Petrol and diesel prices, which used to be reasonably cheap, are now (I was last there in early January 2020) quite a bit higher, slightly more than in Italy, which is also expensive.) Here's a table of comparative prices from 2 years ago.

Rank Country Price in Euros (&euro per 50 litres of Euro-Super 95
1 Netherlands 82.50
2 Italy 81.84
3 Greece 81.75
4 Denmark 80.85
5 Portugal 78.65
6 Finland 78.15
7 France 76.96
8 Sweden 75.77
9 Ireland 74.95
10 United Kingdom 72.23
11 Germany 72.20
12 Belgium 71.92
13 Slovakia 69.85
14 Croatia 69.81
15 Slovenia 67.76
16 Estonia 66.00
17 Cyprus 65.99
18 Spain 65.98
19 Malta 65.50
20 Latvia 65.46
21 Austria 64.05
22 Czech Republic 63.58
23 Luxembourg 62.85
24 Lithuania 62.68
25 Romania 60.93
26 Hungary 60.56
27 Poland 57.88
28 Bulgaria 56.83

@Allamanda Every country in Europe (and in the world) has grievances. With the crash of the environment those grievances will only grow. At least France was trying to do something about reducing the carbon footprint. Of course it affects the poor the most, it always has. In the end it will affect everyone especially the young and future generations. It seems we are not taking the situation seriously enough.

@Allamanda, @Petter Canada has prices about twice of the US. Anytime I travel there it doesn't seem to effect people in their driving habits or choice of cars. Everything is relative.

Just think if fracking had not been discovered what the prices would now look like. 20 years ago a movement was started around the term 'peak oil.' Prices started to go up and people started to adapt. My car, PriusC was built to make the maximum from a gallon of gas. 6 years later the remake got less mpg and in 2019 it was discontinued altogether. Fracking has enabled us to continue in our carefree ways and things have only gotten worse because of it. Come back in a couple of years and see what the prices will look like!!

@Allamanda ... what about the Spanish lorries carrying wine and olive oil, that French farmers stopped and burned, because they didn't want competition? Yet they wanted Spain to accept their French produce, quoting EU requirements for free market access.

@Petter Thats the French for you!

I often drive through France. The strikes mainly affect rail travel. The stand-off is reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher's determination in 1984 to break the stranglehold that unions, especially the miners union, had and which led to Britain being called "The Sick Man of Europe".

@Allamanda Intermittent strikes. Macron simply has to raise the pension age and rein in the civil service, before France goes bankrupt.

@Allamanda I don't. But, since when can a country afford to have people retiring at age 60, on good pensions. The UK has raised the pension age to 67, as have many countries.
The public sector is bloated. These people have to be paid for by the state, either by raising taxes or borrowing. For comparison, in Germany 15% of the population is a public sector worker. In France it is 28%. (The UK is 21% and the USA is 18%)
This is not FOX news stuff, it is OECD statistics.