Macron protests: Conservative leader urges EMERGENCY rule avoid ANOTHER weekend of riots

“The priority this week is to avoid another Black Saturday,” Mr Wauquiez told France 2 television, adding that he did not want France to fall into “chaos”. He continued: “I think a temporary state of emergency will help protect police and protect yellow vest activists who want to demonstrate peacefully without being taken hostage.” Trying to quell its most serious political crisis, the Macron government announced on Tuesday it would suspend planned fuel tax increases for six months in response to heated protests against the measures by the so-called “yellow vest” movement, named after the high-visibility jackets that all motorists must carry in their vehicles.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in a live televised address: “No tax is worth putting the nation’s unity in danger.” 

He also announced a freeze in electricity and natural gas prices until May.

The protests began on November 17 with motorists upset over rising fuel prices, but have grown to encompass a range of complaints: the stagnant economy, social injustice and France’s tax system, one of the highest in Europe. 

The government initially insisted it would be steadfast in the tax plans aimed at weaning French consumers off polluting fossil fuels, but was forced into a U-turn amid the wave of unrest. 

Last weekend, more than 130 people were injured and 412 arrested in urban riots in Paris. 

Shops were looted and cars torched in wealthy neighbourhoods around the famed Champs-Elysées avenue. 

Four people have been killed in the protests, officials said, but despite this more demonstrations are planned for this weekend. 

Yellow vests have promised there would be an “Act 4, Act 5, Act 6,” referring to the rolling Saturday protests. 

One unifying complaint among the yellow vests and Mr Macron’s political opponents has been the anger at the young president and the perceived elitism of the arrogant ruling class.

The six-month suspension of the fuel tax increase – not the cancellation of it – was seen as “too late” by many, including Mr Wauquiez. 

“The moratorium isn’t enough. All it does is delay the planned increases and falls short of expectations. The government must cancel the fuel tax hikes,” he told lawmakers shortly after the conciliatory measures were announced. 

Damien Abad, a lawmaker from Mr Wauquiez’s Les Républicains party, said the suspension of the fuel tax increases was “too little, too late”. 

Mr Abad said: “If your only response, Mr Prime Minister, is the suspension of Mr Macron’s fuel taxes, then you still haven’t realised the gravity of the situation.

“What we are asking of you Mr Prime Minister, is not a postponement. But a change of course.”

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen tweeted that the delay was “obviously not up to the expectations of the French people struggling with precariousness,” adding sarcastically that it was “surely a coincidence” that the fuel tax hikes will take effect a few days after the European Parliament elections. 

Her former protégé Florian Philippot, now head of the nationalist The Patriots movement, slammed the measures as “totally insufficient”. 

Far-left firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the leftist France Unbowed party, denounced the government’s “old-school tactics” and urged it to acknowledge the “citizen’s revolution”. 

“The government’s top priority is to protect the super-rich,” Mr Mélenchon said in reference to a recent move to slash a controversial wealth tax, which the government suggested reinstating on Wednesday to appease the yellow vests.