PARIS — After a quiet summer, France’s yellow vest protesters were hoping for a busy fall. So when Amandine Cantournet saw a call last month touting a “historic” 45th gathering on the Champs-Elysees in the heart of Paris, she was willing and ready to make the five-hour drive from her home near the Swiss border to Paris.
She arrived upon a scene of confusion.
“I think I saw more security forces on the street than protesters,” said Ms. Cantournet. She said the police made it nearly impossible for her and other yellow vest demonstrators to organize effectively.
The event last month ended in more than 150 arrests, a disastrous attempt to join forces with a simultaneous youth climate protest and, above all, a failure for members of the leaderless movement to organize once again in one place.
Originally billed as a possible “comeback” for the yellow vests, the chaos and disorganization of that Saturday left a number of pundits questioning the movement’s shot at a revival — almost exactly a year after the amorphous protest movement first emerged with a string of sometimes violent confrontations that threatened to shake the foundations of the government of President Emmanuel Macron.
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