speaker 1: who is elite, who is sophisticated, who wears tailored suits,
Speaker 1: who is comfortable in multiple languages. He's the outward facing
Speaker 1: picture of the modern French elite, and he's very far
Speaker 1: from the world of the small provincial town where the
Speaker 1: cafes have closed and there are jobs, but maybe not
Speaker 1: enough jobs for everybody completely. And that's why also, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you remember at the beginning, this hatred,
Speaker 1: which we didn't quite understand because it was so it
Speaker 1: came from the guts you know, and this hatred against Michael.
Speaker 1: The figure of Michael was to do with what he personified,
Speaker 1: and you're saying is a symbol of the elite. Of
Speaker 1: course he is, because he's now the president. It's also
Speaker 1: very young, and somehow they disliked that fact, if you'
Speaker 1: because at the yellow vests, I thought, rightly or wrongly
Speaker 1: that they belong to the losing France, if you like.
Speaker 1: So here it gets really really interesting and also really
Speaker 1: complicated for outsiders to understand. So let's try to figure
Speaker 1: out a little bit the politics side here, because until
Speaker 1: now you've described very movingly, in fact, the sort of
Speaker 1: psychological experience of people who feel that the center doesn't
Speaker 1: care about them and that the elites aren't thinking about them,
Speaker 1: and that makes them sound extremely sympathetic. Politically, though, the
Speaker 1: movement did, as you've just described, focus on a kind
Speaker 1: of great anger at the French president and at the
Speaker 1: idea that his politics somehow stood for making France in
Speaker 1: some way more like the United States more market driven.
Speaker 1: Marquin's first major reforms involved changing French law to make
Speaker 1: it easier for employers to fire employees, which has been
Speaker 1: very difficult under French law. That's a kind of market
Speaker 1: oriented reform, and so the criticisms and the protests seem
Speaker 1: to take the form, in part at least, of an
Speaker 1: attack on this tendency of Maquant's to be efficient, rational
Speaker 1: and market driven and in that sense distant from the
Speaker 1: more centralized, organized, top down French system. Have any of
Speaker 1: the major French political parties that criticize Macran been able
Speaker 1: to capitalize on the movement? For example, Has the French
Speaker 1: far right, which in some ways you would think would
Speaker 1: have shared a lot of the interests of the protesters,
Speaker 1: you know, peripheral, not necessarily from the center of Paris,
Speaker 1: appealing to people who aren't the poorest but are also
Speaker 1: not the rich elites. Have they Has anyone been able
Speaker 1: to capitalize on the movement for political gain, Well, it's
Speaker 1: the heart of the matter. Right from the start, our
Speaker 1: rights and the far left and their respective leader Main
Speaker 1: Lupin for the far right and Jean Luc Minochen for
Speaker 1: the far left try to stuff on the way of
Speaker 1: the yellow Vest. They appeared with them, they put on
Speaker 1: yellow jackets, but the yellow Vest didn't want to be
Speaker 1: associated with them, at least to start with. They were
Speaker 1: a leader less movement. But the problem, of course is
Speaker 1: when you constituted movement, there's a moment when you need leaders.
Speaker 1: But it's time they elected leaders. They were designed, they
Speaker 1: were rejected, and when the government said why don't you
Speaker 1: send your representative so that we know what you would like,
Speaker 1: so that we can stop the violence on the Saturday
Speaker 1: protest and we can start talks, they didn't send anyone.
Speaker 1: So it's never became anything else than a rebel, if
Speaker 1: you'd like. One very interesting thing is that a lot
Speaker 1: of Yellow Vest when you met them, said I have
Speaker 1: never voted in my life before, But more importantly, a
Speaker 1: lot of them said it's the first time we take
Speaker 1: to the streets. So it's true that we're talking about
Speaker 1: politically disenfranchised citizens. And the far right and far lept
Speaker 1: were very eager to capitalize on the Yellow Vest anger
Speaker 1: and they felt, they completely felt they were. At the
Speaker 1: latest European elections, two Yellow Vests sort of lists people
Speaker 1: could vote for, and they got zero point five percent
Speaker 1: of the vote between the two. So in a way
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's the death of the Yellow Vest
Speaker 1: rebellion because they never managed to become anything else. That's
Speaker 1: completely fascinating in its own right, the idea that a
Speaker 1: movement had a desire to be heard, that the participants
Speaker 1: had a desire to be known, that they rejected again
Speaker 1: in a sort of inspiring way, the idea that they
Speaker 1: could be co opted by either the far left or
Speaker 1: the far right. But then there's something that seems almost
Speaker 1: tragic about the idea that the movement simply peters out
Speaker 1: and gets close to dying by virtue of the fact
Speaker 1: that they've been heard, They've said their piece, the whole
Speaker 1: world has looked at them, the whole world has paid
Speaker 1: attention to them. France has paid attention to them. But
Speaker 1: they have they fundamentally changed anything. Have they changed the
Speaker 1: perspective on politics of any of the players, even if
Speaker 1: they haven't ultimately joined. Is there going to be a
Speaker 1: long term effect on the language or the ideas of
Speaker 1: French politics. We're talking about you know, people here in
Speaker 1: farms who asked for more public services and less taxes.
