If Macron doesn't know why he's despised, he hasn't been listening | Rokhaya Diallo

The president had no mandate to dismantle France's social model. His contempt for the people risks opening the door to extremism

As France was commemorating the end of the second world war in Europe this month, Emmanuel Macron cut an isolated figure on a near-empty Champs-Elysees, surrounded by steel security barriers to prevent any member of the public from getting within shouting, let alone pot-banging, distance.

For the first time, and by police order the French people were barrred from a large area ringing the official 8 May remembrance of the liberation. Six years after his first presidential victory and a year after winning a second term in the Elysee, Macron can scarcely show his face in public without being booed, heckled or insulted.

Rokhaya Diallo is a French writer, journalist, film director and activist