Fuel at record prices and hybrid threats: Macron brings together presidential candidates

In this first scenario, the government acknowledges the political limits of its current stance and decides to open the fiscal taps before discontent spreads nationwide. The Prime Minister announces a temporary flat rebate applied directly to domestic fuel taxes to bring diesel back below the symbolic threshold of two euros per liter. This measure is accompanied by an immediate expansion of professional fuel allowances for fishers, haulers, and farmers. Filter blockades outside Mediterranean oil depots are cleared within days following sector-specific agreements. Meanwhile, domestic security services successfully neutralize digital destabilization attempts and isolated acts of sabotage carried out by foreign influence agents.

This favorable path sets itself apart from the other two options by prioritizing the immediate appeasement of social discontent over fiscal discipline. Unlike the stable scenario, which attempts to maintain the budget trajectory at all costs through restricted aid, the executive makes the pragmatic choice to partially concede to the tax demands of Jordan Bardella and Éric Ciotti to cut the ground from under the opposition. This scenario eliminates the risk of logistical paralysis seen in the adverse path, but forces the state to take on billions of euros in extra costs that could quickly complicate the national budget balance for the year ahead.

In this middle scenario, the executive firmly refuses demands for a blanket reduction in value-added tax, maintaining its course of strictly targeted aid for low-income households. Total subsidy spending increases incrementally without major budget overruns, while international refined product prices hit a technical plateau without dramatic new spikes. Law enforcement systematically intervenes to prevent blockades from taking hold at Mediterranean fuel depots, ensuring regular service station supplies despite occasional delivery delays. Opposition parties continue to campaign on the cost of living, but street protests remain fragmented and struggle to coalesce into a unified popular movement.

This compromise scenario under pressure avoids the high-spending appeasement of the favorable option while preventing the slide into a general strike feared in the adverse scenario. Unlike the first scenario, where the state grants massive relief to buy social peace, the government chooses to absorb the political cost of unpopularity to preserve its financial leeway under European fiscal constraints. The external hybrid threat remains under close surveillance, met with measured diplomatic attributions that avoid sparking public panic. However, national stability would remain precarious, vulnerable to any logistical snag or fresh geopolitical spark.

In this disruptive third scenario, fuel prices breach an unprecedented critical threshold, pushing diesel above €2.55 per liter due to global supply bottlenecks and renewed geopolitical turmoil. Public anger boils over: blockades launched by Mediterranean fishers quickly spread to Atlantic coast refineries, joined by farming unions and independent trucking collectives. Fuel shortages hit thousands of service stations, disrupting national supply chains. Simultaneously, major sabotage attributed to hybrid warfare networks targets European telecommunications hubs or transport infrastructure, fueling widespread security anxiety that the opposition leverages to demand a parliamentary dissolution or a change of government.

This worst-case scenario marks the complete failure of the containment strategy outlined in the stable scenario and goes far beyond the orderly fiscal concessions of the favorable path. Unlike a contained standoff where police successfully clear strategic access routes, the simultaneous multiplication of blockade sites completely overwhelms state intervention capabilities. The continued refusal to lower energy taxes turns a localized dispute into a broader revolt of peripheral regions against central power. Such a breakdown in social cohesion could plunge the country into a major political crisis with unpredictable institutional consequences.