Violent protests haunt France

PARIS: Faced with violent anti-government protests in Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday will announce new measures in an attempt to rally support for environment-friendly tax increases.

Paris was counting the cost of clashes between police and demonstrators on Sunday on the Champs-Elysees where barricades were set on fire, luxury shop windows smashed, and traffic lights uprooted. Some 30 people were injured and 101 arrested, police said.

The government blamed much of the violence on a small minority of "ultra-right" activists who infiltrated some 8,000 demonstrators wearing the yellow, high-visibility vests that symbolise their week-long protests against hikes in fuel tax.

Bruno Le Maire, the economy minister, acknowledged on Sunday that "the current crisis goes far beyond just a question of fuel", adding that it was important that "work be better paid" to improve living standards.

"It is time to listen to the French," he said on BFM television, suggesting that Macron, on Tuesday, would call for "grassroot debates" throughout the country on government policies. Elysee presidential palace said Macron would make a speech next week on ecological transition where the French leader is expected to address the protests.

Opposition leaders have been quick to note that the protests, mostly organised by grassroot protesters coordinating by way of social media rather than by traditional political parties or trade unions, have won wide popular support.

"When a movement has the backing of three quarters of French people, you give them an answer, you don’t just dismiss them as a gang of thugs," Olivier Faure, the socialist party leader told Le Parisien newspaper.