A barricade lays on the side at the Champs-Elysees avenue in the aftermath of a rally by yellow vests protesters against higher fuel prices in Paris, France.
Three weeks of "yellow vest" protests have dealt a serious blow to the French economy with retailers, hotel chains, high-street stores and restaurants all seeing a significant fall in trade, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Monday.
Speaking after a meeting with industry groups and business federations affected by the movement, Le Maire said sector revenues had been hit by between 15 and 50 percent.
Video footage shows French ambulance drivers staging protest against President Emmanuel Macron's reforms, with a skeleton pinned to the windshileld while holding a banner that reads 'Article 80'.
French ambulance drivers stage protest against Macron's reforms
While he did not provide a precise breakdown, Le Maire said small retailers had seen a fall in revenue of between 20 and 40 percent, the hotel industry was seeing reservations down 15 to 25 percent and restaurants, depending on their location, had seen takings collapse by between 20 and 50 percent.
"The impact is severe and ongoing," Le Maire said, emphasising that it was nationwide, although Paris, after riots and looting in some of its most upmarket districts on Saturday afternoon and evening, was particularly affected.
The finance ministry was not able to say what sort of impact the unrest would have on gross domestic product.
Hundreds of demonstrators have been arrested after a day of clashes between protesters and police in central Paris, local authorities said.
Hundreds arrested during Paris protests
When Emmanuel Macron rose to power, he put the environment at the heart of his agenda. Eighteen months later, anger over those policies has stoked protests that are a huge challenge for the French president.Rioters torched cars and buildings in central Paris on Saturday following two weeks of protests caused partly by higher fuel taxes which Macron says are needed to fight climate change. Some protesters called for him to resign.Macron's plight illustrates a conundrum: How do political leaders' introduce policies that will do long-term good for the environment without inflicting extra costs on voters that may damage their chances of re-election?It is a question facing leaders across the world as delegates hold talks in the Polish city of Katowice this week to try to produce a "rule book" to flesh out details of the 2015 Paris Agreement on fighting climate change."Clearly, countries where inequalities are the highest are the ones where these kinds of push-backs are mostly likely," Francois Gemenne, a specialist in environmental geopolitics at SciencesPo university in Paris, said of the political risks.Naming Italy, the United States and Britain as countries where environmental moves could risk a voter backlash, he said: "I guess it's one of the reasons why populist leaders tend to be very sceptical about climate change and environmental measures."The protests in France have inspired a similar movement in neighbouring Belgium, where protesters took to the streets on Friday.There have also been small-scale protests in Canada over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's plan to impose a federal carbon tax on provinces unwilling to combat climate change.What was once widely seen by governments as a win-win transition to cleaner energies now looks more like causing short-term costs with huge social disruption, followed by possible long-run gains.Another challenge facing leaders is over how they use the proceeds from policies intended to help the environment: Should money raised from carbon taxes be used directly to combat climate change, or to plug holes in national accounts?French police clash with 'yellow vest' protesters in Paris, 122 arrestedCarbon TaxesMacron said after the latest protests in Paris that he would convene ministers to discuss the crisis on his return from a G20 summit in Argentina. Prime Minister Edouard Philippe cancelled plans to go to Katowice for the climate change summit.Macron introduced new carbon taxes to urge motorists to change behaviour and protect the environment.Macron has watered down some of his campaign pledges on the environment since he took office, and his popular environment minister quit in August over the sluggishness of progress. But he has shown little willingness to compromise in the face of the protests.The fuel tax is accompanied by other measures including incentives to encourage people to buy electric vehicles.Unveiling a medium-term energy plan for France last week, he held out an olive branch by saying he would review fuel prices each quarter, but said the carbon taxes would stay.His goal is for France to cut carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and boost the use of cleaner energies at the same time. Emissions are currently rising and 75 percent of energy use in France originates from fossil fuels."When we talk about the actions of the nation in response to the challenges of climate change, we have to say that we have done little," he said.Macron has also said he will fight to try to save the Paris climate agreement, which aims to keep global temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius, a critical threshold.Scientists are increasingly concerned that countries are falling short on their targets and must be more ambitious. Yet citizens are worried about their immediate lives.French police brace for more violent protests over rising fuel costs"Policies Of Transition"In Canada, addressing the question of how governments use the money raised from carbon taxes, Trudeau's government has promised to return the money collected from the provinces directly to taxpayers.But in France most of the revenue generated will be used to tackle the national budget deficit, increasing anger at Macron, who left-wing opponents call the "president of the rich".Of the 34 billion euros ($38.71 billion) the French government will raise on fuel taxes in 2018, a sum of only 7.2 billion euros is earmarked for environmental measures.Simon Dalby, a specialist in the political economy of climate change at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, says carbon taxes should be part of wider measures to alter how people live, including better, greener transport and buildings."It is all about policies for transition to a post-fossil-fuel world, something that needs to be done quickly if the worst of the predicted climate disruptions are to be avoided in the coming decades," he said.Gemenne said the protests in France were unlikely to go away soon, and may emerge in other countries as they take more determined action on emissions.The danger, he said, was inaction, or acting too late to prevent global warming. At the same time, politicians need to be able to show they were acting fairly and equitably. Overturning Napoleon-era rights, France bans smacking kids
France's Macron learns the hard way: green taxes carry political risks
French President Emmanuel Macron immediately went to the Arc de Triomphe after returning to Paris on Sunday from Argentina to assess the damage after rioters looted and defaced the famous landmark during a day of riots.TV images showed the inside of the monument ransacked with a statue of Marianne, a symbol of the French republic, smashed, and graffiti sprawled on the exterior ranging from anti-capitalist slogans to social demands. 
France's Macron visits Arc de Triomphe after Saturday Paris riots