France’s ‘yellow vest’ protests lose momentum on decisive weekend

A protester wearing a yellow vest (gilet jaune) gestures in front of police forces during a demonstration against rising costs of living blamed on high taxes on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, on December 15, 2018. (AFP)
Updated 16 December 2018
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France’s ‘yellow vest’ protests lose momentum on decisive weekend

  • In a bid to end the standoff, a visibly contrite Macron announced a package of measures on Monday in a televised address

PARIS: Groups of defiant “yellow vest” demonstrators faced off with tens of thousands of police around France on Saturday, but the protest movement appeared to have lost momentum on a fifth and decisive weekend.
President Emmanuel Macron, facing the biggest crisis of his presidency, announced a series of concessions on Monday to defuse the explosive “yellow vest” crisis, which swelled up from rural and small-town France last month.
The package of tax and minimum wage measures for low-income workers, coupled with bitter winter weather this weekend, appeared to have helped bring calm to the country after more than a month of clashes and disruption.
France was also hit by a fresh deadly terror attack on Tuesday night when a gunman opened fire at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, leading the government to urge people to stay at home to spare the stretched security forces.
Interior Minister Christophe Castaner announced Saturday evening that eight people had now died in incidents linked to the demonstrations, and called on protesters to halt their blockades across the country.
“Everyone’s safety has to become the rule again,” he said in a tweet.
“Dialogue now needs to unite all those who want to transform France.”
Richard Ferrand, the head of the National Assembly, welcomed the “necessary” weakening of the rallies, adding that “there had been a massive response to their demands.”
An estimated 66,000 people took to the streets across France, according to figures from the interior ministry at 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT), half the level of a week ago.
“It’s a bit of a failure because the state is stopping us from being able to demonstrate properly,” Marie, a 35-year-old domestic helper, told AFP in Paris after traveling from her home south of the capital.
Another protester in the southeastern city of Lyon, Francis Nicolas, 49, told AFP: “It’s a bit disappointing. We expected there to be more people, but the movement won’t end.”
In Paris, the more than 8,000 police on duty easily outnumbered the 2,200 protesters who were counted on the streets of the capital by local authorities in the early afternoon.
There had been 168 arrests by 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT), far down on the roughly 1,000 of last Saturday.
Tear gas was occasionally fired, but a fraction of the amount was used compared with the weekends of December 8 or December 1 when graffiti was daubed on the Arc de Triomphe in scenes that shocked France.
Minor clashes were reported in southwestern Bordeaux where teargas was used and projectiles thrown. It was a similar picture in Toulouse, Nantes, Besancon, Nancy, Saint-Etienne and Lyon.
Protesters snarled traffic on motorways in the south of the country and on the A16 near the port of Calais in the north.

Until this week, a clear majority of French people had backed the protests, which sprung up initially over high taxes before snowballing into a wider opposition to Macron’s pro-business agenda and style of governing.
But two polls published on Tuesday — in the wake of Macron’s concessions — suggested the country was now broadly 50-50 on whether the protests should continue.
In a bid to end the standoff, a visibly contrite Macron announced a package of measures on Monday in a televised address, estimated by economists to cost up to 15 billion euros ($17 billion).
The 40-year-old former investment banker acknowledged widespread animosity toward him and came close to apologizing for a series of verbal gaffes seen as dismissive of the poor or jobless.
He canceled planned fuel tax hikes for 2019, offered a rise in the minimum wage of 100 euros a month next year, as well as tax relief for many pensioners and tax-free overtime.
Some senior figures in the “yellow vest” movement — which has no official leaders and dozens of separate demands — had urged protesters to continue to press home their advantage.
“It’s really the time to keep going,” one of them, Eric Drouet, said in a video posted on Facebook. “What Macron did on Monday, was a call to carry on because he has started to give ground, which is unusual for him.”

