One dead, dozens injured in fuel tax protests

PARIS (AP):

One protester was killed and 106 others were injured at roadblocks set up around France yesterday as citizens angry at rising fuel taxes rose up in a grass-roots movement and posed a new challenge to President Emmanuel Macron.

Police officers lobbed tear gas canisters at demonstrators on the famed Champs-ElysËes Avenue in Paris as groups tried to make their way to the presidential ElysËe Palace. Later, hundreds of protesters entered the bottom of the street dotted with luxury shops where the palace is located and where Macron lives.

French Interior Ministry officials estimated that about 244,000 protesters were involved in several thousand protests around the country, many of them spontaneous.

Protesters, wearing yellow safety vests and dubbing themselves the "yellow jackets," pledged to target tollbooths, roundabouts and the bypass that ring Paris. The fluorescent yellow vests donned by the protesters must be kept in the vehicles of all French drivers in case of car troubles.