To my knowledge, the recent French protest wasn't quite as black and white as that. The fuel tax Macron was planning was going to hit the rural middle/working

To my knowledge, the recent French protest wasn't quite as black and white as that. The fuel tax Macron was planning was going to hit the rural middle/working class and the poor the hardest. On average, many of these people have to commute around 30 miles to work at low paid service jobs. So their work commuting costs are a big part of their monthly bills. And then Macron came along and asked them if they'd kindly help with paying some of the costs of climate change. The proposed fuel bill didn't hit the people living in the cities as badly, because, on average, they're better paid, have better public transport options and live closer to their workplace. You can understand why people living in rural towns and outside the cites got a little-pissed off and decided to protest. The increase fuel tax was going to hit them way harder than those living in the cities. And those poorer people are being squeezed already, due to having a longer work commute, crap work pay, crap job options, and worse public transport options. Anyway, if you want more info on this listen to this video by the Mark Blyth. He can explain it better than I ever can: https://youtu.be/Sk87JHTyozo?t=641 https://youtu.be/Sk87JHTyozo?t=641