Many protesters appeared to have switched their focus from the core issue of the protests so far — taxes and spending power — to other demands such as the greater use of referendums to decide government policy.
“Last time, we were here for taxes,” a 28-year-old “yellow vest” called Jeremy told AFP as he arrived on the Champs-Elysees in the freezing cold on Saturday morning.
“This is for the institutions: we want more direct democracy,” he said, adding that people needed to “shout to make themselves heard.”
More than 1,400 people have been injured since the protests began on November 17.
Around 69,000 security forces were mobilized across France, down from 89,000 last Saturday when 2,000 people were detained.
On Thursday, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux had called on protesters to stay at home on what is normally a busy shopping weekend ahead of Christmas.
He was speaking in the wake of the attack on Tuesday in the eastern city of Strasbourg, which left four dead and 12 wounded.


Pakistan army kills 30 militants trying to cross from Afghanistan

Updated 6 sec ago
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Pakistan army kills 30 militants trying to cross from Afghanistan

  • The militants belong to the Pakistan Taliban or its affiliated groups
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s army said Friday it had killed 30 militants attempting to cross the border from Afghanistan over the last three days, after 16 soldiers died in a suicide attack in the same frontier region last week.
The militants belonged to the Pakistan Taliban or its affiliated groups, the military said in a statement accusing archfoe India of backing them.
“The security forces demonstrated exceptional professionalism, vigilance preparedness, and prevented a potential catastrophe,” it said.
“A large quantity of weapons, ammunition and explosives was also recovered,” the statement added.
The killings took place in the border district of North Waziristan, where last week 16 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a suicide attack claimed by a faction of the Pakistan Taliban.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif lauded the security forces for “thwarting an infiltration attempt.”
“We are determined to completely eliminate all forms of terrorism from the country,” his office said in a statement Friday.
The prime minister’s statement also accused India of fomenting militancy in Pakistan.
The nuclear-armed neighbors regularly trade accusations that the other supports militant groups operating in their territory.

Trump says he is disappointed in Putin

Updated 04 July 2025
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Trump says he is disappointed in Putin

  • US leader will also speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday
  • The Kremlin earlier said Putin told Trump that Moscow will not ‘give up’ on its aims in Ukraine

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump told reporters early on Friday he is disappointed in Russian President Vladimir Putin and does not think Putin will stop the war in Ukraine.

Trump also said he will speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump said that a phone call Putin resulted in no progress at all on efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

“No, I didn’t make any progress with him at all,” Trump told reporters on Thursday when asked if he had moved closer toward a deal to end Russia’s invasion, adding that he was “not happy” about the ongoing war.

The Kremlin earlier said Putin told Trump that Moscow will not “give up” on its aims in Ukraine.

The pair spoke as US-led peace talks on ending the more than three-year-old conflict in Ukraine have stalled and after Washington paused some weapons shipments to Kyiv.

The Kremlin said the call lasted almost an hour.

Trump has been frustrated with both Moscow and Kyiv as US efforts to end fighting have yielded no breakthrough.

“Our president said that Russia will achieve the aims it set, that is to say the elimination of the root causes that led to the current state of affairs,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters.

“Russia will not give up on these aims.”

Moscow has long described its maximalist aims in Ukraine as getting rid of the “root causes” of the conflict, demanding that Kyiv give up its NATO ambitions.

Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of people and Russia now controls large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine.

Even so, Putin told Trump that Moscow would continue to take part in negotiations.

“He also spoke of the readiness of the Russian side to continue the negotiation process,” Ushakov added.

“Vladimir Putin said that we are continuing to look for a political, negotiated solution to the conflict,” Ushakov said.

Moscow has for months refused to agree to a US-proposed ceasefire in Ukraine.

Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Putin of dragging out the process while pushing on with Russia’s advance in Ukraine.

The Kremlin said that Putin had also “stressed” to Trump that all conflicts in the Middle East should be solved “diplomatically,” after the US struck nuclear sites in Russia’s ally Iran.

Putin and Trump spoke as Kyiv said that Russian strikes on Thursday killed at least eight people in Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was visiting ally Denmark on Thursday.

A senior Ukrainian official said that Trump and Zelensky planned to speak to each other on Friday.

The US deciding to pause some weapons shipments has severely hampered Kyiv, which has been reliant on Western military support since Moscow launched its offensive in 2022.

