Named after the high-visibility vests French drivers have to keep in their cars and worn by protesters, the demonstrations began in November after public anger against fuel tax rises.
President Emmanuel Macron and his government have been forced back on the defensive after rioters ransacked luxury boutiques and torched cafes and a bank on Saturday.
Protesters and police clash on Paris' Champs-Elysees.
It seems that Macron's words created the opposite effect in France, and the Bureau for the War on Antisemitism called the rise in incidents as "frightening."
Although the protester regularly comes clad in a Kippah, he is a Catholic who claims to have converted from Judaism.
Recent social turmoil in France and the febrile atmosphere generated by the so-called “yellow vest” movement has been identified as one of the phenomena that has stirred up antisemitic sentiment.
There is ample evidence of the presence of far-right agitators in the Yellow Vests movement, including the neo-Nazi activist Herve Ryssen, who was spotted at such a rally as early as Nov. 17.
Two times in as many weeks, hundreds of demonstrators in Tel Aviv donned yellow vests to oppose increases in the price of electricity, water and food, as well as to dismantle the power of monopolies.
Last Sunday, Macron sent Sarkozy to Tbilisi to represent France at the swearing-in of Georgia's new president, a move that caused a stir in French political circles.
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