Free Republic

You know you've got a problem when your tax schemes are even being rejected by the French. While there's always a danger in reducing the causes of political unrest to a single issue, the plan to impose yet another regressive $9 billion annual carbon tax proved to be a catalyst for the "yellow vest" protests that are roiling Paris. The nonviolent version of the French carbon-tax revolt is spreading globally, too. Last November, Washington state voters rejected a very well-funded effort to pass the first ballot-approved carbon tax ever. The province of Ontario is suing the Canadian government to block...

EMMANUEL Macron's government faces a vote of no confidence in parliament on Thursday amid nationwide anger at the French president which has seen violent riots across the country. Mr Macron's leadership is hanging by a thread after the Yellow Vest protests posed the most formidable challenge yet to his presidency. Leftist MEPs said Thursday's vote is the result of 18 months of fiscal injustice and called on the French president to "radically change direction". The Paris protests which erupted on November 17, were focused on denouncing a squeeze on household spending brought about by Mr Macron's taxes on diesel, which...

ITALY’S Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has accused French President Emmanuel Macron of keeping the power from the people and in the hands of the elite, less than 24 hours after he said the young centrist was to blame for the “yellow vest” protests that have unnerved Paris. The young centrist is struggling to curb a wave of violent protests that have rocked his administration to its core, and forced him to scrap a planned carbon tax and up salaries. Mr Salvini, head of the far-right League party, has repeatedly locked horns with Mr Macron over immigration policy, and has...

Protests and road barricades at roundabouts and toll-booths across France have continued, as many gilets jaunes demonstrators said concessions made by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, were not enough to calm their anger and sense of social injustice. Anti-government demonstrators have called for further demonstrations in Paris on Saturday, after four weekends of protests saw rioting in the French capital and other cities and plunged France’s centrist president into his worst crisis in office. Macron gave a prerecorded televised speech on Monday watched by more than 23 million people in which he announced major steps to address concerns that people...

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Monday a €100 per month increase in the minimum wage from next year in a major concession to Yellow Vest protesters who have roiled the country. In his first national address following two weekends of the worst unrest in France in years, Macron sought to restore calm after accusations that his political methods and economic policies were fracturing the country. "We want a France where one can live in dignity through one's work and on this we have gone too slowly," Macron said on primetime television. "I ask the government and parliament to do...

The French government on Sunday (Dec 9) urged Mr Donald Trump not to interfere in French politics after the US president posted tweets about the protests rocking the country and attacked the Paris climate agreement. "We do not take domestic American politics into account and we want that to be reciprocated," Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told LCI television. "I say this to Donald Trump and the French president says it too: leave our nation be.

The French police are taking a very heavy-handed approach to dealing with protesters as this disturbing video shows bloodied and beaten citizens being beaten and dragged by heavily armed police. ↑ Click to see the video on YouTube ↑

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian police fired tear gas and water cannons at yellow-vested protesters calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Charles Michel after they tried to breach a riot barricade, as the movement that started in France made its mark Saturday in Belgium and the Netherlands. Protesters in Brussels threw paving stones, road signs, fireworks, flares and other objects at police blocking their entry to an area where Michel’s offices, other government buildings and the parliament are located. Brussels police spokeswoman Ilse Van de Keere said that around 400 protesters were gathered in the area. About 100 were detained,...

According to Belga news agency, young protesters blocked a highway linking Brussels to the town of Rekkem in Flanders, located near the French border. They also put up a barricade near the Franco-Belgian border close to Adinkerque, Belga said. The "yellow vest" movement in France originally started as a protest about planned fuel hikes but has morphed into a mass protest against President Emmanuel Macron's policies and top-down style of governing. It has spilled over to some other countries, including Belgium and especially in the country's French-speaking region. On November 30, a "yellow vest" protest by some 300 people in...

... It is likely that the economic ideas of the Yellow Vests are primitive and driven by resentment. Macron has suppressed the capital tax on financial assets, which had probably reduced overall tax receipts by driving rich people from France; but in conjunction with an increased tax on the consumption of a vital commodity, he gives the impression (not helped by the fact that he once worked in finance) that he unduly favors the rich at the expense of the poor. Many people I know want six impossible things before breakfast. They clearly see that high taxes on individuals and...

