This episode contains depictions of police violence explosions and injuries.

There is also some medical content.

Please take care as you listen. In 2018, Natalie Duval was living in a small town near the Loire Valley in Central France.

It's known for its rich history and landscape, its picturesque vineyards and castles.

Natalie and her town are working class.

She's a mother of five and a grandmother, and at the time she was working a temp job at the post office sorting the mail.

Things were always tight. She never seemed to have enough money to take care of everyone.

My life was like that of everyone, right?

This is Natalie, speaking through a voice actor.

A more longer,

to simply, I'm a lot more long day. Like the average person I simply work and raise my kids at the end of the day you

just had to work consume and shut your mouth.

The working class is always struggling, but this particular moment was especially hard.

French president Emmanuel Macron was newly elected at the time and while so many people were struggling to make ends meet,

he told people that it was their fault they couldn't make it work.

That if someone really wanted to find a job, all they had to do was cross the street and go look for one.

And that he could find one in a heartbeat.

At the same time, the price of everything was going up. Food, clothes, and gas, which

Natalie needed to get to work every day. It was more than living paycheck to paycheck. It was shift to shift to shift. She could only afford to get 10 or 20 euros worth of gas or petrol at a time.

So when Natalie heard that there was going to be a new tax on fuel, she was furious.

She was worried about climate change, but she also wanted to be able to pay her bills.

So she decided to go to a protest in her town.

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