The police used tear gas on Saturday in the early afternoon to disperse demonstrators from the antipass convoys, who had met on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, according to a journalist from the AFP.
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Thousands of opponents of the vaccine pass, under the name of “freedom convoys” and from all over France, joined Paris on Saturday with the aim of demonstrating despite the ban from the police headquarters, determined to prevent any blockage .
Around 2:00 p.m., more than a hundred vehicles had joined the avenue, motorists, some now on foot, waved flags or chanted “freedom”. The situation became tense: tear gas was used.
The police evacuated the pedestrians who were around the Arc de Triomphe, before gradually pushing the demonstrators towards the gardens which are at the other end of this famous artery of the capital.
“We were since 5:00 p.m. yesterday in Paris, like a Trojan horse. We were invisible, we wanted to blend in. I am + yellow vest +, but there are a lot of demonstrators. At 1:15 p.m., we decided to meet around the Arc-de-Triomphe because we knew that several convoys were there. Car convoys were a test. We have other demonstrators coming today. You cannot vaccinate by force,” Laure, 57, a driving school instructor in Seine-et-Marne, told AFP “against the vaccine pass”, fleeing tear gas on the Champs-Élysées.
“Even if Macron does not want it, we are here, for the honor of the workers and for a better world”, sang the demonstrators before being dispersed.
Cars, motorhomes and vans left Nice, Lille, Strasbourg, Vimy (Pas-de-Calais) or Châteaubourg (Ille-et-Vilaine), traveling for two or three days at reduced speed on secondary roads to reach the capital city.
After camping at the gates of Paris on Friday evening, some of the participants – 3,000 vehicles for 5,000 demonstrators in all according to the police – joined the Paris ring road on Saturday morning, where 337 people had been fined around 2:30 p.m. for “participation in a demonstration unauthorized”, according to the Paris police headquarters (PP).