The Champs-Élysées is the main artery of Paris and the pulse point for measuring  the city's mood – elation and triumph, anger and despair, all are registered here. It’s down the two kilometres of this “most beautiful avenue in the world” that German troops paraded after the fall of France in 1940, to be followed by American forces marking the Allied liberation four years later. It’s where the Tour de France finishes every July, last year’s World Cup victory was fêted and Jean Seberg shall forever hawk the “New York Herald Tribune, New York Herald Tribune!” in Jean-Luc Godard’s classic 1960 film, Breathless.

Since mid-November, les Champs (“the Fields”), as they are locally known, have been the stage for violent weekly protests by "Yellow Jackets" denouncing the widening gap between the Parisian elite and people struggling in the regions.