(Paris) Part of the self-proclaimed “freedom convoys”, which had stopped on Saturday around Paris, left on Sunday morning in the direction of Brussels, but the police remained mobilized to prevent them from blocking the capital.
Posted at 8:11 a.m.
Early Sunday morning, there were a hundred recreational vehicles in the Bois de Boulogne, 220 vehicles in Seine-et-Marne and 120 in Val-d’Oise, according to a police source.
The watchword of the organizers of the anti-passport convoys was to take the road around 10 a.m. to reach Brussels where a large rally is planned for Monday.
But, according to a police source, not all participants should follow this order.
In a tweet, the police headquarters added “maintain its device this Sunday” to prevent demonstrators from anti-passport convoys from blocking the capital. Some 7,500 members of the police have been mobilized by the Paris police headquarters (PP) from Friday to Monday.
At the beginning of the afternoon on Saturday, more than a hundred vehicles had managed to reach the Champs-Élysées, which were gradually evacuated by the police with tear gas.
PHOTO BENOIT TESSIER, REUTERS
Tear gas was launched in the direction of a vehicle parked on the Champs-Élysées on Saturday.
A handful of diehards, however, remained until late at night from Saturday to Sunday in the Champs-Élysées district and in the Bois de Boulogne, forcing, according to the PP, the police to intervene to “verbalize and disperse » the last participants in this demonstration banned by the prefect of police, Didier Lallement.
The police carried out 97 arrests and 513 verbalizations of opponents of health measures participating in anti-passport convoys on Saturday in Paris, according to an overall report communicated on Sunday by the PP.
According to the prosecution, at 6 a.m., 81 people were in police custody, including Jérôme Rodrigues, one of the faces of the yellow vests movement, and active support of the anti-passport convoys.
PHOTO SAMEER AL-DOUMY, FRANCE-PRESSE AGENCY
This man was arrested on the Champs-Élysées on Saturday.
Arrested near the Elysée, he was placed in police custody for “organizing a prohibited demonstration and participating in a group formed to commit violence”, according to this source.
In addition, the Paris police prefect on Sunday requested an internal administrative investigation following the broadcast on social networks of a video showing a police officer pointing his weapon at a motorist on Saturday, Place de l’Étoile in Paris.
“A video is currently circulating on social networks following a police intervention on the Champs-Élysées. The prefect is having an internal administrative investigation launched, ”tweeted the police headquarters.
This video, also broadcast in the 8 p.m. news on TF1, shows a policeman getting out of his screen-printed car, gun in hand. He was chasing a white car whose occupants displayed tricolor flags and claimed to be anti-passport convoys. The video shows the policeman pointing his gun at the driver.
A heterogeneous gathering of opponents of President Emmanuel Macron, the vaccine passport and yellow vests, those who call themselves “freedom convoys” were formed on the model of the mobilization which is currently paralyzing Ottawa.