Thousands of opponents of the vaccine pass who came in convoys from all over France camped on Saturday at dawn at the gates of Paris, where they intend to enter to demonstrate despite the ban by the authorities, determined to prevent any blockage of the capital.
Nearly 7,200 police and gendarmes “are deployed over the next three days to enforce the bans on vehicle convoys,” said the Paris police headquarters.
The city’s prefect of police, Didier Lallement, said he had created “provisional pounds which (…) will allow, with several dozen towing vehicles, to put an end to any blockage”. Gendarmerie armored vehicles have also been deployed in the streets of the capital, a first since the demonstrations of the “yellow vests” at the end of 2018.
Prime Minister Jean Castex has promised to be inflexible in the face of the movement. “If they block traffic or if they try to block the capital, you have to be very firm,” he insisted on the France 2 television channel on Friday.
A heterogeneous gathering of opponents of President Emmanuel Macron and ‘yellow vests’, the movement was formed on the model of the mobilization that paralyzes the Canadian capital Ottawa.
Hundreds of cars, motorhomes and vans from Lille, Strasbourg, Vimy (north) or Châteaubourg (west) stopped Friday evening at the gates of Paris, a police source claiming that no convoy entered the capital .
‘Phenomenal magnitude’
Fatigue and nervousness were palpable in the procession from Brittany, which stopped in the parking lot of a shopping center on the outskirts of Chartres, about 80 km south-west of Paris, framed by gendarmes, according to a journalist from AFP.
‘We are all collectively tired of what we have been going through for two years. This fatigue is expressed in several ways: by disarray in some, depression in others. We see a very strong mental suffering, among our young and old. And sometimes, this fatigue also translates into anger. I hear it and respect it,’ said President Emmanuel Macron in an interview with the daily Ouest-France.
‘But’, he added, ‘I call for the utmost calm’.
The police estimated Friday afternoon at 3,300 the number of vehicles involved in the various convoys. It is an action “of a phenomenal scale”, told AFP a coordinator of the movement.
The order prohibiting the assembly of convoys was upheld on Friday by the courts, which rejected two appeals.
‘It’s a betrayal. The foundations of the decree are not respectful of the law, of the freedom to demonstrate”, reacted to AFP the anti-vaccine activist and “yellow vest” Sophie Tissier.
‘European convergence’
‘The right to demonstrate and to have an opinion are a constitutionally guaranteed right in our Republic and in our democracy. The right to block others or to prevent coming and going is not, replied Jean Castex.
Two months before the presidential election in France, the demonstrators demand the withdrawal of the vaccination pass, which reserves to people immunized against Covid-19 the right to access restaurants, cinemas and others, and which the government says it wants to remove. by April. They also defend claims on the purchasing power or the cost of energy.
Refuting for their part any desire to block the capital, the participants hope to swell the ranks of the processions against the vaccine pass organized each week on Saturday.
Some demonstrators then intend to reach Brussels for a ‘European convergence’ scheduled for Monday 14 February. The Belgian authorities have banned access to the capital.
On Friday, others were also spreading calls to occupy roundabouts. “I appeal to join all the big cities to occupy them, multiply the points of gatherings”, launched in a video one of the initiators of the movement, Rémi Monde.
/ ATS