Emmanuel Macron postpones speech on Yellow Vest protests for Notre Dame

French President Emmanuel Macron is changing up his priorities.

Macron was scheduled to give a "highly-anticipated" television address on Monday evening in response to the Yellow Vest movement, a sometimes-violent national protest that began after a French fuel tax hike last November based around the beliefs that ordinary French citizens have lost purchasing power and that Macron's policies favor the rich. Per France 24, Macron was possibly going to introduce tax cuts and other measures to help retirees and single parents.

But he postponed the speech at the last minute, as the Notre Dame cathedral caught on fire in Paris. Macron instead traveled to the site of the blaze. Per Politico, the president wrote on Twitter that his thoughts "are with all Catholics and French people" and that he was said to see "this part of us burning."

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Per The Associated Press, Macron is treating the fire as a national emergency and, upon arrival at the scene, went straight into meetings at the Paris police headquarters. It remains unclear what, if any, parts of the Cathedral firefighters will be able to save.