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France’s ‘Yellow Vests’ Double Down in Third Week of Protests Violence Flares Anew as France Scrambles to Respond to ‘Yellow Vest’ Protesters
(about 4 hours later)
PARIS — For a third weekend, French riot police clashed with “yellow vest” protesters in the heart of Paris, posing one of the largest and most sustained challenges Emmanuel Macron has faced in his 18-month-old presidency. PARIS — Tear gas swirled and riot police flanked the Arc de Triomphe on Saturday as protesters wearing the signature yellow vests of a movement protesting gas taxes and a high cost of living alternately tried to crash police barriers and gathered to sing the national anthem.
The police fired tear gas, stun grenades and water cannon on Saturday at crowds trying to breach security cordons on the Champs-Élysées ahead of a third rally against high fuel prices. Elsewhere in Paris and across France the protests were tense in some places but largely peaceful in others, giving credence to the French government’s claim that although many in Paris might be wearing the yellow vests, at least those around the Arc de Triomphe were, in great part, not representative of the movement and instead intent on causing trouble.
Prime Minister Édouard Philippe said at least 107 people had been arrested by Saturday afternoon. The authorities said there were concerns that violent far-right and far-left groups were infiltrating the “yellow vests” movement, a spontaneous, apparently leaderless grass-roots rebellion against diesel tax increases and the high cost of living. Violent protesters in Paris spread out from the Arc de Triomphe later on Saturday, clashing with police, setting fire to cars and erecting makeshift barricades.
“We’re worried that small groups of rioters that aren’t yellow vests will infiltrate to fight security forces and challenge the authority of the state,” said Denis Jacob, secretary general of the Alternative Police union. It was the third consecutive weekend of demonstrations and while the numbers of protesters was down nationwide — 75,000 in contrast to more than 100,000 last weekend — the overall support for the movement shows no sign of abating and the government appeared flummoxed over how to respond.
“Given the high level of security around the Champs, the fear is thugs will go to other places.” By midday some 158 people had been arrested and 65 had been wounded in the melee in Paris, said Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, who made a point of distinguishing between those who had come prepared to fight the police and those with whom the government was willing to talk.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner said on Twitter that while 200 people were protesting peacefully, 1,500 others outside the perimeter were causing more serious disruptions, leading to the arrests. “We are attached to freedom of expression, but also to respect for the law,” Mr. Philippe said.
For two weeks, the “gilets jaunes” or yellow vests, who take their name from the high-visibility jackets all drivers in France must carry in their vehicles, have blocked roads in protests across France. They are incensed at a planned fuel tax increase set to take effect on Jan. 1, raising gas prices around 12 cents per gallon and diesel about 28 cents per gallon. (Last week, gasoline cost around $6.26 per gallon in Paris, while diesel was around $6.28 per gallon, according to NBC News). “I am shocked by the violence of such a symbol of France,” he said, referring to the clashes around the Arc de Triomphe and graffiti sprayed on it that read “Yellow Jackets Will Triumph.”
Thousands of protesters, who have largely organized themselves online, converged on Paris, turning the Champs-Élysées into a battle zone as they clashed with the police firing tear gas and water cannons. Two people were killed and hundreds of protesters and police were injured on Nov. 17, when the protests kicked off. It was two weeks into the protests before the government, which had been giving the demonstrators a cold shoulder, agreed to meet with them. First, government officials offered to increase subsidies for buying fuel-efficient cars and installing less-polluting home heating systems, but the protesters indicated that was insufficient since many do not have enough money to buy even a subsidized car.
Last week, the French authorities said 8,000 people demonstrated on the famed avenue. Some of the protesters set fire to barriers and plywood boards, and the police fired tear gas and water cannons to push back angry demonstrators. Mr. Philippe then called a meeting with Yellow Vest representatives for Nov. 30. However, since the movement has no leader or even really any representatives, it was unclear whom he invited. The result was that only one or two Yellow Vests showed up at Mr. Philippe’s formal residence at Matignon, a grand house in Paris’ chic 7th arrondissement.
Mr. Macron, who has so far refused to reconsider the gas tax hikes, responded to last week’s violent march by denouncing “those who attacked the forces of order.” The meeting was “interesting, frank and respectful,” said Mr. Philippe, adding that the door remained open.
Mr. Philippe, the prime minister, said 36,000 protesters had turned out across France on Saturday, including 5,500 in Paris. Several hundred yellow vests converged under the Arc de Triomphe at the top of the Champs-Élysées and sat down to sing “La Marseillaise,” the national anthem, and chant “Macron Resign!” But the “open door” was undercut by other ministers who publicly said there would be no backing down on the government’s new gas taxes.
“There’s a lot of incitement on social media, and we are expecting excess and violence,” David Michaux of the U.N.S.A. police union told Reuters, adding that far-right and far-left groups were expected. The good-cop, bad-cop approach did not go over well. A large group of Yellow Vests in Paris marched peacefully with a banner that said, “Macron, Stop Taking Us for Stupid People.”
