Macron Hunts For Fuel Relief As Riots Rock France

French President Emmanuel Macron traveled to the Persian Gulf to secure diesel after rioters fought police and torched cars in cities across France.

The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain committed to send France a combined 200,000 more metric tons of diesel a month, Macron’s office, the Élysée Palace, said Tuesday, according to France 24. Counting Saudi deliveries, France now has commitments for 295,000 metric tons a month, a little more than 10 percent of what the country uses, his office added.

Kuwait also promised diesel and kerosene for France’s Indian Ocean islands of Mayotte and Réunion, with the shipments routed through Oman to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, the Élysée said. Oil prices have soared since the U.S.-Iran war began in February, with Iran blocking the strait that carries most of the Gulf’s energy exports, France 24 reported.

The average price of diesel in the U.S. was $6.32 a gallon Tuesday, compared with $3.62 a year earlier, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

More than 500,000 people marched across France over the country’s rising cost of living on Saturday — two days before Macron landed in the United Arab Emirates.

Police arrested about 2,400 people across France on Saturday, 855 of them around Paris, the Associated Press reported. Authorities reported damage or looting at thousands of businesses. In Limoges, a fire nearly destroyed the city’s 19th-century town hall.