Here in France, the gilet jaunes are ruining lives, and after the vile attack on Alain Finkielkraut I can't support them any longer

At first, I was sympathetic, but the yellow vests protesters have shown their true antisemitic colours

Fourteen weeks ago, when our youngest son was looking forward to his fifth birthday party, I never expected to have to explain why my family wanted to drive across the roundabout at the bottom of our street in the southwestern town of Castres, so we could get to the party destination, but I did.

It was the first week of the gilet jaunes protest in France, a groundswell movement of people who, connected by social media and their now iconic high-visibility vests every driver has to have in their cars, decided to demonstrate against President Emmanuel Macron and his government.

At first, I was sympathetic. The protesters were hardworking people doing everything they could to make ends meet, but because of France’s heavy taxation were out of pocket by the third week of the month.

The gilet jaunes took to the country’s roundabouts to protest, setting up blockades which filtered traffic, and allowed them to get up close to the rest of the public, who largely supported them.

But I resented being told to display my gilet jaune on the dashboard, as a sign of solidarity, and having to explain where I was going so I could be granted permission to go about my business.

The sympathy I had soon ebbed away as it became clear, in the weeks that followed and the government tried to talk to this leaderless group, that some had other intentions.

Riots in Paris, which spread to other major cities and towns have marked this ongoing national grumble, which began over fuel price hikes and has expanded to take in the state of France, from the lack of services and desertification of semi-rural and rural areas, to Macron choosing not to tax his rich mates.

To a degree, I sympathised, until the placards began appearing.

Tied to lampposts, mainly at traffic lights where, again, drivers were a captive audience, were warnings about the media being owned by a small handful of wealthy types, that the time was ripe for another revolution, albeit 1968-style (when students rose up against the government and won), rather than the head-lopping of 1789, and people needed to “open their eyes”.

As someone who is pretty plugged in to the wider world, I bridled at the command, and when I saw a card naming Eric Drouet, one of the figureheads of the protests, as the movement’s first “political prisoner”, I knew things were beginning to go too far.

There has been no stopping the calls for change, even amid a national debate which aims to hear as many opinions as possible. Macron has said nothing is off the table. As an immigrant watching the political landscape in the UK grow more cruel and absurd by the day, the reaching out of the French government – its willingness to engage – has been little short of astonishing to witness.

The same can’t be said of the gilet jaunes. They have targeted journalists, politicians and even each other, with their headless mob mentality, driven by far-right activists on social media and on the streets.

Last weekend, on 16 February, the gilet jaunes finally broke my heart.

On the sidelines of the demonstration, some protesters targeted philosopher and writer Alain Finkielkraut because he is Jewish.

This came after two Parisian post boxes painted with the image of Simone Veil, one of France’s greatest political figures – and also Jewish – were defiled by swastikas.

I’m around 500 miles from Paris but I felt the seismic shock of these horrific events.

At the height of the gilet jaunes demonstrations, I told our children we were lucky to live in a country where political protest was allowed. Now, it sickens me.

Last week, one protestor called for the gilets jaunes to “reclaim” the roundabouts to bolster public support, which had fallen below 50 per cent for the first time since last November.

I dreaded seeing them several weeks ago, and would hastily shove my gilet jaune onto the dashboard so I could pass them without incident.

I won’t do it again. The gilets jaunes, who claim to be apolitical and non-violent, have already wrecked the economy and harmed businesses at a time when the country’s economy is fragile. That is bad enough.

But they’ve also given racists and antisemites a platform to spread their message of hate, and that I can never forget nor forgive.