The article says:

  To hear the protesters tell it, they’re marching through
  the streets to fight back against rising fuel prices and
  the high cost of living in the country. Beyond that,
  though, it’s an ideological free-for-all. Fights have
  also been witnessed among demonstrators, and some have
  sent death threats to other protesters.

In other words, there are a large number of different groups protesting under the same banner. There is not an identifiable leader articulating a single agenda that can be proven or disproven.

Certainly, fuel taxes in Europe are much higher than in America; across the EU they vary from 51% to 68%, with France at 64% [1].

Other things in the article, like anti-vaxxers and a theory the french constitution has been invalidated, seem much less likely - but when the entire movement is just a leaderless movement of people posting in facebook groups, where do you draw the line between "the rioters' complaints" and a handful of fools among the many protesters?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/03/are-the-french...

I just read this from the Guardian's Paris chief, thought it was a pretty good sampling of some of the grievances:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/07/macrons-arroga...

Seems a common complaint is that Macron looks great from abroad, but he's ignoring the people at home.

Also worth checking this tweet from the French government account:

https://twitter.com/gouvernementFR/status/107096383300978278...

"Protest is a right, but let's do it properly.", overlayed on montage clips of good protesters and bad protesters.

Finally, the recent images of students being made to kneel with hands behind their heads by riot police is not going down well anywhere.

If the rioters were protesting racism or homophobia, no one in the media (or HN) would challenge them.

Since the rioters are protesting a Green Tax, the media (and HN) concludes that Facebook, Russia, or a general lack of cognitive ability among the French working class must be the cause.

Look no further than the discussion yesterday re: "Is France losing its first information war?" to see all the "enlightened" HN posters discuss how free expression should be limited if it runs contrary to their worldview (characterized as "restricting the public's potential to be misinformed")...the same posters of course are constantly aghast at censorship in China

Its really scary to see hackers become advocates for censorship