Zelensky told EU allies in Denmark that doubts over US military aid reinforced the need for greater cooperation with Brussels and NATO.

He stressed again that Kyiv had always supported Trump’s “unconditional ceasefire.”

On Wednesday, Kyiv scrambled to clarify with the US what a White House announcement on pausing some weapons shipments meant.

“Continued American support for Ukraine, for our defense, for our people is in our common interest,” Zelensky had said on Wednesday.

Russia has consistently called for Western countries to stop sending weapons to Kyiv.


North Korean detained after crossing land border: Seoul military

Updated 04 July 2025
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North Korean detained after crossing land border: Seoul military

  • The Military Demarcation Line is the de facto border area separating the two Koreas
  • ‘Relevant authorities’ to investigate the detailed circumstances of the incident

SEOUL: A North Korean who crossed the heavily fortified land border into the South has been detained and taken into custody, Seoul’s military said Friday.

The North Korean, identified as a male civilian, managed to cross the Military Demarcation Line in the midwestern part of the Demilitarized Zone on Thursday, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

The MDL is the de facto border, which runs through the middle of the DMZ – the border area separating the two Koreas, which is one of the most heavily mined places on earth.

“The military identified the individual near the MDL, conducted tracking and surveillance,” the JCS said in a statement.

It then “successfully carried out a standard guiding operation to secure custody,” it added.

The operation took about 20 hours, according to Seoul, after the man was detected by a military surveillance device sometime between 3:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. Thursday (1800 to 1900 GMT).

The mission to safely guide him to the South involved a considerable number of South Korean troops, the JCS said, and took place in an area difficult to navigate due to dense vegetation and land mine risks.

The man stayed mostly still during the day, and South Korea’s military approached him at night.

He willingly followed the troops after they offered to guide him safely out of the DMZ, according to the JCS.

It said “relevant authorities” will investigate the detailed circumstances of the incident.

North Koreans are typically handed over to Seoul’s intelligence agency for screening when they arrive in the South.

The incident comes after a North Korean soldier defected to the South by crossing the MDL in August last year.

Also last year, another North Korean defected to the South across the de facto border in the Yellow Sea, arriving on Gyodong island off the peninsula’s west coast near the border between the Koreas.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the peninsula was divided by war in the 1950s, with most going overland to neighboring China first, then entering a third country such as Thailand before finally making it to the South.

Defections across the land border that divides the peninsula are relatively rare.

The number of successful escapes dropped significantly from 2020 after the North sealed its borders – purportedly with shoot-on-sight orders along the land frontier with China – to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

No unusual activities by the North Korean military have been detected, the JCS said Friday.

South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung, who took office last month, has vowed a more dovish approach toward Pyongyang compared with his hawkish predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol.

“Politics and diplomacy must be handled without emotion and approached with reason and logic,” Lee said Thursday.

“Completely cutting off dialogue is really a foolish thing to do.”


Trump orders national park entry fees hike for foreign tourists

Updated 04 July 2025
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Trump orders national park entry fees hike for foreign tourists

  • US president: ‘The national parks will be about America First’

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Thursday said national parks would hike entry fees for foreign tourists to “improve affordability” for Americans, as he launched the country’s year-long 250th birthday celebrations.

“For this anniversary, I’ve just signed an executive order to raise entrance fees for foreign tourists while keeping prices low for Americans,” Trump told a cheering crowd at a rally in Iowa.

“The national parks will be about America First,” the Republican leader said, after issuing an executive order.

In it, Trump also instructed the interior and state departments to “encourage international tourism to America’s national parks.”

The order outlined that revenue raised was to be used to improve the infrastructure and “enhance enjoyment” of the country’s vast national park system.

It is a rare move by the climate skeptic president to promote the environment and green spaces.

In the executive order, Trump also revoked a 2017 directive by former president Barack Obama on “promoting diversity and inclusion in our national parks,” in his latest attack on DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) initiatives.

Some conservation groups have however voiced concerns about hundreds of National Park Service permanent staff members being laid off since Trump took office in January, ahead of peak tourist season in summer.