Three formal demonstrations were planned across Paris on Saturday, including the yellow vests, a union protest against unemployment and a separate rally against racism. Asked if this referred to the government’s mixed messages, one of the marchers who was holding the edge of the banner said: “Of course. Who does he think we are?”
Officials said they expected some 5,000 police and gendarmes in Paris on Saturday, up from about 3,000 on Nov. 17. Another 5,000 will be deployed across France for other yellow vests protests. In many ways the street confrontations on Saturday in Paris, while gripping on television, obscured the movement’s seriousness and its significance for the government. French politicians are accustomed to dealing with violent demonstrations: they occur several times every year, especially in Paris. Sometimes they are in the context of union strikes but more often as part of broader protests.
Work crews erected metal barriers and plywood boards on the glass-fronted facades of restaurants and boutiques lining the Champs-Élysées. It will be closed to traffic, with pedestrians funneled through checkpoints. Far more difficult for the government is dealing with the Yellow Vests who represent a broader swath of the French population than any union and include many who have not yet come out to demonstrate, but who say they are supportive.
All subway stations in and around the avenue were closed for security reasons, the Paris public transport operator RATP said. Of course, it is possible that reservoir of supporters will not become activists, but if they did, the government would be hard put to cope.
For now, the yellow vests enjoy widespread public support. When they began, the protests caught Mr. Macron off guard just as he was trying to counter a plunge in popularity, with his approval rating at barely 20 percent. President Emmanuel Macron’s dilemma is that in the past when French presidents, under pressure from the French Street, have backed down from their fiscal programs and moderated tax and other spending proposals, they are seen as weak and unable to enact meaningful change.
His unyielding response has exposed him to charges of being out of touch with ordinary people. Mr. Macron had planned to meet with members of the yellow vests on Saturday, but those plans were apparently canceled when few representatives showed up. Mr. Macron, whose campaign and now his government have been built on the promise to make needed reforms in France’s labor market and social security costs, would see his dream of bringing back prosperity to France and making it into a 21st century economy at the least cut short.
The protests in France even inspired rallies in Belgium, where on Friday hundreds took to the streets, stopping cars and blocking roads as they called for their own prime minister, Charles Michel, to resign. The problem, said Bernard Sananès, president of Elabe, a French polling organization, is that “there are two Frances.”
On Sunday, about 25,000 people, including yellow vests, plan to protest in Brussels against inaction on climate change. To accommodate the expected throngs, the city’s subway services will be free. “One is a France that feels left behind and moving down” the socio-economic ladder, he said in an interview Dec. 1 on BFMTV, a French news channel.
A study released this past week by the Jean Jaurès Institute, a public policy think tank, said: “In the past, these people could have given themselves some little entertainment; today those little ‘extras’ are out of reach.”
Multiple surveys of public opinion released in the past week suggest that 70 percent to 80 percent of French people sympathize with the Yellow Vests’ contention that President Emmanuel Macron and his government “talks about the end of the world while we are talking about the end of the month.”
The movement’s slogan refers to Mr. Macron’s focus on reducing climate change by promoting fuel efficiency and raising gas taxes in contrast to French working people who struggle to make it to the end of their month on their earnings.
The Yellow Vests draw their constituency from the majority of French who have watched their take-home pay increasingly fall behind their cost of living.
The catalyst for the protests was the government’s decision to continue increasing the gas tax in 2019 to help pay for the transition to more sustainable energy, but many people say that the discontent has been building for years.
It reflects the bite of French payroll taxes, which are among the highest in Europe, and disposable income that is well below that of a number of other western European countries, although the French are still considerably better off than those in Eastern Europe, according to Eurostat, the European Union’s statistics arm.
The median disposable income for a person in a French household was 1,700 euros a month, about $1,923, in 2016, the most recent year for which statistics are available, according to Insee, the French government’s statistics arm.
Disposable income reflects the amount left for workers to spend on their daily needs — housing, food, schooling, clothes — after paying income taxes and payroll taxes and making adjustments for any government subsidies for which they might eligible.
Often the only way to rein in costs has been to move to the exurbs of major cities, where real estate prices are much lower, but where workers generally must rely on a car to get to work and for errands. Cars need gas and so any gas tax increase hits them. Taxes have also risen on tobacco and other goods.
For rural workers and those who live in distant small villages in the heart of France, a car is even more clearly a necessity.
Centrist politicians, even some who support Mr. Macron, are beginning to push for a more engaged response from the government.
“You can’t govern against the people,” said François Bayrou, the leader of the Moderate Democrats in Parliament, who are partners with Mr. Macron’s Les Republiques En Marche party in an interview on Europe 1.
He said he did was not sure of the answer, but he said the government can’t keep “adding taxes on top of taxes.”