Following some serious rioting which has sadly cost some people their lives the French Government have decided to suspend planned Fuel Tax rises for 6 months and planned increases in gas and electricity prices would be halted. Increases planned to coincide with the winter months.
This will be seen as an embarrassing back down by some but in reality it is a moral decision given that the planned rises would have fallen heaviest on the poorest. However, the protests are much deeper rooted than arguments over fuel & energy prices.
President Macron swept to power on the back of what was deemed Socialist policies aimed at economic reforms which would improve the lives of French people via lower unemployment and a kick-started economy. However this has so far failed to materialise and he seems to be happy to adopt the currently popular reverse Robin Hood philosophy of robbing the poor to support the rich. A recent analysis of France’s 2018-19 budget carried out by public policy institute, found that incomes for the majority of the poorest 25% of households would drop and virtually every retired person would be worse off.Conversely the richest 1% would be 6% better off!
It remains to be seen if this concession is sufficient to quieten the protesters which unusually seem to come from the whole political divide with no identifiable leadership and participants ranging the far left to the nationalist far right.