MAGA faithful cheer Trump for pausing Ukraine weapons after bristling at Iran strikes

Updated 04 July 2025
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MAGA faithful cheer Trump for pausing Ukraine weapons after bristling at Iran strikes

  • With the Ukraine pause, Trump is sending the message to his MAGA backers that he is committed to following through on his campaign pledge to wind down American support for Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump is getting praise from his most ardent supporters for withholding some weapons from Ukraine after they recently questioned the Republican leader’s commitment to keeping the US out of foreign conflicts.
This week’s announcement pausing deliveries of key air defense missiles, precision-guided artillery and other equipment to Ukraine comes just a few weeks after Trump ordered the US military to carry out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Bombing those sites in Iran had some hardcore supporters of the “Make America Great Again” movement openly questioning whether Trump was betraying his vow to keep America out of “stupid wars” as he inserted the US military into Israel’s conflict with Tehran.
With the Ukraine pause, which affects a crucial resupply of Patriot missiles, Trump is sending the message to his most enthusiastic backers that he is committed to following through on his campaign pledge to wind down American support for Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia, a conflict he has repeatedly described as a costly boondoggle for US taxpayers.
“The choice was this: either prioritize equipping our own troops with a munition in short supply (and which was used to defend US troops last week) or provide them to a country where there are limited US interests,” Dan Caldwell, who was ousted as a senior adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, posted on X.
Caldwell publicly worried before the Iran strikes that US involvement could incite a major war and ultimately cost American lives.
Far-right influencer Jack Posobiec, another ardent MAGA backer, warned as Trump weighed whether to carry out strikes on Iran last month that such a move “would disastrously split the Trump coalition.”
He was quick to cheer the news about pausing some weapons deliveries to Ukraine: “America FIRST,” Posobiec posted on X.
Both the White House and the Pentagon have justified the move as being consistent with Trump’s campaign pledge to limit US involvement in foreign wars.
“The president was elected on an America first platform to put America first,” Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell said.
At the same time, the decision is stirring anxiety among those in the more hawkish wing of the Republican Party. Many are flummoxed by Trump’s halting the flow of US arms just as Russia accelerates its unrelenting assault on Ukraine.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican who hails from a district that former Vice President Kamala Harris won in 2024, wrote to Trump and the Pentagon on Wednesday expressing “serious concern” about the decision and requesting an emergency briefing.
“We can’t let (Russian President Vladimir) Putin prevail now. President Trump knows that too and it’s why he’s been advocating for peace,” Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, wrote on X. “Now is the time to show Putin we mean business. And that starts with ensuring Ukraine has the weapons Congress authorized to pressure Putin to the negotiating table.”
Trump spoke by phone with Putin on Thursday, the sixth call between the leaders since Trump’s return to office. The leaders discussed Iran, Ukraine and other issues but did not specifically address the suspension of some US weapons shipments to Ukraine, according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser.
Zelensky said in Denmark after meeting with major European Union backers that he hopes to talk to Trump in the coming days about the suspension.
The administration says it is part of global review of the US stockpile and is a necessary audit after sending nearly $70 billion in arms to Ukraine since Putin launched the war on Ukraine in February 2022.
The pause was coordinated by Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby.
Colby, before taking his position, spoke publicly about the need to focus US strategy more on China, widely seen as the United States’ biggest economic and military competitor. At his Senate confirmation hearing in March, he said the US doesn’t have a “multi-war military.”
“This is the restrainers like Colby flexing their muscle and saying, ‘Hey, the Pacific is more important,’” said retired Navy Adm. Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Backers of a more restrained US foreign policy say the move is necessary, given an unsettled Middle East, rising challenges in Asia and the stress placed on the US defense industrial complex after more than three years of war in Ukraine.
“You’re really coming up to the point where continuing to provide aid to Ukraine is putting at risk the US ability to operate in future crises,” said Jennifer Kavanagh, a senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities. “And you don’t know when those crises are going to happen.”
“So you have to be a little bit cautious,” she added.