In a bid to end the standoff, a visibly contrite Macron announced a package of measures on Monday in a televised address PARIS: Groups of defiant “yellow vest” demonstrators faced off with tens of thousands of police around France on Saturday, but the protest movement appeared to have lost momentum on a fifth and decisive weekend. President Emmanuel Macron, facing the biggest crisis of his presidency, announced a series of concessions on Monday to defuse the explosive “yellow vest” crisis, which swelled up from rural and small-town France last month. The package of tax and minimum wage measures for low-income workers, coupled with bitter winter weather this weekend, appeared to have helped bring calm to the country after more than a month of clashes and disruption. France was also hit by a fresh deadly terror attack on Tuesday night when a gunman opened fire at a Christmas market in Strasbourg, leading the government to urge people to stay at home to spare the stretched security forces. Interior Minister Christophe Castaner announced Saturday evening that eight people had now died in incidents linked to the demonstrations, and called on protesters to halt their blockades across the country. “Everyone’s safety has to become the rule again,” he said in a tweet. “Dialogue now needs to unite all those who want to transform France.” Richard Ferrand, the head of the National Assembly, welcomed the “necessary” weakening of the rallies, adding that “there had been a massive response to their demands.” An estimated 66,000 people took to the streets across France, according to figures from the interior ministry at 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT), half the level of a week ago. “It’s a bit of a failure because the state is stopping us from being able to demonstrate properly,” Marie, a 35-year-old domestic helper, told AFP in Paris after traveling from her home south of the capital. Another protester in the southeastern city of Lyon, Francis Nicolas, 49, told AFP: “It’s a bit disappointing. We expected there to be more people, but the movement won’t end.” In Paris, the more than 8,000 police on duty easily outnumbered the 2,200 protesters who were counted on the streets of the capital by local authorities in the early afternoon. There had been 168 arrests by 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT), far down on the roughly 1,000 of last Saturday. Tear gas was occasionally fired, but a fraction of the amount was used compared with the weekends of December 8 or December 1 when graffiti was daubed on the Arc de Triomphe in scenes that shocked France. Minor clashes were reported in southwestern Bordeaux where teargas was used and projectiles thrown. It was a similar picture in Toulouse, Nantes, Besancon, Nancy, Saint-Etienne and Lyon. Protesters snarled traffic on motorways in the south of the country and on the A16 near the port of Calais in the north. Until this week, a clear majority of French people had backed the protests, which sprung up initially over high taxes before snowballing into a wider opposition to Macron’s pro-business agenda and style of governing. But two polls published on Tuesday — in the wake of Macron’s concessions — suggested the country was now broadly 50-50 on whether the protests should continue. In a bid to end the standoff, a visibly contrite Macron announced a package of measures on Monday in a televised address, estimated by economists to cost up to 15 billion euros ($17 billion). The 40-year-old former investment banker acknowledged widespread animosity toward him and came close to apologizing for a series of verbal gaffes seen as dismissive of the poor or jobless. He canceled planned fuel tax hikes for 2019, offered a rise in the minimum wage of 100 euros a month next year, as well as tax relief for many pensioners and tax-free overtime. Some senior figures in the “yellow vest” movement — which has no official leaders and dozens of separate demands — had urged protesters to continue to press home their advantage. “It’s really the time to keep going,” one of them, Eric Drouet, said in a video posted on Facebook. “What Macron did on Monday, was a call to carry on because he has started to give ground, which is unusual for him.” Many protesters appeared to have switched their focus from the core issue of the protests so far — taxes and spending power — to other demands such as the greater use of referendums to decide government policy. “Last time, we were here for taxes,” a 28-year-old “yellow vest” called Jeremy told AFP as he arrived on the Champs-Elysees in the freezing cold on Saturday morning. “This is for the institutions: we want more direct democracy,” he said, adding that people needed to “shout to make themselves heard.” More than 1,400 people have been injured since the protests began on November 17. Around 69,000 security forces were mobilized across France, down from 89,000 last Saturday when 2,000 people were detained. On Thursday, government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux had called on protesters to stay at home on what is normally a busy shopping weekend ahead of Christmas. He was speaking in the wake of the attack on Tuesday in the eastern city of Strasbourg, which left four dead and 12 wounded. Topics: PARIS FRANCE YELLOW VEST HIDE COMMENTS RELATED 462 WORLD French police prepare for fifth wave of yellow vest protests Ruling to strike down health law puts GOP in a quandary Updated 2 min 7 sec ago December 15, 2018 00:00 53 Health care was the top issue for about one-fourth of voters in the November