I arrived in Paris for a three-day speaking trip sponsored by the U.S. embassy and some elite Parisian institutions a couple of days after the protests had turned violent. My hosts were unfailingly polite and the events went off without a hitch. But in our conversations, I sensed foreboding but little fear. The economy had underperformed, I was told, and prior attempts to introduce market reforms to the French economy had also been met with street protests. Their foreboding was about the prospect of further violence, not that the Macron reform project might give way to a change of regime whereby the provinces would force Paris to share its wealth. That would be too incroyable to contemplate.

Yet that is clearly what is behind the gilets jaunes protests. The protestors and the majority of French who have sympathized with them do not believe that increasing the burdens on them while reducing them on the Parisian wealthy will redound to their benefit.

It is telling that Macron has refused to accede to the protesters’ demand that he repeal his wealth tax cut even as his speech Monday night showered billions of euros in reduced taxes and increased benefits on the protesting classes. He would raise costs for small employers by raising the minimum wage in January, but he will not take back a penny of the benefits his wealth tax cut gives to his Parisian friends.

Macron’s worldview is clear: the problem with France is the greed of the French, not the avarice of the Parisians.