Speaker 1: How do you square that? Um? You know, nobody can.
Speaker 1: And they also wanted a kind of direct democracy that
Speaker 1: is in my view, the opposite of democracy. For instance,
Speaker 1: they said, oh, we we want to bring down the government,
Speaker 1: we want my gone to resign. We don't want to
Speaker 1: have a National Assembly anymore. We just want direct democracy.
Speaker 1: We'll just vote on the internet, you know, through our
Speaker 1: Facebook or whatever. On laws. You know, we should have
Speaker 1: a system of referendum, for instance, for every single idea.
Speaker 1: I mean, things like this the universe are symptom rather
Speaker 1: than you know, giving any answers to an anger, it's
Speaker 1: it's a feeling. And they certainly didn't come up with
Speaker 1: any possible rational political recipes or ideas that could be
Speaker 1: later implemented. But is that asking too much of the
Speaker 1: movement to to be If they were rational politicians, they
Speaker 1: would form a political party and they would you participate
Speaker 1: in electoral politics, or they would be journalists or commentators
Speaker 1: or you know, political scientists sitting in a seminar room
Speaker 1: and offering theories. That doesn't sound like what the movement
Speaker 1: was trying to be. Well, we still don't know what
Speaker 1: they were trying to be, because in a way we're
Speaker 1: still focusing on the early stage of the Yellow Ves movement,
Speaker 1: because perhaps we should also say that the Yellow Ves
Speaker 1: became extremely violent. Let's let's turn to that, and was
Speaker 1: the movement hijacked to some people say hijacked by thugs
Speaker 1: or anarchists from the right or the left. Yes, completely
Speaker 1: professional anarchist, professional thugs, which are very well known in
Speaker 1: SOMs and come from the extreme right and the extreme left.
Speaker 1: And so we're talking only about people who sort of insurrectional.
Speaker 1: And at some point, you know, there was I was
Speaker 1: in Paris, and I was present during the Saturday protest,
Speaker 1: and there was a sort of insurrectional perfume in the
Speaker 1: air of Paris, but of course they were never they
Speaker 1: didn't have the number I should like to stay to
Speaker 1: coup because that's what they were calling for. So I
Speaker 1: like the idea of an insurrectional perfume. It sounds like
Speaker 1: anacion would be the great name for a forever a
Speaker 1: new do or perfume. But what does that mean? Do
Speaker 1: you mean that feeling in the air as though let's
Speaker 1: go burn it all down? Oh? Yes, completely, Look I'm
Speaker 1: in my early forties. I've to take to the street.
Speaker 1: Is part of a It's a rite of passage for
Speaker 1: any French citizen. I've been to countless demonstrations in Paris,
Speaker 1: and the level of violence I experienced in the streets
Speaker 1: of Paris during the Saturday Yellow Vest, where unlike anything
Speaker 1: we've seen before, and even people who were old enough
Speaker 1: to attend sixty eight nineteen sixty eight demonstrations in Paris
Speaker 1: said the same, you know, simply because they wanted to kill.
Speaker 1: When I say they the thirds that infiltrate to the
Speaker 1: Yellow Vest or some of the yellow Vests wanted to
Speaker 1: destroy and to also kill a policeman if they could.
Speaker 1: And two thousand policemen were actually injured, which is a
Speaker 1: very high figure for funds. Because don't forget the arts.
Speaker 1: We have mastered the art of demonstration. We know how
Speaker 1: to do this. It's very theatrical. Yes, everyone has a role,
Speaker 1: everyone knows what to do so that things don't get
Speaker 1: out of head completely and it can appear violent, but
Speaker 1: it's actually quite safe, or it used to be until
Speaker 1: the Yellow Vest. Because the Yellow Vest was about really
Speaker 1: very quickly on became about violence and pure violence. Even
Speaker 1: the police, the right police was very astruct by that.