French President Emmanuel Macron has scrapped a fuel tax rise amid fears of new violence, after weeks of nationwide protests and the worst rioting in Paris in decades. An official with the Elysee palace told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the president decided to get rid of the tax. Edouard Philippe told lawmakers that “the tax is now abandoned” in the 2019 budget, and the government is “ready for dialogue.” The budget can be adjusted or renegotiated through the course of the year. Three weeks of protests have left four people dead and were a massive challenge to Macron....

‘There is no Plan B because there is no Planet B,” Emmanuel Macron lectured Donald Trump—in English—when the American President withdrew from the Paris climate agreement last year. Well, apparently there is a Plan B after all. Mr. Macron on Tuesday stopped his fuel-tax increase after concluding that marginal carbon reductions aren’t worth kneecapping an economy and sacrificing his political career. Mr. Trump could have warned him. The French President views stopping climate change as a grand legacy project, and he had hoped to use higher fuel taxes to discourage driving for the sake of slashing carbon emissions. It didn’t...

France suspends controversial fuel tax after weeks of unrest By James McAuley December 4 at 6:40 AM PARIS — French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced Tuesday that the French government would temporarily suspend the controversial carbon tax plan that triggered weeks of often violent protests around the country. To help curb climate change, the government had proposed a slew of new carbon taxes that were slated to take effect in January 2019 and were designed to wean consumers off diesel and other polluting fuels and to favor electric cars. But the price hikes those taxes represented triggered a wave of...

Marion Maréchal, the niece of Rassemblement National (National Rally) leader Marine Le Pen, revealed she attended the Paris Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vest) protests on Saturday and claimed to witness violence coming from left-wing extremists. Ms Maréchal, who dropped the ‘Le Pen’ from her name, also said that by the time violence erupted at the iconic Champs-Élysées, the real members of the movement had already left. Saying she arrived shortly after 2 pm, she said, “When I arrived on the Champs-Élysées, the real ‘Yellow Vests’ were long gone. The movement was totally absorbed by left-wing activists. We heard: ‘death to capitalism!’...

How often can I be right? As much as President Trump said Americans will win. As France burns from years of socialist rule, America goes through a Renaissance. The difference is America elected a real leader and not a chump. We watched for 8 years as our black version of Emmanuel Macron ruined the country. Over $8 trillion worthless dollars printed then pumped into an anemic economy, and the black Boy Wonder felt like a rock star. As one comedian put it, “We told you Obama was Superman, but we forgot to tell you he didn’t know how to fly.”...

One of France’s most revered monuments, the Arc de Triomphe, was stormed and vandalised on Saturday during the 'Yellow Vest' demonstrations, in one of the worst instances of unrest Paris has seen since the protests and riots of 1968. The interior of the Arc de Triomphe, the 19th-century arch that towers over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the western end of Champs Elysées, was ransacked. The statue of the Marianne, the symbol of the French republic, in display at the entrance of the Arc de Triomphe museum was smashed. A video shared on Facebook shows most of the...

PARIS — "Yellow Jacket" protesters blocking access to 11 fuel depots belonging to one of the world's biggest oil companies have left gas stations running dry in France. At least 75 of the company's 2,200 gas stations were out of fuel, a spokesman for energy giant Total said Monday. For more than two weeks, protesters angry over gas taxes and the high cost of living have been blocking roads across France, impeding access to fuel depots, shopping malls and some airports. Riot police were overrun on Saturday as protesters brought chaos to Paris' fanciest neighborhoods, torching dozens of cars, looting...

BUENOS AIRES - Argentina will launch a massive security operation in coming days to try to ensure a calm meeting of the leaders of the G20 bloc of nations in Buenos Aires, calling a national bank holiday on Friday and shutting down the city’s main business district. With local merchants riled about losing business on Friday and Saturday, and anti-globalization protesters preparing to march, the government has advised anyone not involved in the G20 to take Friday off and get out of town for a long weekend. The lockdown of parts of the city will start on Thursday night and...

“The challenge that is ours is to invent a new grammar,” Macron said at one point in his remarks.

<p>8:05 p.m.</p> <p>French President Emmanuel Macron has condemned violence by protesters at demonstrations against rising fuel taxes and his government.</p> <p>Macron said in a strongly worded tweet: “Shame on those who attacked (police). Shame on those who were violent against other citizens ... No place for this violence in the Republic.”</p>