Juan Cole Informed Comment
The demonstrations across France this past weekend had many causes and attracted protesters from a wide swathe of French society. Among the many causes, however, was one in which our readers will have a special interest. It was the price of fuel, which is high in France precisely because of the Netanyahu-Trump war on Iran.
Reuters reports, “The European Commission estimates the Iran conflict has cost Europe roughly €100 billion ($112 billion) through disrupted trade and energy markets. Gas prices have jumped about 140% and diesel prices have doubled.”
Ironically, Trump tried to blame the rallies on immigrants and Muslims. The demonstrations, however, began with French high school students from all over the country, and then were taken up by people protesting the high cost of living. Some revived the 2018 Yellow Vest movement, which French political scientists showed was rooted in those départements or administrative counties that received fewest government services. Sites of major protests like Limoges, Bordeaux, and Lille are known to have low immigrant density (Limoges and its Département of Haute-Vienne have perhaps the lowest proportion of immigrants of any administrative county in mainland France).
On Saturday morning, one French newspaper explained, there was a small rally in Limoges. A resident, Bruno, came with his wife Veronique. He said, “We are here to display our anger: the price of gasoline, the cost of living.” He said he worried about his children’s future. His wife Veronique said that they were skimping on water, electricity and even food.
There you have it. Bruno mentioned gasoline prices before anything else.
The TikTok campaign that began in September advocating for a nationwide work stoppage was initially protesting fuel prices,
This fall, over a quarter of the French, some 28%, say they are cutting back on their food intake to pay their energy bills! Charlotte Arce at Huffington Post France reports, “nearly a third of respondents (28%) say they have even had to give up essential expenses such as food or healthcare in the past twelve months to make up for the increase in gasoline or diesel prices.”
Some 37% say they find it difficult to pay for three healthy meals a day.
The French government noted that energy prices rose for the third consecutive month in September, increasing 3.9% after having grown 3.4% in August and 2.3% in July. French energy prices were up 21,3 % in September year-over-year. Note that the Ukraine War is another reason for higher fuel prices, but it was going on in September 2025, too. What is new, and what accounts for this big spike in costs for French consumers, is the Israeli-US war on Iran.
When Netanyahu and Trump decided to fall viciously on Iran, striking it 13,000 times and killing thousands of Iranians, they unleashed an energy crisis on the world that is only beginning. Prices of crude have spiked again in October. For much of the world, where many already lived in poverty, this war is a huge extra tax on their income. The Hormuz closing also created a fertilizer shortage that will cause high food inflation for the next couple of years, at least, and as a result millions will suffer malnutrition and some will die. The French protests are likely the harbingers of global unrest arising from Trump’s energy crisis. It would be a travesty if the political right wing was able to make hay as a result, since it pushed for militaristic, fascist policies like the forever wars.
Emmanuel Macron’s center-right policies of austerity have had wide-ranging deleterious effects on the French economy, and he has dragged his feet on backing the electrification of transport. France is thus poorly positioned to face the Hormuz crisis.
The problem isn’t the people at the bottom of society, it is the elites.
Juan Cole’s Informed Comment delivers independent, expert analysis of war, the Middle East, climate change, and U.S. foreign policy. Help sustain this work
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Photo: Jeanne Menjoulet / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0. Public service workers protest Emmanuel Macron’s labor reforms in Paris, October 10, 2017.
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