The problem is that they have too much debt and they can't just ignore it anymore. They can complain but they have to cut spending somewhere or increase revenue. Now they can raise the retirement age for everyone. Or they can take the money from the billionaires. But that still doesn't get you closer to lowering the deficit which is very high well over 100 percent of GDP. That means the protests are really just complaining that France doesn't have enough money but you can't keep the spending going as is without a lot of drastic cuts. All you can do is cuts now or kick the can down the road and hope something changes. Or just default on the debt and say fuck it.