French Govt. Retreats As Carbon-Tax Revolt Grows, Scraps Fuel Levies Altogether

President Macron beat a retreat for the second time in two days as farmers, lorry drivers and students joined the tax revolt that is threatening to derail his presidency.

After announcing a six-month freeze on fuel duties on Tuesday in an attempt to appease popular anger, Mr. Macron backtracked again last night and scrapped next year’s rises altogether.

The climb-down was a further humiliation for his government, which had repeatedly ruled out abandoning the planned fuel tax rises which prompted the yellow-vest movement. —The Times, 6 December 2018

In a sign of the panic besetting his presidency, Mr. Macron urged opposition parties, business leaders and unions to join him in an appeal for calm. Mr. Macron told a cabinet meeting that some followers of the yellow-vest movement wanted to attack not only his presidency but also the entire state apparatus. The words by Prime Minister Édouard Philippe betrayed concern in Paris that extremists on the left and right are seeking to exploit the anti-fuel tax movement to provoke a revolution. —The Times, 6 December 2018

KATOWICE, Poland — France’s sudden U-turn over an unpopular fuel tax in the face of violent anti-government protests sent shivers through the COP24 climate summit. That’s because the sight of one of Europe’s most climate ambitious countries beating a hasty retreat over a proposal that would have hiked gasoline tax by 4 cents, or just under 3 percent, highlighted the difficulty of imposing any economic pain in the name of tackling climate change. — Politico, 5 December 2018

The police union has called for an unlimited strike in solidarity with the Yellow Vests movement. “Our upper echelons still want to send us to take the blows in its place and instead of the government.” It is with these words that the police union Vigi explains its decision to call for an indefinite strike as of Saturday 8 December. Union leaders have chosen to ally with the Yellow Vests movement. —Sud-Quest, 6 December 2018

“In some senses, the French are ahead of the rest of the world on this,” said John Constable, energy editor at the Global Warming Policy Forum, a U.K.-based think tank. “France is now heading into the zone where the marginal cost of emissions reduction begins to increase sharply,” Constable said. “They’ve done the easy bit, electricity, and are now beginning to coerce the more difficult sectors such as transport, which of course is already heavily taxed.” “The extra burden imposed by Mr. Macron has caused something to snap, not demand but the temper of the people,” Constable said. “Broadly speaking, I would judge that French popular anger is the shape of things to come globally, as climate policies begin to move into more difficult sectors,” Constable said. —Michael Bastasch, The Daily Caller, 5 December 2018

Some in Congress — including some Republicans — are eager to saddle Americans with a massive new “carbon tax.” It’s the modern equivalent of the medieval church granting indulgences for sins. For a fee, of course. Pay us, and your sins will be remitted. The U.S. shouldn’t travel down France’s road. Americans aren’t stupid. They won’t accept a massive new tax to prevent a threat they don’t really believe in. –Editorial, Investor’s Business Daily, 4 December 2018