(Paris) Leaving from all over France, thousands of opponents of health restrictions were driving in convoys to Paris on Friday to rally the outskirts of the capital in the evening, despite the warnings of the authorities, determined to prevent any blockage.
Posted at 10:59
Inspired by the mobilization in Canada, the organizers denounce the vaccine passport which entered into force on January 24 and claim to be yellow vests, a popular protest movement of 2018-2019 triggered by a rise in gasoline prices, which had turned to the revolt against President Emmanuel Macron.
PHOTO PASCAL ROSSIGNOL, REUTERS
Yellow vests showed their support for the “freedom convoy” in a Longueau parking lot on February 11.
The first demonstrators left since Wednesday by car, recreational vehicle or carpooling from Nice (south-east), Bayonne or even Perpignan (south-west) and others continued to set off on Friday from towns closer to the capital. In the afternoon, some 2,600 vehicles were on their way to Paris, according to the police.
Refuting any intention of blocking, the participants, who use the expression “convoys of freedom”, hope to converge in the evening towards Paris to spend the night there, then to participate on Saturday in the various weekly processions against the vaccine passport, pillar of the device of the French government against COVID-19.
They demand the withdrawal of “all measures of constraint or pressure related to vaccination”, in addition to claims on purchasing power and the price of energy, which have become an important theme in the campaign for the presidential election of ‘April.
PHOTO PASCAL ROSSIGNOL, REUTERS
A demonstration took place near the Canadian National Vimy Memorial.
Some then want to continue to Brussels for a “European convergence” scheduled for Monday, but the Belgian authorities have forbidden them access to the capital, for lack of demand on their part.
In Paris, the police headquarters also banned this mobilization for “risks of disturbing public order” and provided for a device “to prevent the blocking of roads, verbalize and arrest offenders”.
An appeal against this ban was examined in the afternoon by the administrative court of Paris.
“A stroll in Paris”
Prime Minister Jean Castex recalled that if the right to demonstrate was “a constitutionally guaranteed right”, blocking was prohibited. Participants will be arrested “if they block traffic or if they intend to block the capital, you have to be very firm on that”, he said.
PHOTO SAMEER AL-DOUMY, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
Police officers check and filter vehicles arriving at Porte d’Orléans, in the south of Paris.
“No, we’re not necessarily going to block, we’re going for a walk,” Marie, 39, a sales assistant from Brittany (west) told AFP. “We are going for a walk in Paris, in the capital and then after if we can we will go for a walk to Brussels”, she added.
The authorities mentioned this week the end of the vaccine passport “at the end of March” or “beginning of April”, but the spokesman of the government Gabriel Attal warned Friday against an “attempt to instrumentalize” policy of the “weariness of the French “, after two years of health crisis.
The Ministry of Health also announced on Friday, given the “improvement of the health situation”, the lifting from February 28 of the obligation to wear a mask in closed places subject to the vaccine passport, it that is to say establishments dedicated to leisure activities, restaurants, drinking establishments, etc., but not transport.
On Friday, instructions for the occupation of roundabouts across the country also spread on Saturday.
“I appeal to join all the big cities to occupy them, multiply the assembly points”, declared in a video on social networks one of the initiators of the movement, under the pseudonym of Rémi Monde.
A new yellow vest-type crisis would be particularly bad for power, before an official announcement of Mr. Macron’s candidacy expected by the end of the month.
Several candidates for the presidential election have given their support to this movement, including Marine Le Pen, Éric Zemmour (extreme right) or the radical left party La France insoumise (LFI).
“I could support them, yes of course, I will see how all this is put in place”, indicated Thursday evening the leader of LFI, Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Conversely, others have distanced themselves, such as Les Républicains (LR, right) or the environmental candidate Yannick Jadot who said he understood “perfectly the State of not wanting Paris to be blocked”, judging the situation in Canada ” unacceptable from a democratic point of view”.