Stay out of our politics, Paris tells Trump

US PRESIDENT TWEETED ABOUT ‘YELLOW VEST’ PROTESTS, ATTACKED CLIMATE PACT

The French government yesterday urged Donald Trump not to interfere in French politics after the US president posted tweets about the protests rocking the country and attacked the Paris climate agreement.

“We do not take domestic American politics into account and we want that to be reciprocated,” Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told LCI television. “I say this to Donald Trump and the French president says it too: leave our nation be.”

Trump had on Saturday posted two tweets referring to the “yellow vest” anti-government protests that have swept France since mid-November and sparked rioting in Paris.

“Very sad day & night in Paris. Maybe it’s time to end the ridiculous and extremely expensive Paris Agreement and return money back to the people in the form of lower taxes?” he suggested. Trump had earlier posted: “The Paris Agreement isn’t working out so well for Paris. Protests and riots all over France. People do not want to pay large sums of money, much to third world countries (that are questionably run), in order to maybe protect the environment. Chanting ‘We Want Trump!’ Love France.”

Earlier last week Trump retweeted one of several posts falsely claiming that French protesters were chanting his name. More than 1,700 people were arrested across France during the latest protests as demonstrators clashing with riot police caused more damage in Paris than a week ago, officials said.

At the bare bottom of Florian Dou’s shopping cart at the discount supermarket, there was a packet of $6 sausages and not much else. It was the end of last week, and the end of last month. At that point, “my salary and my wife’s have been gone for 10 days,” he lamented.

How to survive those days when the money runs out and when his salary arrives as a warehouse handler has become a monthly challenge. The same is true for so many others in Gueret, a provincial town in south-central France. And it has made Dou angry.

So he used what money he had left and drove 400km to join the fiery protests Saturday in Paris, where police moved in with tear gas, water cannon and rubber bullets. The “yellow vest” protests he is a part of present an extraordinary venting of rage and resentment by ordinary working people across France, aimed at the mounting inequalities that have eroded their lives.

The unrest began in response to rising gas taxes and has been building in intensity over the past four weeks.