Protest, leadership and democracy

French President Emmanuel Macron is fast becoming a customer of a peculiar form of protest under the democratic setting. He was again treated to an ambush smack in the face – physically speaking – by an apparent protester among a crowd of constituents with whom he was having in-contact chitchat at a location in France. The incident was said to have happened penultimate Sunday, 20th November, 2022.

In a video footage that lately went viral on social media, Macron was hit in the face by a woman in an olive green t-shirt as he walked by in front of a crowd. The president’s security details moved swiftly in and tackled down the woman, while pulling Macron away. Expectedly, being a presidential outing, the whole incident played out before media cameras. Neither the identity nor motive of the female assaulter was clear as at the time of the incident.

That wasn’t the first time the French president was being subjected to physical assault by an apparently angry constituent. In June 2021, a young fellow later identified as Damien Tarel struck him across the face during a tour of southeast France. Visual footage from that incident showed Mr. Macron approaching a supposed welcoming crowd of people in Tain-l’Hermitage, a town in the Drome region of France that he was visiting to speak with members of the food and restaurant industry ahead of easing Covid-19-related restrictions in his country. The president had reached out for a handshake as he was about to start conversing with a longhaired man clad in a khaki t-shirt when the attacker grabbed his forearm and slapped him across the face, shouting “Down with Macronie” – a term sometimes used derogatorily to refer to Macron’s administration – before security details quickly moved in and pulled the president away. Before hitting out at the president, the attacker was also heard yelling “Montjoie Saint Denis” – a battle cry of the French army when the country was still a monarchy, now associated with royalist or far-right activists. Two men were arrested following the incident, including Tarel who was subsequently sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Unfazed by the attack, Macron immediately resumed talking and shaking hands with the constituents. He later said he was fine and that the slap was an “isolated incident” that should be “put into perspective.” The president was further reported saying that the overwhelming majority of French people were interested in substantive issues. “We must not let ultra-violent people take over the public debate: they do not deserve it,” he told a local newspaper. And in spite of hard partisan lines that divide the French political class, the leaders were unanimous in denouncing the incident. Prime Minister Jean Castex told the National Assembly shortly afterwards that while democracy meant debate and legitimate disagreement “it must never in any case mean violence, verbal aggression, and much less physical attack.” Macron is a centrist. But far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon tweeted his “solidarity with the president” immediately after the slap, while far-right leader Marine Le Pen posted her condemnation, saying “while democratic debate can be bitter, it can never tolerate physical violence.”

To be clear, Macron’s vulnerability to physical assaults by angry constituents isn’t because he has no security protection like presidents everywhere else. French presidents are protected by what is known as the Security Group for the Presidency of the Republic, codenamed GSPR. The squad was established in 1983 and is reportedly composed of 77 men and women looking out for Mr. Macron’s safety. According to French media, members of this squad typically scout locations in advance of a presidential visit, while armed personnel are assigned to closely guard the president during the trip itself. A French television channel reported that 10 GSPR members were with Macron during the trip when the 2021 attack occurred. And neither is it that Macron’s policies are especially obnoxious to warrant frequent assaults on his person by members of the French public. Rather, it is because his approach to power isn’t insulatory but populist. He appropriates opportunities to mingle with the electorate, so that he can hear from them first hand and feel their pulse in-person. In doing that, though, he also gets a taste of their wrath over his policies first hand and in-person. You can’t ask for a better deal in a democracy.

“The ideal in a democracy is for leaders to be in regular touch, in-person with constituents.” 

 

Not that every leader can take the chance Macron takes with populism even if they wanted. Every country has a political history that largely informs its leader’s comportment in power. For instance, United States presidents are walled up behind security fortifications owing to a history of rogue attacks that resulted in the assassination of many past presidents; and there’s the fact, of course, that not only Americans could be after the life of an American president. Even then, American presidents including incumbent President Joe Biden are noted for seizing every opportunity within the allowance made by security services to mingle with the electorate and feel their pulse first hand. In related terms, not much has been seen of current British Prime Minister Rishi Shunak; but his predecessor, Boris Johnson, was famous for taking bicycle rides to grocery stores all by himself to shop, talk and take selfies with members of the British public. Even here in Nigeria, we had former Head of State General Murtala Muhammed who experimented with populism when he discarded the trappings of power – sirens and motorcades – and rode like everybody else in his unaccompanied car in Lagos traffic. He experienced the Lagos traffic jam first hand, which was the chance seized by coup makers in 1976 to gun him down barely 100 days into his regime. It was a costly experiment and, naturally, no Nigerian leader has assayed such populist style ever since – not even now under democracy, although the Murtala tragedy happened in the military era.

But there is something strongly appealing about a political arrangement where leaders are in touch, in-person with their constituents. Bitter truth be faced: protesters will always be on hand to take advantage of the easing of access to any particular leader. But like Macron said following the 2021 assault on him, they must never be allowed to win by keeping the leader away from those being led. Actually, there is a sense in which protest forms involving pelting a leader with whom constituents are angry with eggs and tomatoes are a tolerable, if extraordinary mode of political expression. The leader is rudely made aware he isn’t meeting the expectations of his people and would need to readjust. An alternative to such form of political expression is to foment vicious violence – either against the leader directly, or against innocent citizens just to get the leader’s attention. That was the kind of expression we saw with the 2020 #EndSARS protests, and it is far less desirable.

The ideal in a democracy is for leaders to be in regular touch, in-person with constituents. This itself could help to preempt violent political expression that could result from pent-up and ignored frustrations of citizens. Sadly, though, this is an ideal that seems alien to Nigerian political culture, more so for leaders in the executive arm. This is a country where even leaders at the grassroots level are walled up behind the fortifications of power; they wait to be fed back by sycophantic aides who tell them what they prefer to hear, not the truth about the mood of citizens. That is the reason there is so much disconnect between the leadership and the led. By its very design, power has a way of holding a leader hostage to a sycophantic echo chamber at dissonance with reality. That could be why leaders in some countries have been reported to deliberately cut out, by subterfuge if necessary, from the shackles of power to directly get a feel of the pulse of their publics. This is something leaders in Nigeria should consider doing to get the best from our democracy.