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IPFS News Link • France

How France's Yellow Vest Protesters Are Different from America's Tea Party

• https://fee.org, Daniel J. Mitchell

admired the Tea Party because it was made up of people who were upset by the bipartisan waste and corruption of Washington. And I think they even had a positive—albeit only temporary—effect.

Incoherent Protests

But the "Yellow Vest" protesters in France, as I explain in this interview, are much less coherent.

Needless to say, I'm glad the Yellow Vests are upset about France's oppressive tax regime. In that sense, they are like the Tea Party in America.

But the Tea Party also wanted smaller government. That doesn't seem to be the case in France.

Which means the Yellow Vests are either ignorant or hypocritical. After all, the burden of government spending is very onerous in France, and the country also has high levels of debt. So how is the government supposed to lower taxes unless there's at least some degree of spending restraint?

Some of the Yellow Vests seem to think that class-warfare taxes on the rich could be a silver bullet, but that didn't work for Francois Hollande and there's no reason to think it would work for Emmanuel Macron.