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A protester holds up the French flag along the Champs-Elysees in Paris, with the Arc de Triomphe in the background, during a protest against rising fuel taxes on Saturday. (Michel Euler / AP)
James McAuley
Correspondent abroad on French and European politics and culture
PARIS – Once again, President Trump has sounded against France, this time against demonstrations that have attracted a lot of attention from the international community.
What triggered it? Apparently, thousands of people took to the streets to ask for something that did not involve US interests.
In Trump's eyes, the demonstrations – organized for the second time in a row in France – did not take into account what he sees as unfair trade agreements between Europe and the United States.
"The big and violent French demonstrations do not take into account how the European Union has treated the United States against foreign trade or fair and reasonable payments for our BIG military protection," Trump wrote. "These two topics need to be corrected quickly."
The "big and violent French demonstrations" to which Trump was referring were the "yellow vest" movement, born in response to the recent rise in diesel fuel prices, a consequence of President Emmanuel Macron's attempt to curb climate change. But the protests have quickly gained momentum, shifting from the price of gasoline to the general discontent of a president whose approval rates have dropped to 26% and who is often perceived as remote and disconnected from citizens' concerns.
The most important event took place the previous weekend, when more than 282 000 people blocked roads all over France. According to statistics published by the Minister of the Interior, Christophe Castaner, about 106,000 people gathered this weekend.
But this time, the eyes of the world – including that of Trump, apparently – were captivated by the images of a clash between protesters and police on the Champs-Élysées, one of the biggest avenues in the French capital. if not the world. Police fired tear gas and protesters threw stones.
About 8,000 people gathered on the Avenue, according to the Interior Ministry.
Despite the drama of these images, however, more and more people rallied Saturday in Paris to demonstrate peacefully for another cause: the end of sexism and violence against women. According to the French media, 30,000 people attended the demonstration on Saturday.
Since his visit to Paris for the centennial of the 1918 armistice, which ended the First World War, Trump was particularly outspoken in his reviews of Macron. The French president, who had previously tried to convince Trump, delivered a speech on November 11 in the Arc de Triomphe in which he condemned nationalism as "the exact opposite of patriotism", which many considered a direct challenge to Trump, previously qualified as a nationalist.
Trump was not too happy with Macron's comments. He was also irritated by what he mistakenly understood as Macron's belief that Europe needed an independent army to defend itself against the United States.
In fact, Macron is limited to saying – in widely erroneous remarks in many initial reports in the English language – that Europe should not be so dependent on the United States for its defense and security, a line that Trump has long touted in his discussions with European Leaders.
But it was Macron's comments on nationalism that confronted Trump's anger.
"The problem is that Emmanuel suffers from a very low approval rate in France, of 26%, and an unemployment rate of nearly 10%" Trump wrote at the beginning of the month. "He was just trying to get into another subject. By the way, there is no more nationalist country than France, a very proud people – and rightly so! "
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