Paris cleans up after ‘yellow vest’ riots as Macron readies response
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Workers in Paris swept up broken glass and towed away burnt-out cars yesterday after the latest “yellow vest” riots, while the government warned of slower economic growth and said that President Emmanuel Macron would address the nation this week.
On Saturday, anti-government protesters wreaked havoc in the city for the fourth weekend in a row, throwing stones, torching cars and vandalizing shops and restaurants.
Across the city, bank branch offices, toy shops, opticians and other retail outlets had boarded up storefronts smashed by protesters, and walls were covered in anti-Macron slogans.
“You won’t make it past Christmas, Emmanuel,” read the graffiti on a boarded-up shop near the Champs Elysees boulevard.
Macron, elected in May 2017, is facing mounting criticism for not speaking in public in more than a week as violence worsened.
The upheaval in the Christmas shopping season has dealt a heavy blow to retailing, the tourist industry and the manufacturing sector as road blocks disrupt supply chains.
On Saturday, the Eiffel Tower and several city museums closed their doors for security reasons, as did top Paris department stores on what should have been a prime shopping weekend.
The protest movement will have “a severe impact” on the French economy, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said yesterday as he toured an upmarket central Paris neighborhood that had seen heavy looting Saturday night.
“We must expect a new slowdown of economic growth at the year-end due to the ‘yellow vest’ protests,” Le Maire said.
In the middle of last month, before the protests, the central bank forecast 0.4 percent fourth-quarter growth. Economists said then the economy would need to grow at 0.8 percent in the final three months to hit the government’s 1.7 percent annual growth forecast.
Named after the fluorescent safety vests that French motorists must carry, the “yellow vest” protests erupted on November 17, when nearly 300,000 demonstrators nationwide took to the streets to denounce high living costs and Macron’s liberal economic reforms.
The government canceled a planned rise in fuel taxes last Tuesday to try to defuse the situation but the protests have morphed into a broader anti-Macron rebellion.
“I don’t know if Macron’s resignation is necessary, but he must completely change course,” said Bertrand Cruzatier as he watched cleaners scrub out anti-Macron grafitti at Place de la Republique.
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