For the past four weeks, at least, France has been obsessed with "les Gilets Jaune". The yellow vests are the safety vests we all must have in our cars and we must wear them in case of an accident or other mishap, like a flat tire, as we wait on the side of the road for help to arrive. "Les Gilets Jaune" people who are participating in a movement launched via facebook and other social media in November, when the government announced that the new tax on fossil fuel, 3%, would be applied from January 1. It started out as an appeal not to apply this new tax.
Salaries have not really risen in France is quite some time. Working people who are earning minimum wage, or close to it, (and that is most people), unemployed, retired people with low pensions are having more and more trouble getting to the end of the month. Those who live in cities have public transportation to get to work. In the Paris area, it's subsidized so that employees have half of their almost €70/month card reimbursed by their employers. Elsewhere, however, getting to work is not so cheap. People move further and further away from where the jobs are because housing is so expensive. For many years, they were encouraged to buy diesel cars -- less carbon pollution and better mileage. Diesel fuel was the cheapest, far cheaper than regular gas. Then, last year, it was decided to bring the price of diesel up to the same level as gas. That already added extra expense to those who commute by car. And their cars lost value in the used car market, if they wanted to sell. Now, an additional tax. Add to that if the home is fuel heated. It's the straw that broke the camel's back.
The idea was pretty simple: local demonstrations at the many traffic circles around all French urban areas. People manning the blockades would wear their yellow vests. People supporting the movements would put their yellow vests on their dashboards and honk as they passed through the blockades. Simple. And it's very easy to empathize and support the movement. France is taxed out.
Then, three weeks ago, on Saturday, there was a demonstration in Paris. It turned violent. Extremists on the left and right and just regular demonstrators at the end of their rope started throwing paving stones, smashing shop windows, and, in what is an odd French tradition (at least for the past 30 years), burning cars. Rioting rather than demonstrating. The police reacted slowly and moderately -- the aim being to not cause deadly harm (and they didn't). But that just encouraged the mob to more violent behavior the next week. Last weekend, the police changed tactic by searching for possible weapons as cars approached Paris. 2000 people were arrested, either before anything happened or during the rioting.
In the mean time, the tax hike has been abandoned, but as usual, the unorganized movement now has more and more "non-negotiable" demands. The students have gotten involved (more on that, from Arunwithaview). The transport workers have called a strike. Stores counting on Christmas sales, super markets, restaurants, and more have had to close, either because of the violence or because supply trucks are not getting through. There are no real leaders, no real spokespeople for the government to talk to. Macron and the government have not responded well to all this. Macron is going to say something, finally, tomorrow.
To put this into perspective, the last big social movement like this was in the late fall 1995. Before than, a catastrophic student movement in 1986. And we mustn't forget 1968. The violence is more destructive and dangerous, now, but basically government decree followed by protest followed by retraction is how France operates.
