Notre Dame may be hot, but so are French protests still

April 15, the cathedral fire wasn’t put out for 15 hours. (Manhai/Flickr)

On Monday, April 15, Notre Dame Cathedral suffered critical damage to a majority of its interior and exterior due to a large and uncontrollable fire. First covered by CNN, the billowing smoke could be seen sky high across Paris, as the towering skyscraper of a spire toppled down in flames, and large areas of the roof came down as well.

This may come as no surprise to those familiar with the architecture of the cathedral, as it was mostly constructed from oak beams, some dating back to the 12th century. To add to this exceptional fire starter, the exterior is made of stone, which trapped both heat and smoke inside barring firefighters from getting inside where the source of the fire was.

While according to CNN, “experts say it will take 10 to 15 years to fully restore the Notre Dame Cathedral,” President Macron of France has vowed that he will make sure the cathedral is restore even “more beautiful” within only five years. Macron asked his country in a broadcast amidst this catastrophe to “reunite” itself in its wake, as the massive yellow vest protests which are critical of Macron and the government have continued far past their breaking news headlines in January.

The issue of continuing protest in France is something called the “green tax” on gasoline, meant to discourage fossil fuel use. Many consider this damaging to the middle class, but that is an issue that is about to be passed on to the United States as well. But these changes may go largely unprotested by Americans.

A recent comparison of American gas prices (News Room/AAA)

Gas prices in the US are already higher than they have been for the past 4 years during the annual summer price spike, according to AAA. One spokesperson commented that “Americans must work 22% longer than at the start of the year to buy one gallon of unleaded gasoline.”

On top of this, Trump has proposed his own federal tax on gas to pay off $166 million dollars committed to already planned government projects, not to mention some of his own projects.

This proposal is set to be reality as soon as it is passed in Congress, which may already have bipartisan support for such a proposal coming this summer. Current projections for southern California prices place them to be as high as $4.50 per gallon at their peak this season. Meanwhile, no substantial protest to this issue can be seen in sight by Americans. That cannot be predicted to change.

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