France's Yellow Vest movement is not happy with the response to the Notre Dame fire

Not everyone is mourning the damage done to Notre Dame.

The Yellow Vest movement, a sometimes-violent national protest based around the beliefs that ordinary French citizens have lost purchasing power and French President Emmanuel Macron's policies favor the rich, has expressed anger at the nearly $1 billion in pledges to reconstruct the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, which caught fire last week.

Nine-thousand protesters took to the streets for the 23rd consecutive weekend in Paris on Saturday and criticized what they believe is hypocrisy from the French elite. Those gathered decried the fact that money will be spent on the cathedral as opposed to addressing poverty in France.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

The protests started out peacefully, but they eventually turned violent as the demonstrators clashed with police who used tear gas and stun grenades to subdue them.

Macron was scheduled to address the Yellow Vest movement directly in a speech on Monday when the fire struck Notre Dame, but the president postponed in order to deal with the fallout surrounding the blaze.