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  • A sixth “yellow vest” protester in France has been killed after being struck by a truck at a protest roadblock, authorities said Thursday. The driver of the truck was arrested and taken into custody after he tried to flee the scene. The movement rocking the country shows no signs of stopping, and authorities are urging the protesters to use “the utmost caution,” especially at night, to avoid more accidents. 
  • On Wednesday night, French police were sent to reopen a major road in Burgundy where “people identifying themselves as yellow vests” blocked about 200 trucks for several hours, local authorities said. Eleven protesters were arrested and six of them were put into custody.
  • French President Emmanuel Macron broke his silence on Monday after weeks of sometimes violent protest against fuel taxes proposed by his government. Mr. Macron pleaded for a return to calm, and declared an “economic and social state of emergency,” ordering the government and parliament to take immediate steps to change tax rules and other policies that hit the wallets of working class French people. “I might have hurt people with my words,” Mr. Macron said in his address.
  • Fallout from the protests so far could cost France 0.1 per cent of gross domestic product in the last quarter of the year, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire warned Monday. “That means fewer jobs, it means less prosperity for the whole country,” he said.

Where the ‘yellow vests’ came from

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A yellow-vested protester blocks the road leating to the Frontignan oil depot in the south of France on Dec. 3, 2018. On the vest is written "Macron traitor, the people are hungry.'PASCAL GUYOT/AFP/Getty Images

How it started: The current wave of unrest began on Nov. 17 with demonstrations over a planned hike in fuel taxes to go into effect in January. In the first day of demonstrations, one protester was killed and 227 others injured. Larger demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands continued over the weeks that followed, reaching their height over the Dec. 1-2 weekend, with widespread vandalism, fires and looting.

What they want: Over time, the movement has grown to encompass a range of complaints from both left- and right-wing working class demonstrators, who claim that President Emmanuel Macron’s government is doing too little to ease their cost of living and doesn’t care about the problems of ordinary people. There is no official leader, membership or fixed list of demands, but 10 representatives wrote an opinion piece in the Journal du Dimanche newspaper calling for negotiations with the government. These representatives called for an immediate freeze on fuel taxes, cancelling new and more rigorous vehicle-inspection rules and an electoral system of proportional representation, which would benefit smaller parties, including those on the far left and right.

Why yellow? In France, drivers are required by law to carry high-visibility safety vests to wear by the roadside in case of emergency. For the working-class protesters, these gilets jaunes are both an accessory of convenience and a symbol of their concern for motorists.

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Dec. 1: Protesters stand up in front of a police water canon at the Place de l'Etoile near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.Stephane Mahe/Reuters

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Protesters walk by burning cars during clashes with riot police on the sideline of a yellow-vest protest in Paris.ABDULMONAM EASSA/AFP/Getty Images

The government’s response

On Dec. 4, the French government moved to appease the protest movement by suspending the fuel-tax hikes for six months. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in a public address the protesters' message of anger came through clearly:

This anger, you’d have to be deaf or blind not to see it or hear it. The French who have donned yellow vests want taxes to drop, and work to pay. That’s also what we want. If I didn’t manage to explain it, if the ruling majority didn’t manage to convince the French, then something must change.

Mr. Macron returned early from a G20 summit in Argentina on Dec. 3 to deal with the unrest in France. He has been meeting with local and national politicians, unions and business leaders to hear their concerns. On Dec. 10, he addressed the nation in a televised evening address, declaring an “economic and social state of emergency.” He ordered the government and parliament to take immediate steps to change tax rules and other policies that hit the wallets of working class French people.

I know that I have managed to wound some of you through my comments. We will respond to the economic and social urgency with strong measures, by cutting taxes more rapidly, by keeping our spending under control, but not with U-turns.

The environmental backstory

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Dec. 11, 2015: The Eiffel Tower displays the message "No plan B" during the COP21 conference, a historic UN summit on climate change in which countries promised to curb their greenhouse gas emissions.PATRICK KOVARIK/AFP

Three years ago in Paris, world leaders – including Mr. Macron’s predecessor, François Hollande – hammered out ambitious targets to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and avert the most disastrous effects of climate change. The climate accord was on shakier ground when Mr. Macron came to office in 2017, and the recently elected Trump administration pulled the United States out of the agreement.

On the international stage, Mr. Macron has spoken passionately about doing more to curb emissions and get reluctant nations like the U.S. to do their part. But domestically, Mr. Macron has backtracked on several of the climate and environmental initiatives he promised. In August, his environment minister, Nicolas Hulot, resigned in frustration, saying Mr. Macron wasn’t acting fast enough on renewable energy and a pledge to draw less of France’s electricity from nuclear power by 2025.

The fuel-tax increases announced this fall were intended to entice French citizens and businesses to lower their carbon footprints. But the yellow vest protesters have denounced the tax as a sign Mr. Macron is a “president of the rich” who is making working-class people pay for environmental change instead of big business. The standoff illustrates a conundrum: How do political leaders’ introduce policies that will do long-term good for the environment without inflicting extra costs on voters that may damage their chances of re-election?

The economic backstory

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May 7, 2017: French president-elect Emmanuel Macron celebrates on the stage at his election victory rally near the Louvre in Paris.Christian Hartmann/Reuters

While the protests were initially against the fuel-tax hikes, they have also mined a vein of deep dissatisfaction felt toward Mr. Macron’s liberal reforms, which many voters feel favor the wealthy and big business.

In exchange for large government spending on social programs, French workers are among the most heavily taxed in Europe. One way to visualize this is the tax wedge, which measures the ratio between the total tax workers pay on their income and the labour costs their employers pay. The average tax wedge is a rough measurement of whether income taxes discourage employment: When a tax wedge is high, workers take home less income compared with what their companies invest in them, and the less incentive there is for new jobs. In 2017, France’s was the fourth highest tax wedge in the OECD. And in terms of taxation on goods and services, France pays the most as a percentage of GDP than any G7 country except Italy.

The centrist Mr. Macron promised to trim down France’s public service, reduce corporate taxes, streamline labour regulations and stimulate job creation and growth. Soon after his election, investors began gravitating toward France amid uncertainty about Britain’s post-Brexit future and other uncertainty in Europe. The yellow vest protesters, however, argue that Mr. Macron’s reforms have benefited the wealthy at their expense.

What happens next?

The anti-establishment anger spurring the yellow vests on could spell trouble for Mr. Macron in next year’s European elections. These are traditionally fertile ground for the far-right, led by Marine Le Pen, which already leads surveys of voting intentions.

It’s unlikely the fuel-tax suspension will put an end to the road blockades and demonstrations. On the day the tax’s suspension was announced, protesters kept blocking several fuel depots and many insisted their fight was not over. “It’s a first step, but we will not settle for a crumb,” said Benjamin Cauchy, one of the leaders of the protests.

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A protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask makes the victory sign near a burning barricade in Paris on Dec. 1.ABDULMONAM EASSA/AFP/Getty Images

Further reading

Konrad Yakabuski: Macron’s concessions and mea culpas won’t fix the French malaise



Reuters, Associated Press and Globe staff

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