Hey, here’s the middle class again, a vague socio-economic concept that translates into politics through excessive promises to a population that generally votes en masse. The Minister of Economy and Finance, Bruno Le Maire, therefore showed himself to be empathetic, almost merciful, when addressing them, in a Prévert-style inventory, before the arrival this week at the Assembly of two texts devoted to purchasing power: “Those who stick out their tongues”those “who work, who make the nation go round […] and who have no choice but to take their car to go to work”. The car says it all. Inflation is up 5.8% from a year ago, and with a 33.1% rise in energy prices, drivers could be particularly hard hit. Such a rise in inflation is unprecedented in France since the day after the oil shocks.
Historians have underlined the inability of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, first at Bercy then at the Elysée, to defend purchasing power through successive anti-inflation plans which all failed. However, at the time of Giscard, the French defined as belonging to the “middle classes” saw themselves as employees better paid than their parents: technos, doctors, creators, they occupied the new professions of the future, consumed more, were more concerned with freedom and cultural development; above all, they were living proof of the possibility of social mobility in France. Today, these employees are afraid of downward social mobility, as they often feel they are doing less well than their parents in Giscard’s time. This has not escaped the notice of the various political parties, and Bruno Le Maire risks needing much more than compassion in the Assembly.