Originally Posted by 50PlusCycling

Unfortunately, more than 80% of French people don't live in Paris or it's suburbs. France, by-and-large, is still an agricultural country with lots of land, and thousands of communities throughout the country. With unemployment already very high, wages not keeping up with inflation, and a heavy regulatory burden which has driven businesses and businesspeople to other countries, many of the French are just getting by.

The gasoline tax Macron wanted to implement would have made a significant dent in the budgets of most of the French. Not only would they have that much less money to spend each month on things like food, housing, and utilities, they would face higher prices for other goods, because the everything they buy is transported by truck and train, and the transporters must raise their prices to offset the cost of the tax.

When you consider the effect of taxation, you have to consider the indirect even more than the direct. You pay income tax, sales tax, taxes on your phone and utilities. If you drive, you pay tax on gasoline, plus the license and registration fees. But that is not all. The taxes your employer pays are offset by paying you less. When you buy a product, be it a phone, a beer or a sandwich, part of the cost of those things goes to pay the tax of the companies which made those things. And, like in France, everything you own, and everything sold in stores is transported on railways and highways, the railroad operators and trucking companies pay high taxes on fuel, and those are added to the prices of all goods, not to mention their corporate tax, property tax, utility tax, etc. Even if you don't earn enough to pay any net income tax, more than half of the money you earn is eventually absorbed by taxation.