France: The political economy of discontent. The “Gilets Jaunes” movement

Abstract

The author comments on the months of protest by the “yellow jackets” movement, to provide a diagnosis of the reasons of economic malaise in France. It is claimed that France only really started loosing ground relative to Germany since adhering to the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). A reform of the EMU would be needed for the country to recover lost ground, but the current political conditions at the European level do make such a reform likely. The author concludes by predicting a continuation of the status quo, matched by growth of the radical right in France and other EMU countries. JEL codes : O11, O23, N14