The Yellow Vests, otherwise known as gilets jaunes, have been lobbying for President Macron to give into their demands.  This French protest has been going on since the 17th of November this previous year, and doesn’t look like it will end anytime soon.  

The four main demands that they were searching for were lower fuel taxes, higher minimum wage, a reintroduction to a tax on the wealthy,  and the resignation of President Macron.

The call for a resignation was further elevated by left-wing leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon who wanted both a general election and the resignation of President Macron.

The citizens of France have became very destructive in the past few weeks.  Over 60% of all speed cameras in France have been destroyed by the Yellow Vest participants.  This is in an effort to “stop the government from stealing money from the poor”. There might have been some people doing this because the government had lowered the speed limit on some roads from 90 kmh to 80 kmh.  This is the roughly equal to 55 mph to 50 mph.

The movement has been spreading across Europe at an alarming rate.  Countries such as Belgium, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have all had their own mini Yellow Vest movements.  Whereas other countries like Egypt have banned the sale of yellow vests due to the fear of protests starting there.  

Within all of the countries that this movement has occupied, only 10 deaths have been reported.  Over 3800 injuries have occurred throughout this “revolution”. Two-thirds of them being civilians, and one-third of them being police officers.  

These injuries have gotten so bad that France has had to deploy nearly 90,000 police to combat the riots.  Only about 8,000 of those police officers will be in Paris, the rest will be spread out throughout the rest of France.  

Clearly, France aims to put a stop to these “hateful mobs” soon.

Sources: CNN, ABC, France 24, BBC, ITV, Wikipedia.