It's not a surrender but we're close. The announcement of the moratorium by the French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe has arrived and is based on three main points: the government renounces, for a period of six months, the increase in roadworthiness tests on cars foreseen for next year, undertakes to not increase electricity tariffs until May 2019 and provides for the suspension for six months of the increase in the carbon tax, the convergence between diesel and petrol and the increase in the diesel tax for non-road entrepreneurs.
The prime minister announced the opening, from 15 January to 1 March, of a "broad debate on taxes and public spending" that will take place at national level and throughout the country. “This debate should lead to concrete solutions,” he warned.
It is a relaxing gesture, a truce that meets demands of the gilets jaunes and trying to avert the umpteenth assault on the Bastille, or rather on the Champs Elysées districts in Paris scheduled for next Saturday.
The moratorium was one of the conditions for the protest movement to start a dialogue. A meeting should have been held in the morning with the more moderate wing of the rebels but was later canceled due to death threats made to the negotiating delegation from the more radical fringes.
The granting by the government of a postponement on the effective application of the tax increases on the price of diesel should be accompanied by other measures of social reconciliation. However, the atmosphere is still overheated and one of the yellow vest spokesmen, Benjamin Cauchy, has already warned: “A moratorium will certainly not be enough to put us to sleep – he told France Info – our demands are much broader. We want the states general of taxation and the revaluation of salaries, as well as a real political electroshock on the representativeness of citizens".
While waiting for a new stage of the inflamed protest, the opposition rides the discontent and calls for the resignation of President Emmanuel Macron. From the leftist radical Melenchon to the revived Marine Le Pen, everyone condemns the violence, but everyone sympathizes with the demonstrators, applauding the popular insurrection that is making the position of the president waver, elected just a year and a half ago and already plunged into the index of liking.
It should be remembered that the government has introduced an ecological tax and declared war on diesel by increasing excise duties on fuel and offering a bonus of 4.000 euros for the purchase of a new, less polluting car. “It is a question of adding only 1.000 euros”, some ministers have repeated in recent weeks, doing nothing but increasing the anger of the yellow vests who still consider the amount to pay to renew their car high.
