After a whole night of driving, Fabrice parked his van in a parking lot in Fontainebleau, south of Paris, with a trailer full of cakes, drinks and other food. Like thousands of demonstrators, he comes to take part in the “freedom convoys” and join the capital.
“At all the relay points where we stopped, people made offerings to us. They even gave money for petrol, for everything. And if they stay there, we will give to the homeless or families in need. It’s magic!”
Fabrice, participant of the “freedom convoys”at franceinfo
A generosity and solidarity that remind him of his days spent on the roundabouts of his city, Dambach-la-ville in the Bas-Rhin, in Alsace, a few years ago. Fabrice was a “yellow vest”; already, at the time, he was fighting to obtain greater purchasing power. For this father of two, things haven’t really improved since then. “I worked for 24 years, I have lots of diplomas and each time, even after a year, two years or three years of hiring, I am always paid at minimum wage, to believe that I am 16 year”he laments.
>> “Freedom convoy”: 97 arrests on Saturday in Paris, checkpoints maintained until Monday by the police headquarters
Today, at 44, Fabrice is unemployed. And if he goes back to action, it is in the hope of finally winning his case. Just the basics, he says.
“That we really have to eat on the plate, that we don’t have to count the penny in the middle of the month and that the children manage to eat properly. Not junk food, not looking for items at the bottom of the shelf , but really good quality.”
And like many other participants in these convoys, he denounces the vaccination pass. “It makes me angry because we force people to get vaccinatedhe explains. I don’t want to be vaccinated and I won’t be vaccinated.”
These freedom convoys are also a message addressed to the future President of the Republic: not to reproduce the same pattern as its predecessors. “There is a bit fed up with this system, but it’s not only due to Macronhe explains. I’m not throwing stones at him. There are also precedents: Mitterrand, Sarkozy and all that, it has always been the same.
I really want things to move, for those who have power over France to open their eyes and realize that it’s the people who put the money in their pockets.
And yet, despite this desire to see change at the head of the state, Fabrice is disappointed with politics. He will not vote in April in the presidential election. On Saturday, 513 participants were fined and 97 people arrested in Paris.