Protesters in Paris set oil depot on fire
As the Yellow Vests movement, also known as the “gilets jaunes”, continued in Paris, protesters set an oil depot on fire in La Rochelle on Sunday.
European reporter Sotiri Dimpinoudis first posted the news on social media, tweeting, “the protestors have reportedly drilled a hole at the bottom of the depot and have set that on fire with the wood barricades!”
He also posted a video of the incident that was circulating on WhatsApp in France.
After a few minutes, he reported the Gendarmarie police had stormed into the oil depot and put out the fire.
While the Yellow Vests movement originally began in France as an online protest in May, it gradually assumed physical form in November.
The protests started as a backlash to French President Emmanuel Macron’s economic reforms, primarily the surge in fuel taxes.
The price of fuel in France saw a 20 percent hike over the past year to an average of 1.49 euros ($1.70) per liter, with the rising global oil prices playing a significant part.
On Nov. 17, around 20,000 protesters dressed in fluorescent high-visibility jackets blocked highways across France with convoys of slow-moving trucks and burned barricades.
The French government refused to back down from its plan of imposing further fuel taxes starting January 2019, and the violent protests continued.
Protesters chose to wear yellow vests when protesting because since 2008, it has been mandatory for French motorists to carry fluorescent vests in their vehicles while driving, in case they were pulled over to the side of the road and they needed to step out of their vehicles.
As a result, the vests came to be synonymous with drivers and became widely available in the country, Independent reported.
On Dec. 5, Macron and his administration finally gave in to the protesters’ demands and agreed to roll back the fuel tax hike that was originally intended to be implemented in order to fight global warming.
However, the movement continued, with protesters listing a number of fresh demands, including a lower cost of living, revising tax reforms that adversely affected the middle class, reintroducing the solidarity tax on the wealthy, raising of the minimum wage, and ultimately the resignation of Macron, according to Reuters.
