A report on the gilets jaunes



We've not seen any trouble personally. The closest I got was on Wednesday when I had to collect something from a shop near the opera house and before going I just checked the news media and saw that the high school students were demonstrating at the opera house, so I postponed my errand for a couple of hours to let them move on.

The shops in the street around the Maison de la Bible have been advised to close and to barricade their doors and windows today, and the trams will not be going through the city centre from mid-day until things calm down.

The abolished "tax on the rich" that is mentioned is the ISF, an inheritance tax levied on the largest fortunes. The government replaced the tax with one that just taxes bequests of property, the ISI, the intention being to encourage people to buy shares in French companies knowing they can pass them on tax-free to their kids.

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