A second gilets jaunes (yellow vests) “leader” has announced she is founding a political party but will not field candidates in May’s European parliament elections.

Jacline Mouraud, widely credited with starting the yellow vests movement, said the party, Les Émergents (the Arisen), “won’t be rightwing or leftwing” and will aim to do politics differently.

“We want to remake politics around the heart and empathy; today it’s based on the rule of money. We want to take everyone into account by working for a better distribution of wealth,” said Mouraud at a press conference to announce the party in the city of Orléans.

The venue for the conference was announced only minutes before it started due to threats by other members of the movement which has no official leaders or organisation.

Mouraud, 51, from Brittany, describes herself as a “hypnotherapist and artist”. Last October she posted a video on Facebook criticising the government’s proposed eco-tax on fuel which went viral. It sparked a wave of protesters taking to the streets in the yellow high-vis vests that French motorists must carry in their vehicles.

Mouraud said Les Émergents would take part in local elections in 2020.

“I know what it’s like to not have enough money to buy food for the children,” she said.

The new party’s programme includes removing privileges from elected representatives – targeted at MPs, developing “charity houses” paid for by donations from major company chiefs, a reduction in VAT on essential products and higher taxes for higher earners.

“Phase A has been done – everyone knows what is happening in France. Now we have to pass on to phase B and launch into building and proposing. To demand without proposing something is a little illogical,” she said.

Last week another group of gilets jaunes named 10 candidates for the European parliament elections and called for 69 more to put their names forward.

The list, headed by Ingrid Levavasseur, 31, a health worker who has become one of the movement’s most high-profile members, was proposed by a group calling itself the Ralliement d’initiative citoyenne (Citizen Initiative Rally).

At the weekend, the latest yellow vest demonstrations in Paris, and elsewhere, was overshadowed by a reportedly larger march by anti-gilets jaunes calling themselves the foulards rouges (red scarves). The foulards rouges are demanding an end to the violence of recent protests and a respect for “the republic and its institutions”.

According to police figures, about 4,000 gilets jaunes protested in Paris on Saturday and about 10,500 foulards rouges on Sunday. The organisers of the demonstrations did not supply any figures.