President Emmanuel Macron has ordered every member of his government to relocate into a canvas encampment on Place de la République, where they will remain until each minister can personally explain the price of a baguette, a metro ticket and a student dormitory bed without consulting an aide.
The encampment, built overnight by municipal workers, contains a single field kitchen, a chalkboard listing current prices and a row of folding chairs facing the burned-out shell of a nearby bank. Ministers rise at five to queue for bread alongside residents, and Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez has been assigned to walk the perimeter each morning counting the police officers on duty out loud.
«We will show no leniency,» Macron said from inside the largest tent, «and no minister will sleep indoors until they have swept the pavement in front of their own ministry.» Opposition leaders responded by demanding he apologize from the tent itself. Jordan Bardella said he expected the president to step down «before the second night, when the field kitchen runs out of coffee.»
By Tuesday the encampment had expanded to three city blocks, with the education minister teaching a morning class on a folding table and the finance minister personally pricing every item in the field kitchen. Parisians now line up to watch the government queue for its own bread, and municipal workers have begun erecting a second row of tents for the aides who follow the ministers around.