Thousands in France are protesting gas taxes — and their president

Thousands of French police fired tear gas and used water cannons against protesters who were destroying shops and lighting fires along Paris’s Champs-Élysées this weekend.

People were protesting fuel taxes, but the demonstrations are also an indication of growing animosity toward French President Emmanuel Macron.

Nearly 20 people — including police — were injured in Saturday’s skirmish, which could cost the city $1.7 million. It’s one of the most dramatic moments in more than a week of demonstrations that have led to a total of about 400 injured and at least one death.

The protests started around November 17 when French drivers sporting yellow vests led a demonstration of 280,000 people across the country to push back against rising taxes on gas and diesel. Macron, as part of his many economic reforms, announced the gas taxes earlier this year to minimize France’s reliance on fossil fuels.

The tax will increase the price of fuel by about 30 cents per gallon and will continue to rise over the next few years, the French government says. Gas already costs about $7.06 per gallon in France.

The protest movement — known as gilets jaunes, French for the “yellow vests” demonstrators wear — has blockaded streets and highways, burned cars, and skirmished with police in response to the price hike. In recent days, protesters seem to be directing their anger at the state of France’s economy as well.

“It’s unacceptable that people do not have decent salaries, that at the end of the month, they are in the red and can’t afford to eat,” Idir Ghanes, an unemployed computer technician in Paris, told the Guardian on November 24.

In effect, the protests are turning into a large-scale rebuke to Macron’s leadership — and it’s unclear if he’ll survive it.

Jeff Lightfoot, an expert on France at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, DC, told me there are two main reasons Macron has become such an unpopular figure.

The first is that Macron doesn’t really have a political base. He’s a Parisian technocrat that rode a wave of dissatisfaction with traditional French political parties to presidential victory in May 2017. He has yet to gain much support outside of urban areas, and didn’t receive tremendous support during last year’s vote. So one of Macron’s biggest political liabilities is that he doesn’t have a reliable contingent of support if things get bad.

The second reason, unfortunately for Macron, is that things have gotten bad. France’s economy is growing, but very slowly. Most of the growth is centered in its major cities, like Paris, but others on the periphery and rural communities haven’t seen as much profit. “The discontent has been rising,” Lightfoot said, in part because Macron can come off as arrogant and out of touch.

It also doesn’t help that Macron, in an effort to reform France’s economy, is cutting longstanding benefits and ending labor protections. For example, he’s made it easier for companies to hire and fire employees and fought unions to end subsidies for certain sectors. That’s why some see Macron as a president of the rich, Lightfoot added, initiating changes that many of the country’s wealthy can muddle through but that the nation’s poorer cannot.

That means Macron will be in protesters’ crosshairs for quite some time, especially since he has given no indication he will bend to their demands. It’s therefore possible that some of his political competitors — like the far-right politician Marine Le Pen — can take advantage of the public’s disaffection and become the premier alternative to Macron.

That has France watchers quite nervous about what happens not just in the next few days but well into the future. “It’s going to be a bumpy few years coming up,” Lightfoot told me.