The November 2015 Paris attacks were a series of coordinated terrorist attacks that occurred on Friday, 13 November 2015 in Paris, France, and the city’s northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 21:16 CET, three suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France Saint-Denis, during a football match. This was followed by several mass shootings and a suicide bombing, at cafés and restaurants. Gunmen carried out another mass shooting and took hostages at an Eagles of Death Metal concert in the Bataclan theatre, leading to a stand-off with police. The attackers were shot or blew themselves up when police raided the theatre.
The attackers killed 130 people, including 89 at the Bataclan theatre. Another 413 people were injured, almost 100 seriously. Seven of the attackers also died, while the authorities continued to search for accomplices. The attacks were the deadliest on France since the Second World War and the deadliest in the European Union since the Madrid train bombings in 2004. France had been on high alert since the January 2015 attacks on Charlie Hebdo offices and a Jewish supermarket in Paris that killed 17 people and wounded 22, including civilians and police officers.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying that it was retaliation for the French airstrikes on ISIL targets in Syria and Iraq. The President of France, François Hollande, said the attacks were an act of war by ISIL. The attacks were planned in Syria and organized by a terrorist cell based in Belgium. Most of the Paris attackers had French or Belgian citizenship, two were Iraqis, and all had fought in Syria. Some of them had entered Europe among the flow of migrants and refugees.
The yellow vests movement or yellow jackets movement (French: Mouvement des gilets jaunes) is a populist, grassroots political movement for economic justice that began in France in October 2018. After an online petition posted in May had attracted nearly a million signatures, mass demonstrations began on 17 November. The movement was initially motivated by rising fuel prices and a high cost of living; it claims that a disproportionate burden of the government's tax reforms were falling on the working and middle classes, especially in rural and peri-urban areas.
The protesters have called for lower fuel taxes, a reintroduction of the solidarity tax on wealth, a minimum-wage increase, the implementation of Citizens' initiative referendums, among other things. On 29 November 2018, a list of 42 demands was made public and went viral on social media, becoming de facto a structuring basis for the movement, covering a wide range of eclectic topics, mostly related to democracy, social and fiscal justice.