Paris Is Burning

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Published December 5, 2018 at 1:50 PM PST

Paris is still smoldering in the wake of violent protests last weekend. The protestors, known as the gilets jaunes, or yellow vests, were reacting to a bunch of economic reforms President Emmanuel Macron has put in place — including a planned tax increase on gasoline. Today on the show, we look at Macron's economic reforms for France, why they got people so upset, and how the yellow vest movement parallels things going on in the U.S.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: Twitter/ Facebook.

Subscribe to our show onApple Podcasts, PocketCasts and NPR One.

Stacey Vanek Smith

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith

Cardiff Garcia

Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.

See stories by Cardiff Garcia