One more casualty reported in France ‘Yellow vest’ protests

A driver died in southern France on Friday when their car hit a truck at a roundabout that was blocked by "Yellow Vest" protesters, French local authorities said.

The car driver, aged 36, died in the accident near Perpignan, a police source told agencies on Saturday, bringing to 10 the death toll linked to the anti-government protests.

Demonstrators kept up traffic disruptions on Saturday, in another weekend of the protests which have forced President Emmanuel Macron to reverse unpopular policies and disrupted the French economy.

Nine others have died in incidents linked to the movement, mostly from traffic accidents caused by roadblocks, since the movement started on November 17.

Earlier a "Yellow Vests" protester lost his life on Thursday after being hit by a truck in a roundabout in Agen, in southwestern France where demonstrators staged more blockades of motorways to oppose President Emmanuel Macron's packages of reforms, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner has said.

The "Yellow Vests" action, a nation-wide protest against weak economic performance and stagnant income increase under President Emmanuel Macron, started as a campaign against the surge in fuel prices this year.

Thousands of drivers, wearing the yellow high-visibility vests required to be carried in their cars, blocked roads across the country.

"This must stop. Nine dead," the minister said.

"There are today significant efforts that have been made. There is the will to dialogue, to debate. Every French citizen, whether it is Yellow Vest or not, must today find the conditions of appeasement," he stressed.

As protesters have been considering, on Facebook and across social media, a fresh round of social activities this weekend despite the government's social measures, Castaner warned that "If some, a small minority, a few thousand people ... want to continue to block the economic life, they will assume a very serious responsibility."