On Tuesday, June 03, Marine Le Pen, president of the RN, was targeted by an egg wave while she was in the election campaign for the legislative elections in Saint-Armand-les-eaux where she supported the candidate of her party. The day after this incident, Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer was sprayed with moss by two individuals while he was also campaigning in Montargis in the Loiret. These are not isolated cases.
More and more politicians are attacked during their public appearances. French President Emmanuel Macron himself has already been singled out in similar circumstances. This violence is worrying in many ways.
One might well wonder why citizens choose to rape politicians instead of using the power of the ballot box? Yet democratic expression is the framework of all freedoms par excellence. Do these people who resort to violence against political figures think they are misunderstood? Are their social aspirations not sufficiently taken into account by successive governments? One could say so. In France, the action of the yellow vests easily reflects a real social malaise. This disenchantment could manifest itself in individual actions.
In this case, it is all politics and government action that must remain attentive to the people to reduce social frustrations. These actions of despair could be read as dissatisfaction with the democratic expression and the feeling of abandonment of the populations by their authorities.
The quality of perpetrators of violence against politicians is also intriguing. If Marine Le Pen was attacked by a man identified as ‘a marginal’, those who assaulted Minister Blanquer are teachers. This means that all social strata are won over by this feeling of dissatisfaction. This is an extremely important parameter to consider.
This is not to legitimize political violence. Its upsurge undermines the foundations of a democratic and polite society. The parliamentary elections for which these two political personalities were campaigning, are precisely the channel to carry the popular votes. To challenge it and to physically attack politicians is a real deviance. When you are not happy, you will vote.
