Single spark ignites French 'revolution'

He said Macron's concessions appear to have taken some of the anger out of the protesters by addressing some of their specific demands, and the violence and damage in Paris had alienated some moderate supporters of the movement.

"Protests will recur, although it is unlikely that they will reach the same scale without some specific trigger or scandal," he said.

Xavier Nuttin, a researcher at the European Institute for Asian Studies in Brussels, said there is a contradiction between demands for more public services and reduced taxes, but calls for more fiscal justice are certainly justified.

He said the protests have highlighted the profound social split between the elite and the lower and middle classes, who are the victims of globalization.

"They believed in globalization but now feel they have been betrayed and neglected by governments and institutions for many years," he said, referring not only to the yellow vest movement in France but several others in Europe, including one in Brussels, where police arrested 400 out of 1,000 protesters on Dec 8.

Michalski said globalization is an easy scapegoat, and automation has cost many people their jobs.

Similar protests have been staged in countries such as Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Croatia and Bulgaria.

Michalski said the yellow vests protests can be compared with the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States in 2011 and 2012.

This movement was crushed by the government, and its participants later became firm supporters of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the 2016 US presidential election.