Pierre, 82, took out a piece of chalk and scrawled the number 307 on a blackboard.

Trucks honked their horns as a French flag and a yellow vest swayed atop a makeshift wooden shelter. The Alps offered a starkly scenic backdrop to the ugly peri-urban sprawl below.

In less than 60 days, Pierre and dozens of other ‘gilets jaunes’ like him will have occupied “their” roundabout some 20km outside Grenoble, southeastern France, for a full year.

Some thought that President Emmanuel Macron’s move to pump around €17bn (£15bn) in sweeteners for the poor, violent demonstrations in big cities, notably Paris, and a national “great debate” had put paid to the Gallic grassroots movement that sprung up in spontaneous…

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