France sets fire to macro-nationalism

France sets fire to macronism The second term of the president, disconnected from society, still has six long months ahead of it in which the country must approve a budget and seek answers to the unstoppable rise of the far-right. France took to the streets on October 17, 2026, and among demonstrations, fires, and looting, it certified the death of macronism. It did so violently, as it usually does. Anger, cholera, and also fear for the future. And what it witnessed while destroying businesses and burning town halls and police stations was the death of a political idea that wanted to establish ideological centrality and contain the rise of the extremes. Instead, it was nine years in which public services were emptied, debt multiplied (it went from 98% of GDP to the current 119%), and the ideological poles in Parliament swallowed public debate until today the two political forces—the leftist La Francia Insumisa (LFI) and the far-right Reagrupamiento Nacional (RN)—have the most chances of reaching a second round in the elections next spring. On Saturday, those in France who have long feared the end of the month and who, in addition, fear the end of the world, found themselves in the streets and roundabouts of France. Or, at least, the world in which their parents lived. Macron, who a few hours before the announced protest went to see Céline Dion's concert with his wife, came to power when he was 39. He was young, smart, and arrogant. Neither left nor right, he announced the construction of his political narrative. There was a need to introduce fluidity into the economy and flexibility into the labor market. Macron knew that world; he came from banking. He understood money. But he was raised in the Socialist Party and was also aware of the need to preserve certain balances, impart social justice, sew identity fractures. To grease the social elevator that promoted public education. But none of that happened. France is more fractured than ever and the far-right, which macronism intended to marginalize, is at the gates of the Élysée for the first time since World War II (polls give it 35% of voting intention in the first round of elections). "It is the end of a reign with a great decomposition. There are echoes of 1968, when gaullism also reached its end. The student protest is an unexpected movement that the Government saw coming, but could not imagine the magnitude. Furthermore, another dangerous aspect for Macron is that there is no money in the till. And that breaks the golden rule of a social crisis: pay," explains the journalist and biographer of the president, François-Xavier Bourmaud. The head of state promised to reverse a society governed and designed by and for boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964. He had everything. In the last presidential elections, he obtained the majority vote of the generation between 25 and 34 years old. Only five years later, the thirties disdain him, according to Ipsos-BVA polls, and lean towards any other political option. In the legislative elections of 2024, less than one in ten young voters supported a candidate from the presidential bloc, according to the same poll. Macron always surrounded himself with young collaborators. But it did not help him understand them. In June 2025, aside from a G-7 summit, he confessed to the writer Emmanuel Carrère that "he has never been an adolescent" and that he does not "like" or "understand" adolescents. The "France of Macron," as they define it in student protests, has turned its back on young people. The average age of television consumption in the country (France 2 and France 3) is 60 years. The advertising narrative for the large consumer segments is not for them: the age at which one can afford a new car is 55 years. On Saturday, nine out of every 10 detained by the disturbances were minors. The deterioration of public accounts, the slowdown in growth, and the increase in unemployment have rendered that ideal obsolete, to the point of reviving a generational conflict. Few candidates dare to openly defend the interests of young people, who abstain from voting in a measure much higher than the elderly. The protests no longer only reach the pension problem but also do not come from the upper generation, the obsession of his two terms. Today, that is what is worrying, there is no interlocutor. The prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, does not know if he will survive the budget debate in the coming weeks. The president has barely referred to the conflict these days and, six months after taking office, is already a figure of little authority. "This is the final crisis of macronism," insists Bourmaud. "The student movement already resonates like the yellow vests in the first term. But it is even more surprising that it occurs months before a presidential election, when these phenomena never occur. Protests usually arrive after a reform or a few months after elections due to some disappointment. The periods before elections are usually calm." The Executive knows that it will not be able to satisfy its economic demands. The background landscape trivializes this type of effort. The Bank of France has lowered its growth forecast for 2026 to 0.4-0.5%, much below the 1% it managed at the end of 2025, and raised its inflation forecast to 2.5% for this year, almost one point above what was calculated months ago. The entity itself admits that this lower growth, combined with the rising debt, will push the public deficit to 5.2% of GDP in 2026, compared to 5.1% in 2025. A cocktail that raises public debt to 119.8% of GDP. The political scientist Pascal Perrinau believes that France is going through "a crisis of political confidence". "The disillusionment in the political system is enormous. The president is setting records for unpopularity, the prime minister fails to approve the budget. The French have the impression that they cannot expect anything from politics and that the system is completely broken. Young people are the spokesmen of a malaise and a claim that they also share with their parents. And he announces a presidential campaign that will oscillate between indifference and support for the protest parties: Reagrupamiento Nacional and La Francia Insumisa," he warns. The radical left of LFI, led by the vehement Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is the only one capable of entering demonstrations and politically channeling the anger of students (he has a 40% voting intention among those under 35 years old). And the far-right of the RN, from Marine Le Pen, appears as the formation capable of restoring order and law. "Macron promised that this idea of not being either right or left would marginalize the RN. But the far-right has never been as strong as it is today. We are objectively in a moment of end of reign. The president is at the end of his term, cannot present himself, and macronism faces its fate: to be a parenthesis in history," insists Perrinau. The problem goes much further. Violence and the feeling of chaos have taken over the streets. The scenes of looting, ultra-violence, and sabotage on Saturday have turned the world upside down. About 300 high school students were injured, along with 150 members of the education staff and 900 members of law enforcement since the beginning of the movement. This human balance is accompanied by 9,000 police detentions, of which 85% correspond to minors, and about thirty investigations entrusted to the General Inspectorate of the National Police (IGPN), the body responsible for investigating possible police irregularities. Manuel Valls, former minister and former Minister of the Interior during François Hollande's term, believes that the State is now "very weak". "Never have the protesters, the streets, had the feeling of facing a State and a political power so fragile. So incapable of showing a face and seeking solutions," he points out. "The power vacuum is tremendous and warns, with all the symptoms like a police in crisis, the role of LFI, the yellow vests... that the Titanic is sinking. The situation favors the two forces of the extremes: the RN and LFI," Valls explains over the phone. Stability problems worsened with the unexpected dissolution of the National Assembly that Macron decreed in June 2024. The president, in a political move that no one understood and that all his advisors advised against, achieved the opposite of what was proposed and sowed parliamentary chaos. "Macron, in addition to not giving meaning to his second legislature, destroyed what was left. When I was prime minister, I had a crisis in the Socialist Party, zero growth, Europe pressuring on the budget, terrorism... But I never had the impression of losing control of the train. If you destroy the Gaullist legacy, which is stability, you create enormous confusion. I am very pessimistic. I believe these six months will be very long," warns Valls.