After the long battles between Paris police and the gilets jaunes hoping to overthrow President Emmanuel Macron and replace democracy in France, riots that made the seizing of the U.S. Capitol Building look tame by comparison, Mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo as announced in the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche that the work would begin to transform the 1.9 km (1.2 mile) Parisian avenue into “an extraordinary garden".