A comment further down this thread has the correct answer to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18972868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18972868

A comment further down this thread has the correct answer to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18972868 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18972868 It's a about the email exchange between by the author of the fuel tax and the guy who introduced the law (if I recall correctly) in which they admit the tax is only a way to recover the tax revenue lost after the government decided to keep lowering employer taxes (aka C.I.C.E). The fuel tax was required after the Paris Summit (which took place before Macron became president) and the current government took it as an opportunity to switch the tax burden from the biggest companies (the ones that benefits from the CICE) to people who can't afford clean vehicles.