Speaker 1: They actually didn't know how to react the first few Saturdays.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they were too passive and they were completely out
Speaker 1: of their depths if you'd like, and a lot of
Speaker 1: destruction took place of buildings, but also some protesters were
Speaker 1: hit by rubber bullets. Which is a non little sort
Speaker 1: of riot control guns that the French police is allowed
Speaker 1: to use. But so there were a lot of injured,
Speaker 1: a high high number of injured, but nobody died. And
Speaker 1: that's a miracle because the violence we all have seen
Speaker 1: industries of Paris was unlike anything we had seen in decades.
Speaker 1: Did the violence ultimately contribute to the discrediting of the
Speaker 1: movement completely? I mean, that's why the real Yellow best
Speaker 1: if you'd like the people who really had something to
Speaker 1: say and had perhaps you wanted to be helped by
Speaker 1: the government. In the end they were actually I think
Speaker 1: we should say that President macall actually gave seventeen billion
Speaker 1: euros worth of different benefits and tax incentives and bonuses
Speaker 1: and canceled the carbon tax. I mean it went much
Speaker 1: further than the original demands of the Yellow vests. I
Speaker 1: mean that goes to the question of the long run
Speaker 1: impact of the movement. It did have, at least any
Speaker 1: immediate Some of the movements demands, even if they were
Speaker 1: in co ed, were in fact mad oh matt and
Speaker 1: further than the original demands, because in France, that's the
Speaker 1: way it is when the people take to the streets
Speaker 1: in numbers. The government always responds, if you want a
Speaker 1: bit of history, we have to go back to the
Speaker 1: French Revolution. The legitimacy of the power in France lies
Speaker 1: with the people. Okay, in Britain it lies with the parliament.
Speaker 1: It's a question of history. It used to Oh yes,
Speaker 1: it used to until flexing. That's another story. But so
Speaker 1: to go back to France, you know, the poor is
Speaker 1: the power, and as a French citizen you know you
Speaker 1: have this power and you play with it. But the violence,
Speaker 1: to go back to your earlier question, meant that a
Speaker 1: lot of the early year now vests decided they had
Speaker 1: nothing to do with violence and the violent people, and
Speaker 1: they stayed at home. So from three hundred thousand people
Speaker 1: we very quickly went to what twenty thousand, So there
Speaker 1: was a natural trajectory. As it were, the people, or
Speaker 1: some of the people expressed themselves. They said they spoke
Speaker 1: on behalf of a broader people. The violence discredited the movement,
Speaker 1: The government responded, and then, as if on que, the
Speaker 1: movement began to recede in numbers, perhaps having achieved the
Speaker 1: goal of drawing attention to the problems of the people
Speaker 1: who marched, but without offering a permanent kind of a
Speaker 1: solution completely. And also the fact that at a few
Speaker 1: yellow vests that tried a sort of democratic exercise of
Speaker 1: presenting themselves at the European elections felt so lamentably, you know,
Speaker 1: is the kind of and to the movement. Yes, the
Speaker 1: kind of coda. Thank you any us. That was very,
Speaker 1: very fascinating, and I really really appreciate your time. I
Speaker 1: look forward to reading more of your work going forward.
Speaker 1: Thank you. It's with great love and admiration for France
Speaker 1: that I note that only a French person would describe
Speaker 1: a day of riots and protests in Paris as a
Speaker 1: day when there was a perfume of insurrection in the air.
Speaker 1: Yet the truth is, there's something very powerful and significant
Speaker 1: about the trajectory of the yellow vest protests which tells
Speaker 1: us something not only about France, but about the way
Speaker 1: that populist movements all over the world express their anger,
Speaker 1: express their demands, and ultimately still have difficulty turning them
Speaker 1: into concrete, long term political action. That's something that I
Speaker 1: think we should watch not only in Europe, but everywhere
Speaker 1: in the world, including right here in the United States.
Speaker 1: Populism is our constant refrain It's in the news every day,
Speaker 1: but populism that isn't transformed into long term political movement
Speaker 1: is just the expression of emotion. It clarifies, it expresses,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't fix things. It's one of the most
Speaker 1: powerful impulses in all of our political lives. It's also
Speaker 1: one of our most dangerous. Deep Background is brought to
Speaker 1: you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia Jeancott, with
Speaker 1: engineering by Jason Gambrel and Jason Roskowski. Our showrunner is
Speaker 1: Sophi mkim. Our theme music is composed by Luis Gerra.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to the Pushkin Brass, Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: and Mia Lobel. I'm Noah Feldman. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Noah R. Feldman. This is Deep Background.