On France

Reading this piece in The Guardian by a journalist who has long worked in France, you get the distinct impression that part of the problem is that the country has so many people who share a fondness for public demonstration as a political tool that once they start, no one really has any clear idea how unified the demonstrators are.  Hence there always ends up being a multitude of possible mixed motivations, which makes calming it down all the more difficult.

Of course, people say that about demonstrations in other countries too (you know, the matter of whether demonstrations are being "hijacked" by a radical group), but it seems a really chronic problem when you're in a country where anyone will demonstrate at the drop of a political hat.   As Lichfield says:

I’ve lived in France for 22 years and have witnessed street protests by workers, farmers, wine producers, truck drivers, railway employees, university students, sixth-formers, teachers, youths in the multiracial suburbs, chefs, lawyers, doctors and police officers. Yes, even police officers. 

Anyway,  another article in The Guardian looks at the question of whether petrol prices in France are really that expensive, and they apparently aren't.   But Macron being a strange political fish, who believes in climate change, is pro-EU, leery of populist sentiment against immigration, but also wants to de-regulate work conditions, has the problem of thereby not being able to have solid support from either arm of politics. 

I don't know enough about France to have really solid opinions about it or him, but naturally I gravitate towards centrism and moderation, and (of course) view the populist Right as a real danger.  It's a pity that the Macron brand of centrism seems not to be working.  But whether that's because he's too far "dry" on economics or too "wet" on environmentalism - or a bit of both - I don't really know.