There is nothing overly complicated about Emmanuel Macron’s struggle with the angry insurgency of France’s self-styled gilets jaunes. A president who stormed the citadels of the French political establishment en route to the Elysée Palace, and who has since pushed through an impressive array of reforms, turns out to be not so good at, well, politics.

Satisfaction with the way the yellow-vested protesters have punctured Mr Macron’s Jupiterian presidency is not confined to la France profonde. We have been watching the retreat from Moscow, a paid-up member of the Parisian elite said the other day of the president’s troubles. Last summer Mr Macron marked his first year in office by celebrating a victory in Moscow for France’s football World Cup team. And now? A spate of ministerial departures and the weekly appearances on the streets of the gilets jaunes have seen his ratings fall.

At a time when governments across Europe are being destabilised by the growing distance between rulers and ruled, Mr Macron ignored one of the more elementary rules of politics. His government of super-smart technocrats barged its way into the relationship between voters and their vehicles. Cars do not matter much for metropolitan elites. But outside the big cities, they are a vital expression of individual freedom and an essential tool of daily life.