At the time, data showed that 31% of labourers, 23% of employed individuals, and 25% of manual workers identified with the Yellow Vests. By contrast, just 11% of executives—many of whom had supported Mr Macron a year earlier—did so.

French sociologist Christophe Guilluy observed that the demonstrators came from "the bleak landscape of impoverished rural areas and deindustrialised towns and smaller cities. The Yellow Vests are the embodiment of peripheral and working-class France."

As with Brexit in Britain or Donald Trump's first election in the United States, the Yellow Vest uprising blindsided elites. Lacking party or union leadership, protesters turned to direct, sometimes violent, action to make their voices heard by a President, who refused to take sides and condemned the violence instead.

Luxury shops on the Champs Élysées lost 30% of their annual revenue and tourism fell sharply. However, while 69% of the public condemned violence, 75% supported the movement and 81% believed the government had mismanaged the crisis.

Despite freezing the fuel tax and increasing the minimum wage, Macron's standing suffered. His popularity fell to 23%.

Marine Le Pen capitalised on the unrest, casting herself as the voice of the marginalised: "It’s the people", she said, "this 'Yellow Vests' movement—do I support it? Yes, of course, more than ever, because President Emmanuel Macron refuses to respond to them."

Her approval rating rose from 28% to 33% by January 2019. This momentum carried through to the 2020 local elections and the 2022 legislative vote. The president’s reform agenda—particularly the pension reform originally set for 2019 but delayed by Covid and protests—was seen as poorly implemented. Yet nothing proved more damaging than the riots of 2023.

Suburbs on Fire

If the Yellow Vest protests dented Macron’s authority, the 2023 riots undermined it further. On 27 June, a 17-year-old was killed by the police in Nanterre, triggering eight nights of unrest, mainly in poor suburbs.

More than 12,000 cars and 1,000 buildings were damaged; 808 police officers were injured; and police stations were set alight: the estimated cost exceeded €1 billion. 

The riots exposed the widespread alienation among suburban youth who expressed their rejection of the French institutions, starting with the police force.

Public shock deepened when it emerged that most rioters were under 18. A Senate report found that only a small minority acted in response to the police shooting (8%); most were expressing broader frustrations at systemic neglect.

Security shortcomings were revealed when the police confiscated tonnes of mortars from riot-hit neighbourhoods. Some experts even described the violence as a "rehearsal" for potentially worse to come.

Each time, these riots happened in the neighbourhoods with high concentrations of social housing, where poverty levels and unemployment are especially high and often of criminality too. 

Following the riots, Macron’s approval fell to 24%. Le Pen's law-and-order messaging resonated with 41% of the public. In total, 71% believed the authorities had lost control.

Despite pledging reforms to address the problems exposed by the riots, none of his promises was implemented through 2023 and 2024, and most were altogether abandoned when he dissolved the National Assembly in June 2024.

Ultimately, Macron responded to the riots as he had to the Yellow Vests: by avoiding a definitive stance and striving to stay above the fray. The right heavily criticised him, while the left insisted upon the state’s systemic racism and its hostility toward immigrant-background communities. 

Meanwhile, Macron’s opponents only gained ground, especially Marine Le Pen. Seven years after the Yellow Vests and two years after the riots, she remains, despite her ineligibility, the frontrunner for the 2027 presidential elections.

Statement

Emmanuel Macron’s election raised great hopes among the French population. His victory at the May 2017 elections and his party’s landslide at the legislative elections in June gave him all the tools to enforce his manifesto. However, a year after his election, the Yellow Vest demonstrations showed how out of touch with the French low class he was, which he never recovered from. Neither did he recover from his hesitant stance following the 2023 riots. These events contributed to the seemingly unstoppable rise of Marine Le Pen, the same person he had promised to keep away from power.