French voters will get €100 payments to ease fuel unrest

THE French government is to hand out a €100 (£84) payment to 38million members of the “middle-class” earning less than €2,000 per month to help them deal with rising energy and fuel prices, amid fears of “yellow vest”style protests.

The issue of fuel prices is seen as potentially explosive in France as it helped spark the anti-government “gilets jaunes” protests in 2018 that rocked President Emmanuel Macron’s government.

Purchasing power is the most pressing concern of the French, way above Covid and immigration, polls suggest.

Last weekend, small protests were held in some rural areas and small towns – the heartland of yellow vest unrest – sending an ominous signal to the government.

“We are opting for a kind of inflationindemnity of €100 ... which will be paid to French people – it’s a sort of a middle class-indemnity,” Jean Castex, the prime minister, told TV station TF1 on Thursday night.

This will affect some 38million people, he said, adding that “petrol prices will be frozen for the whole of 2022”.

France is far from alone at being hit by a surge in oil and gas prices since the middle of the year caused by a spike in global demand and supply shortages.

But Mr Macron has more cause for concern than most leaders, given the violence of the yellow vest revolt over a green tax on fuel seen as punitive by swathes of low-income workers – many of whom were pushed to live outside major cities due to house prices.

The rises come just six months ahead of presidential elections in which Mr Macron is expected to run for a second term. He had been hoping to trumpet job creation and tax cuts as key re-election arguments.