The situation is tense and confused on the Paris ring road on Saturday morning. Thousands of opponents of the vaccine pass who came in convoys from all over France, and who camped at the gates of the capital, took to the road once more on Saturday morning to enter Paris and demonstrate despite the ban by the police headquarters, determined to prevent any blockage. Several vehicles of the convoy were blocked at Porte de Champerret and Porte Maillot, thus preventing the demonstrators from reaching the heart of Paris, in particular Place d’Italie to join a demonstration of “yellow vests”.
Some motorists, like those of the convoy which stopped Friday evening in a parking lot on the outskirts of Chartres, had left at 5 a.m., at low speed, towards the western Paris ring road. According to their messages consulted by AFP, they want to become “a mass of vehicles impossible to contain by the police unless the latter themselves block the main axes of the capital”.
The blocking of axes as an issue
“In fact, faced with several thousand vehicles capable of being stationary as well as moving, a few dozen tow trucks might not do much,” continues one of the messages. Nearly 7,200 police and gendarmes “are deployed over the next 3 days to enforce the bans on vehicle convoys”, according to the Prefecture of Police.
Police prefect Didier Lallement has “created a number of temporary pounds which will allow, with several dozen towing vehicles, to put an end to any blockage”, he said. Gendarmerie armored vehicles have also been deployed in the capital, a first since the demonstrations of “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 France 2.
Fatigue and anger
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. The hundreds of cars, motorhomes and vans leaving from Lille, Strasbourg, Vimy (Pas-de-Calais) or Châteaubourg (Ille-et-Vilaine) stopped Friday evening at the gates of Paris.
A lot of fatigue and the beginning of nervousness were felt in the procession leaving from Brittany, which stopped in the parking lot of a shopping center on the outskirts of Chartres framed by squadrons of mobile gendarmerie, according to a journalist from the 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 Macron in a daily interview. West France.
The freedom to demonstrate as a banner
The ban on gathering convoys was upheld on Friday evening by the Paris administrative court, 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.
“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, the demonstrators demand the withdrawal of the vaccination pass and defend claims on purchasing power or the cost of energy. The government says it plans to lift the vaccination pass by the end of March or the beginning of April and intends to abolish the wearing of a compulsory mask as of February 28 in places where the pass is required.