The yellow vests protest in Paris. The photos before and after the clashes
Rights — di Andrea Indiano
The yellow vest demonstration and protests in France turned violent near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Police intervened but the protests continue.
The yellow vests protest in Paris. The photos before and after the clashes
The yellow vest demonstration and protests in France turned violent near the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Police intervened but the protests continue.
The yellow vest protest in France shows no sign of abating — if anything, it appears to be growing more violent. Over the weekend, a demonstration took place in Paris that then descended into clashes between police and the so-called gilets jaunes. There were at least three hundred arrests, with one hundred and ten people injured, including twenty officers. The protests began in late November when news of a rise in fuel taxes angered hauliers and others. Shortly afterwards, ordinary people joined in, donning the high-visibility yellow vests legally required to be kept in cars in the event of a breakdown, and took to the streets to voice their anger at the general rise in prices and the difficult conditions of daily life.
Macron's words
Having attended the G20 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, French president Emmanuel Macron turned his attention to the yellow vest problem. "The perpetrators of this violence do not want change, they do not want improvements, they want chaos: they are betraying the causes they claim to serve. They will be identified and held accountable before the courts," Macron wrote on Twitter, before going on to thank the police and law enforcement working to restore order across the country in further messages. Back on home soil, Macron and the government decided to suspend the fuel tax rise, granting the gilets jaunes a temporary victory. The protests are likely to continue nonetheless, given that similar demonstrations have already taken place in Nice, Marseille and other cities. During the fighting against police, a number of "black bloc" activists were spotted among the yellow vest ranks, which led some to suspect an organised protest fomented by certain extremist political forces. French political analysts and commentators remain convinced, however, that the demonstrations are grassroots in origin, driven by a purchasing-power crisis affecting middle-class citizens. The unrest reminded many French people of the general strike of May 1968, even though Paris has more recently been the scene of violent clashes during the banlieue riots of 2005.
Comparisons between the yellow vests and Romantic paintings
Meanwhile, looking at the photos of the protests near the Arc de Triomphe in the French capital, many have not failed to notice the resemblance to one of France's most famous paintings. On Twitter, various comparisons were drawn between the images of the Paris clashes and the 1830 painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, a symbol of the nation and the supreme expression of the Romantic artistic movement that began in 1800. Paintings aside, it will now fall to Macron's government to find a solution to a problem that does not look set to end easily. Ordinary French people are in revolt, and the yellow vests will continue to make themselves heard and seen on the streets.