“I thought that the Brussels Ruled with an Iron Fist.”
The reality is very different from that rhetoric. The areas of life in the member states which are not affected by EU regulation far outnumber those that are. Education, legal systems, health systems, the legislature, policing, the military, taxation, currency (except in the Eurozone), most utilities,highway design and construction.....those are just a few of the main ones which are controlled by the individual member states, not the EU. There are many more.
LIVE video of Paris Yellow Vests (RT)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qm7-8WhA05A
Police now using smoke bombs to disperse the protesters