Despite poor polling, the embarrassing Benalla affair and waves of resistance to his agenda over the last year, the last few weeks have surely been the most testing of Emmanuel Macron’s presidency.

The Gilets Jaunes protests have brought France to a standstill. Riots on the streets of Paris, which happened consecutively while Macron was out of the country have further damaged his image, and his previous responses cemented his image as the president of the rich.

On Tuesday the 11th of December, a terrorist attack occurred in Strasbourg at the Christmas market killing three people and injuring several.

Macron, in his attempts to pacify the Gilets Jaunes at first announced that the fuel tax rises would be halted, and two days ago announced a 100 euro rise in the minimum wage, a major victory for Gilets Jaunes and a symbolic loss for the erstwhile intransigent president.

These two events have possibly reignited a split in Les Gilets Jaunes. At first there were two distinct strands. A left-leaning faction that was fighting for more workers rights, democratic renewal and redistribution and a right-leaning faction that also wanted these measures but crucially added anti-migrant sentiment and whose enemies included not just political and economic elites but migrants and the muslim population.

This split was relatively unified after Macron’s cessation of the fuel tax rises and a brutal response from the state against protesters which may have been illegal.22 inquiries into police conduct at the Paris protests have been opened.

Now however, a similar, if not the same schism has reopened. Macron’s raising of the SMIC (minimum wage) has assuaged the concerns of many. Where before, each new protest was organised with a certainty that was unquestioned, now each page is asking whether or not to stage demonstrations for Act V.

The right-leaning faction has reemerged. Calls for the Gilets Jaunes to include countering Jihadism in their demands even though it is not clear yet what motive ideological or otherwise the Strasbourg attacker had. Other posts have surfaced arguing that this is a false-flag attack orchestrated by Macron himself, in an attempt to delegitimise the Gilets Jaunes. This tactic is one frequently associated with the US online right and minor groups throughout the spectrum.

What happens next for the movement remains to be seen. Will Les Gilets Jaunes keep it together?