why are the truck drivers absent from the movement?

Cars, motorhomes and vans, but no trucks. The traditional demonstrations to protest against the vaccine pass were joined on Saturday in Paris by several thousand people from all over France with the self-proclaimed “freedom convoys”.

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Constituted on the model of the mobilization which paralyzes the Canadian capital Ottawa, this motley gathering of opponents of President Emmanuel Macron, the vaccination pass and “yellow vests”, should not give birth to endless lines of trucks as in Canada. If across the Atlantic, the truckers, at the initiative of the movement to protest against the vaccination obligation, were able to weigh in to paralyze the main roads, it is unlikely, as it stands, that heavy goods vehicle drivers play this role. in France.

Ottawa, Canada @int3rnationalRF @France Inter @franceinfo @franceculture pic.twitter.com/CSaGuDmVFb

— Sebastien Paour (@sebpaour) February 9, 2022

Firstly because the main trade unions in the road transport sector have already made it clear that they are not associated with the movement. Then because the health restrictions that apply to road transport are not identical in France and in North America: in France, drivers can freely travel between countries and can freely eat in truck stops without a vaccination pass.

Canada, for its part, has been imposing vaccinations since midday on foreign drivers from the United States, which impose the same rule on drivers from Canada. The French drivers therefore do not have, in short, the same reasons to be angry and there is currently no reason for them to join him massively. This is without taking into account that in most cases, in France, their truck does not belong to them: it is very often owned by the company which pays the driver. And cannot dispose of it freely. This is less the case in Canada.