election, ahead of immigration and jobs and the economy WASHINGTON: A federal judge’s ruling that the Obama health law is unconstitutional has landed like a stink bomb among Republicans, who’ve seen the politics of health care flip as Americans increasingly value the overhaul’s core parts, including protections for pre-existing medical conditions and Medicaid for more low-income people. While the decision by the Republican-appointed judge in Texas was sweeping, it has little immediate practical impact because the Affordable Care Act remains in place while the legal battle continues, possibly to the Supreme Court. HealthCare.gov , the government’s site for signing up, was taking applications Saturday, the deadline in most states for enrolling for coverage next year, and those benefits will take effect as scheduled Jan. 1. Medicaid expansion will proceed in Virginia, one of the latest states to accept that option. Employers will still be required to cover the young adult children of workers, and Medicare recipients will still get discounted prescription drugs. But Republicans, still stinging from their loss of the House in the midterm elections, are facing a fresh political quandary after US District Judge Reed O’Connor said the entire 2010 health law was invalid. Warnings about the Texas lawsuit were part of the political narrative behind Democrats’ electoral gains. Health care was the top issue for about one-fourth of voters in the November election, ahead of immigration and jobs and the economy, according to VoteCast, a nationwide survey for The Associated Press. Those most concerned with health care supported Democrats overwhelmingly. In his ruling, O’Connor reasoned that the body of the law could not be surgically separated from its now-meaningless requirement for people to have health insurance. “On the assumption that the Supreme Court upholds, we will get great, great health care for our people,” President Donald Trump told reporters during a visit Saturday to Arlington National Cemetery. “We’ll have to sit down with the Democrats to do it, but I’m sure they want to do it also.” Economist Gail Wilensky, who oversaw the Medicare program for President George H.W. Bush, said the state attorneys general from GOP strongholds who filed the lawsuit really weren’t very considerate of their fellow Republicans. “The fact that they could cause their fellow Republicans harm did not seem to bother them,” said Wilensky, a critic of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement. “The people who raised it are a bunch of guys who don’t have serious election issues, mostly from states where saber-rattling against the ACA is fine,” she added. “How many elections do you have to get battered before you find another issue?“ Douglas Holtz-Eakin, top policy adviser to Republican John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, said he was struck by the relative silence from top Republicans after the ruling issued. A prominent example: “The House was not party to this suit, and we are reviewing the ruling and its impact,” said AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin Republicans are “going to have to figure out what to do,” Holtz-Eakin said. “If it’s invalidated by the courts, it’s not ... ‘We’re going to do it our way.’ They’re going to have to get together with the Democrats in the House.” The GOP’s failed effort last year to repeal the law showed there’s no consensus within the party itself. Trump tweeted Friday night that “Congress must pass a STRONG law that provides GREAT health care and protects pre-existing conditions.” “Get it done!” he told Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who is expected to be speaker in January. But Trump had no plan of his own to offer in the 2017 “repeal and replace” debate. Two top House Republicans issued diverging statements. Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California said “Obamacare is a broken law,” but added, “I am committed to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make sure America’s health care system works for all Americans.” The third-ranking GOP leader, Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalize, praised the judge’s ruling and made no mention of working with Democrats, whom he accused of “running a fear-mongering campaign” to win control of the House last month. The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said that if the law is ultimately overturned, then members of Congress from both parties should start over, working together. He urged maintaining provisions such as protections for pre-existing medical conditions, no lifetime dollar limits on insurance coverage, and allowing young adults to stay on parental coverage until age 26. Democrats were united in condemning the ruling. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said voters will remember. “What will stand is Republican ownership of such a harmful and disastrous lawsuit,” Schumer tweeted. The next chapter in the legal case could take months to play out. A coalition of Democratic state officials led by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra will appeal O’Connor’s decision, most likely to the US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans. “The legal merits of the case are frivolous,” said University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley. “The notion that the unconstitutionality of an unenforceable mandate somehow requires toppling the entire ACA is bonkers.” Bagley supports the law generally, but has been critical of how it has been put into effect.