PARIS — France’s wave of protests and violence over the past month or so has already cost the eurozone’s second-largest economy a fortune. Road…
PARIS — France’s wave of protests and violence over the past month or so has already cost the eurozone’s second-largest economy a fortune.
Road blockades, demonstrations and successive weekends of rioting in Paris and other towns have left supermarket shelves empty, stopped shoppers from buying Christmas gifts and scared away tourists.
The government stands to lose out too, with tax receipts set to be lower than anticipated. Government coffers will be tapped into next year to finance tax relief and other fiscal measures announced Monday by President Emmanuel Macron to placate the “yellow vest” movement, which started as a show of anger against fuel taxes but snowballed into a grab-bag of grievances.
Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire says the fallout from the protests, which have seen hundreds of arrests, 1,400 injured and five deaths in protest-related accidents, will shave 0.1 percent off French economic growth in the last quarter of 2018 and is “not good for the attractiveness of our country.”
The forecast costs emanating from one of France’s most acute crises in over a decade are already running into the billions.
The president’s new steps to boost the spending power of retirees and low-paid workers, a shared demand of many yellow vests, include a $110 hike in the minimum monthly wage and tax relief.
The government says the total bill from its climb-downs so far will be around $11 billion.
